I am noncommital I know.

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Baby brain jello

My Thanksgiving was great.  Here's why:

a) I didn't buy a single thing.

b) I suck at Scrabble.

c) My baby cousin is gonna be in so much trouble.


a) I didn't buy a single thing. Black Friday sucks.  People act like animals and will step on your face to get to an egg cup if it's on sale.

b) I suck at Scrabble. My uncle is a lawyer and every Thanksgiving he challenges us to a game of Scrabble, a tradition that he started with his mom.  Being old, articulate and well seasoned in the Scrabble tricks, he usually beats us by 50 pts at least.  Every year he expresses disappointment if we aren't a worthy enough challenge. 

This year, I embraced my craptitude at Scrabble and put down words such as 'can', 'it' and 'our' without regret.  I also challenged his use of the word 'bi' as it is derogatory slang, an abbreviation, or a prefix and is not in the dictionary.com.  However, he found it in the scrabbledictionary.com.  Total BS, if it's not in the OED, it doesn't exist.

c) My baby cousin is gonna be in so much trouble. This scrabble-loving uncle just had a baby to complete his set of two kids he's already got.  The eldest is 10 years old, the younger is 5.  When this lovely family arrives, my 10-year-old cousin walks in the front door with my newborn cousin hefted over his shoulder. 

My eyes get all crazy and I say,"Give me the baby."  
Whining, he says, "He's my brother.  I know how to hold him."
He gives the baby kisses on the face, not the cheek.
The baby's head is not supported and I'm afraid of it lolling to one side.
I firmly grasp the baby and pry my cousin's hands off him. 

Good lord, poor thing is going to grow up to be brain joggled.

I will end you....uuur car.

I biked to work this morning.  I inched into the pedestrian walk to cross the street and lane after lane slowed to a stop...except the last lane where a blond woman in a gray car sped up to try and beat me.

I almost got hit by a car today and when I say almost, I don't mean someone kinda, sorta almost hit me.  I mean my rubber tire bounced off her side door and I was braking so hard that I arched over her car.

And so, if I find a blond woman in a gray car with a black rubber tire mark on the driver side door, this is what I'll do to it:

das Mutterland

I love Fridays. Small, mundane magic happens within the human brain when it anticipates freedom and people act out accordingly. They bring bagels to work and are nice and content in a way that no Tuesday can bring about.

During after work drinks, we started a happy dialogue about German as a presenting language. As certain fonts imply a tone of voice, certain languages should only be used to present certain products.

 For instance, Trajan's finality and somber tone reminds me of my father:     

And German should only be used for selling the following products:

I think Germany should export words and let other countries adopt them for our own purposes.  Their language says (and read this with a Schwarzenegger accent),"Do not bother with adjectives and articles.  Assonance or harmonious vowel sounds do not concern me. Just mash it together in a hearty word stew and serve it to ze people." 

Examples:

Brustwarze - nipples or literally breast warts. 

Autoschlange - literally auto snake or a line of slowly moving cars.

Seelenchlo - literally soul toilet, a label for someone who has had a psychological dump taken in him/her.  Let's say some coworkers are standing around the water cooler and Alice says,"So my ex-boyfriend is dating my best friend." Congrats employees, you've all become seelenchos.

Beinbrechtreppe - literally bone breaking stairs, a particularly steep set of stairs.

cabelsalat - literally cable salad, that mess of cables behind your computer.

Oberammergaueralpenkraeuterdelikatessenfruehstueckskaese - Breakfast cheese (not kidding)

 

Halloween -Miss Manners style

Once a lady has procured her accoutrements for the evening festivities, she must confirm the agenda of her night with her companions.  This can be a somewhat tedious and diplomatic process.

Should one perhaps attend the dinner engagement on the north side of town that will be ripe with young gentlemen dressed as American Gladiators?  One's first reaction would be yes but careful investigation into photos of last year's engagement reveal mostly flaxen, stacked ladies dressed as slutty Pocahontas or Victoria Beckham.

Ah, it has become quite clear that this particular affair is what I would prudently label a "porn goggles" party. Everywhere you look, resembles a scene from a pornographic video usually with a five ladies to dude ratio and all of them scantily clad and ready to have relations on the coffee table.  This is a common occurrence when the hosts of said party are single males.

