Tag Archives: humor

Season Two, Episode Two: I <3 NYC.

Posted in Culture, Humor, Travel by

I went to NYC like almost a month ago.

I know. I suck. I am a procrastinating fool, and have kept my pictures to myself for nearly a month. In that month, however, life had been lived, tears had been shed, misunderstandings made, and Hurricane Sandy decided to be a bitch to pretty much everyone in somewhat close proximity to the East Coast. It was my first brush with a hurricane, and although it wasn’t actually a hurricane per se when it came ashore (Pfft to those guys at TWC–no one cares that it lost tropical characteristics right before landfall. That shit was a hurricane to me. I’m from Ohio. Trust me.), there was a lot of havoc that was wreaked and shit got crazy. Lake Erie was all over the place and I dealt roulette in the midst of a superstorm. Things may have been forgotten in the course of time. My bad.

But anyway, I went to NYC. And it was fantastic…well…kinda. it probably would have been fantastic if I hadn’t been all touristed out. So many tourists. I have never heard so many people speaking French in my life…and I live across the lake from Canada. Plus I’m short and navigating successfully through large crowds of tourists is particularly awful, especially when said tourists are rude–the actual New Yorkers that I came into contact with were actually pretty nice and I liked them a lot. Gold stars all around, Mayor Bloomberg 🙂

I’m probably going to get some shit for this, but NYC felt a lot like Chicago…and a lot like home. I know, I know, NYC is the greatest city in the world, how the hell can I even begin to compare it to CLE? How can I even say “meh” to the glorious glittery concrete jungle that is New York City? Well…Cleveland is actually kind of architecturally similar to the Big Apple. We used to be called the Plum or something back in the day when people didn’t really make fun of us for burning rivers or shitty sports teams. They film movies here and trick you into thinking it was actually filmed in NYC. So it kind of felt like home. And Chicago. Because of the urban chicness of it all and the vastness. I don’t know…maybe I am blind. Or jaded. Or both. I don’t know.

Don’t get me wrong though. I loved a lot of it. I loved most of it. Our hotel was in Hell’s Kitchen, and I loved the area around it. We were right down the street from the Port Authority Terminal. And Papaya Dog’s papaya juice was delicious. Cornerstone Cafe in the East Village was quaint and the penne bolognese was so good. The hot dogs at Crif Dog were amazing. I loved the random $0.99 pizza shops sprinkled throughout the city, and the seemingly hundreds of delicatessens on every block. I adored the East Village and I loved that Times Square was literally a ten minute walk from our room. The Forever 21 store at Times Square was the biggest Forever 21 I’ve ever