Certainly not a confidence booster whilest one is dressed as a prepubescent boy in an adult set of footed pajamas.   Perhaps the affair in the mission will be more promising. Let's assess:

Party of a close acquaintance?  Check.
In an easily accessible area?  Check.
Surrounded by equally entertaining places to hop (just in case)?  Check.
Good ratio of men to women (based on the invite list)?  Check.

I think we have an evening of it.

The old skool protein shake

This weekend, one of my co-workers invited me to a Critter Salon event called "Eat Bug Eat!" where I ate deep-fried wax moth caterpillars in creme fraiche and salsa verde.

It was pretty wicked to see them go from squirmy would-be sweater eaters to pizza toppings in under a minute.  They thrashed around, their heads bucking wildly back and forth as if to separate themselves from their bodies until they went limp.  THEN their bodies gradually popped and decompressed slightly.  Someone perked up and asked if they thought insects could feel pain with no basic nervous system etc.  I imagine that popping sound was their souls going to arthropod heaven.

They tasted subtle and nutty and heavily fried, as all things liberally doused in veggie oil taste...like a meaty corn nut, very crunchy and snackable.

I prefer to eat them without toppings due to their delicate flavor.  One runs the risk of overpowering them if one adds too many strong ingredients.

One of the salon members said they were often eaten live and gave me permission to try it out but I did not taste anything in particular.  It was gushy and popped in my mouth as a salmon egg might but there was no flavor.  I could have been chewing on a piece of notebook paper. 

Critter Salon offered several different types of caterpillars for tasting but they all tasted very similar.  I wished they had some grasshoppers or ant eggs or worm tequila shots or other to compare and contrast to the 'pillars'.

Keyboard Max Balloon Cat

This always happens.

Every year I say, "I'm not gonna do Halloween.  It is a reeediculous holiday." Then I congratulate myself on acting mature.  Then I buy myself a pot of nail polish or something that I equate with women of caliber such as Meryl Streep.  Then I am a frantic mess on October 30th.

This year will be different.  We are adults now.  I had major reconstructive surgery, been dumped twice, unemployed and poor, employed and rich (relatively).  That was a major slambang injection of adulthood and I plan on embracing it.  This year I am itinerizing my Halloween.

First, the costume:

Idea #1: Keyboard Cat - Grab a toy keyboard, a blue shirt and some cat ears.
Pros: culturally relevant, easy streets and funny
Cons: not wanting to lug keyboard around on dancefloor,

Idea #2: Balloon Boy - Also easy, just get helium mylar balloon at Safeway and tie to my waist.
Pros: easy, cheap, hyuk-hyuk funny
Cons: not that funny after family turned out to be whoring their plush child for media attention.


Idea #3: Max from Where the Wild Things Are - a major production.
Pros: really cute, warm and anti-strumpet costume
Cons: Need to sew a costume (which hasn't been done since grade school)


to be continued...

Too boyish to date

It is 11pm on a Thursday night and I am 2 hours late for my date with Ben.  I loathe you Powerpoint.  What are you good for really? I just want to make a simple, curved arrow and you can't even do that without trying to autoformat something.

Text communications to and fro read something like this:

Me:   sorry im L8. Had 2 stay @ work. 4 the record, i had a cute dress pickd out.
Him: its ok. it will be more realistic. i now have 2 hrs tardiness credit.
Me:   we could reschedule or have a really L8 date?
Him: but i spent 2 hrs on my hair. Want me 2 pick u up?

Ben picks me up from BART and we dig deep for darts and popcorn.  I learn that aside from being a Kentucky native, he has invented something that will make cell phone batteries last longer.  He's one of those guys that is not a hottie, not a super smooth, well-dressed, ladies man but extremely smart and witty and easy to be with.  I picture this guy taking care of his lady and her not needing to lift a finger.  We make out in his car until 2 in the morning then set a date for Sunday.

Fast forward to Sunday.  He arrives to pick me up for our hiking date wearing jeans, a button-down shirt and a leather jacket and I'm wearing chacos and soccer shorts.  Complete mismatch.  I hop onto his motorbike and the metal is kinda melting my leg but it is so exciting.  We zip through the hills and I clutch onto his waist for dear life.  It feels really nice.  We hike for two hours and talk about everything from using a thresher to harvest corn to what the Appalachian mountains look like.  He says, "You ask a lot of questions."

I confess that I need a shower and invite him to have dinner at my house. 

I cook, we eat, and we're sitting around my room while he scopes out my one-armed lobster painting, my 'love stinks' cross stitch sampler, my stop motion storyboards and my 'violent moments in soccer history enacted by puppets' photos.  I tell him about getting slide tackled in pickup soccer and the subsequent knee surgery.  I ask if he wants to get ice cream and he pauses.  He exhales slowly and says,"Actually, I'm really tired.  I think I'll go home."  It is 7pm. 

I ask if anything is wrong.

"(Pause) I'm really into girly girls and when I met you at that party, you were in a dress and heels and I assumed you were really feminine.  Then you started in on the soccer talk and I kind of knew. And Thursday I was just really drunk." 

"(Another pause, this time from me) No problem."

"You're taking this really well.  Maybe we can hang out as friends sometime."

I shrug my shoulders and see him out.  I should have seen this coming.  While hiking, he confessed to a "cheerleader phase" in high school.  After all, I'm no goddamn homecoming queen.

Maggots, M*A*S*H and the Plantation

Have you ever been to a speakeasy party? It looks like this:

These ladies, minus the transvestite at the end, are attire appropriate. Ladies will latch on to any old excuse to dress cute and dance the Charleston, and the guys don't really have to dig too deep, just don a hat and some suspenders.

I recently went to one of these and met a bevy of intriguing people:


1) Kevin- Everyone's first question to him is,"How'd you get the eyepatch?" His answer,"Have you eaten yet?" Turns out it has something to do with a bacteria in his eye and maggots. He is a superb storyteller and to this day, I still have my doubts. I have heard of medicinal maggots, but the eye? It seems drastic. He and I decide to start a game of bocce ball and he invites...





2) Ed- He's pretty hilarious, but more importantly he sounds like someone I know. Kevin and I conference while Ed talks with his girlfriend: "Well I dunno, maybe someone with a nasally voice...He kinda looks like that guy from that series....I got it...Oh, that's him.....Well don't tell him!" Ed is a carbon copy of Alan Alda from M*A*S*H. We subtly suggest he adopt an Australian accent for no good reason (to deter the A.A. comparisons) and Ed good-naturedly asks why. He's gotten the Alan Alda before and strangely, Quentin Tarantino. We need a fourth and invite...




3) Ben- He snuck into the party uninvited but he paid his entrance fee and isn't leaving. He is a Kentucky native and a Ph.D grad from Cal. He paid for his entire college education by renting land from his father and growing tobacco and corn on it, starting at the age of 13. He got tobacco poisoning by 16 and is a smoker at 30. He confesses, his parents live on a "Gone With the Wind" style plantation.

I am losing at bocce ball. I balance the bocce ball on my bicep to simulate a muscle and blame the unevenness of the dirt for my losses. It doesn't matter though because Ben just asked me out and I'm happy as a jaybird.

To be continued....

I have a history of infographilia

Every time I visit my parents, I walk into my room and go through something like re-entry shock. As astronauts must again acclimate to the earth's atmosphere, I must readjust to my childhood room.

I forget that it still looks like a fairy princess dream. Pink blinds, pink nameplate, purple comforter and a glass window jewelry box that contains snowflake earrings and cheap birthstone rings that turned my skin green. My ceiling is encrusted with glow-in-the-dark stars. I snoop around to rediscover my own treasure.

I stumble across my diaries and lay back to enjoy the angst. I received my first one when I was 5 years old. It too was pink and gagging with hello kitty. After skimming VERY shallowly, here's a breakdown of its' contents:

75% - interactions with people and subsequent confusion at what was being said
20% - boys (imaginary scenarios and real, but the imaginary ones are more interesting)
5% - grab bag

Nothing amazing, what was really fascinating was that everything was explained using primitive, first-grader infographics. For example, "I like Greg. Does he like me?" would be accompanied with a drawing of a flower, each petal labeled 'l' or 'ln'. This translates to 'loves me' or 'loves me not'. Huh. That's weird.

I bounch off my bed, unzip my overnighter bag and push through clothes, books, chargers and ah hah...there it is, my current diary. It has a sleek black leather cover with a band to keep it closed. Each page is mono chromatically tuned to off white with sterling grey hairlines. I write in it with special, 0.5 tipped, black ink pens that can only be purchased in Japantown. No chintzy ballpoints for this diary.

I flip through it and sure enough...

Infographics everywhere. This infographic illustrates my favorite sleeping positions when someone else is also occupying the bed.

Other infographics include:
1. Things I'll be able to do when I can walk again
2. Reasons to break up with my bf (an outline)
3. Reasons I love Tee.
4. Scenarios during which, I'll need someone to carry me (part two of the knee surgery saga)
5. What I ate and where at the Street Foods festival.


At least I'm consistent.

This tastes like burning.

My best friend Tee has been doing field research in Guatemala for the past month. She studies amphibians and spends long wet nights camped in the forest for days at a time. My over eagerness for her return is on par with a golden retriever:

"I can pick you up from the airport?"
"Do you want me to drop off your car?"
"I'll make you a sandwich."

When she does come back, she is toting what appears to be an industrial-sized rice sack along with her field gear. Being white and unlabeled, it peaks my interest, much like unlabeled booze. If I was a worldly traveler of culture and refinement I'd stroke my pencil thin mustache and say:

"Hola, mi vida! ¿Dónde usted encontró este bolso rústico fino y qué contiene? (Hello dearest one! Where did you find this fine, rustic bag and what does it contain?)

but in reality, I said:

"What's with the bag? Is it full of bananas?"


Turns out it's 7 pounds worth of raw coffee beans. She had been looking to buy some authentic Guatemalan coffee and it only came raw and in 7 pound doses.

What should we do tonight, watch Sex in the City as we usually do on Thursdays, or skillet roast coffee beans on the stove?

Tee poured out a handful of raw beans and they looked naked and albino, a lilliputian nudist beach in Ireland. I put one in my mouth. It tasted like sand.

A little research on the Interweb and in one hour we are setting off fire alarms with the pungent smell of burning coffee. We did a little tag team maneuver where Tee stirred and shook the coffee over flames for 5 minutes for every 1 of mine (weak forearms). They ripen from a musty khaki color to a glossy black very quickly. Be careful. Mistakes were made but essentially, it boils down to this:

1. De-shell the coffee beans.
2. Heat up a wok to 500 degrees F. (or rev up the popcorn popper)
3. Add the beans and keep stirring them for 5 minutes so they don't burn.
4. Remove the hot beans to a colander before they are the desired color and let them rest.
5. Eat with chocolate

Why eat with chocolate, you might ask.

"This tastes burnt."
"Well here, eat it with a handful of chocolate."
"Oh, that's much more like coffee, a mocha perhaps."

We are no connoisseurs but wow, it was pretty sabroso.

The Truth about Soda

At a petite 5'2, I once had a friend tell me that I looked like a chihuahua or pug type of girl. I told him I wanted a boxer. He said I was too small and that a boxer would disproportionately overpower me. He can talk. He can own any dog he wants, what with that sporty, blond haircut and 6'2 frame as if he walked out of a Leni Riefenstahl film after frolicking with the other polo sport players.

We sat in the grass after a pickup soccer game, talking about how I had always wanted a dog.

"But," I argued, "having a chihuahua reinforces the 'high-maintenance, bulimic girl feeding tidbits of her french toast to her pathetic purse-dog on Quaaludes' stereotype. I can't have that. I'm too progressive."

I'd be good at owning a dog. I would name him Flapjack or Tater. I try them out in my head like this, "Taaaaaaaateeeer. Come Tater, come! Have you seen a short, chocolate dog named Tater?" This would be posed to a handsome, slightly awkward bachelor who is doing his contemplative walk around the park. He might be reading Noam Chomsky so I would never have to, but I'd sound smart after he summarized it for me. "He was right here," I'd say, "and I always let him off leash because I love to watch him roam free, unfettered by his commitments to his loved ones and our home."

While I'm daydreaming about how good my +dog life would be, a set of fluffy, black haunches sit beside me in the grass. He is a chow mix, the size of a stand alone shoe rack. He is perfect, nothing I'd be forced to carry, not anything that could drag me into traffic. Best of all, he does not have the typical crunched Chow snout as if someone tried to cram him into a too small packing box. He is cool as a cucumber. He hunkers down next to me and I picture him saying, "So, I just got off the phone with a co-worker. I probably have to work on Monday." He's that casual.

He lays down and leans into me and I pamper him shamelessly. He eats my bread crust.

"NO, NO, NO! Bad Soda, bad bad bad! Did you just feed that to my dog? You could have killed him." His owner looks at me as if I shat on the carpet.
"Oh, sorry, it was just some bread crust. Not chocolate or anything."
"That's just as bad. Never, NEVER feed human food to a dog."

Soda sighs. He cups his hand towards his mouth and whispers to me, "I'm not really with her. She's just a bump in the road to finding my real owner.

"Come Soda, come!" and she barrels down the path. Soda leans into me for a heartbreaking minute, unfazed by the distance between himself and his shrill owner. She must be 100 feet away when he finally stands up and trots 10 steps toward her. He pauses and turns his head towards me, then his body and he ambles back and flops down next to me.

I knew it. The truth about Soda is that I'm his real owner. He's supposed to be mine. He's my size and temperament. But I let him go as he meanders away into the park.

"Niner, niner, zero. We have a Big Love situation here, over."

My roommate and I were hanging around the kitchen yesterday and put two and two together for some Enquirer-style conclusions. Here's how that convo went down:

"So yesterday I got yelled at for parking in our driveway for 2 lousy minutes."
"By that short, 'whip the curtains closed every time I see you' Mormon guy?"
"Yeah, he said 'My wife is pregnant. She could give birth at any moment so you need to stay clear of the driveway.' Isn't it our driveway? Jay--zus!"

"Didn't his wife already give birth? She's blond and really youngish right?"
"No, she's older and brunette, around his age with two young kids and a bun in the oven."
"I'm pretty sure I've seen a girl in her early 20s waltzing around the house with a baby in a sling."

"And doesn't that guy have a driveway on the other side of the house too?"
"Come to think of it, don't they have like 4 cars?"
"Yeah and they're expanding that huge house by two floors? Whatever for?"
"No way! Mormon guy, two wives, infestation of kids and pregnancies and an accordion-style house that keeps bigger and bigger? This guy is pulling a Warren Jeffs, Yearning for Zion operation."


And laughter ensued.

Now with Bangs!

My new hairdresser Eva, is the bomb diggity. I can't do the long floppy colt bangs like the other hipster douches. However, having bangs has started to make me cocky and think I can get away with things I normally couldn't. Maybe it is because they're so rock star.

Lonely Bagel Bottoms

Monday is bagel breakfast day at work. I look forward to it so much so that sometimes I'll delay my helping to make the happiness last until lunchtime. I got to them late this morning and lo and behold, what did I discover? A whole mess of pathetic bagel bottoms without tops. That's right, someone cut off the top half with all the fixins and left these soppy, boring little bottoms for someone else to eat.

It's like eating week-old chocolate chip cookies. At one point it was something wonderful, but now it's just work to keep them down.

I could be your next victim

I don't actually live in the city. I live in Berkeley but I do this thing called casual carpool. In essence, perfect strangers drive up to these transportation hot-spots to carry other perfect strangers into the city, three to a car. Drivers don't have to pay bridge toll and passengers get a free ride. It's an adventure. I've met some people with way too much mayo on their chicken salad.

Most Mayo Winners:
-a gigolo with a escort service beeper
-a Chevy Malibu owner whose stereo got stolen and he stuffed the cavity with fake flowers and miniature American flags
- a woman who makes all of her own clothes.

Yeah, those were fun and amusing but today's was excruciating. A woman in her mid-thirties with perfectly coiffed hair pulls up to the curb. She whips around to face me in the backseat and asks me to keep my backpack on the ground mat, scanning my belongings to ensure that this directive is followed.

Her husband is in the passenger side. I pick up snippets of their conversation about an upcoming trip. The silence between them is strangely strained. The husband hums into the silence and asks her boring questions. This conversation feels tiresome and stretched thin. She responds brusquely. After a pause:

"Hey hon, where's your wedding ring?" She deliberately chatters over his question and goes off about the wonder that is Costco.
"Honey. Where. Is. Your. Wedding. Ring?"
"It's in my box at home. I just didn't feel ready to wear it again."

Oh come on. There's a perfect stranger in the car and you are airing your personal laundry now? Wait til I get to Howard and Fremont to do that shit. I just want to get to work bitches.

Today I realized

I believe in almost anything. Remember when those two hunters from Georgia posted pictures of a Sasquatch, gutted, quartered and ready for consumption in a styrofoam freezer box? I forwarded that to everyone, my family included and waited for something magical to happen.

It was a fake of course. Those are possum guts (way to reinforce your redneckedness). But I never lose hope in finding something magical everyday.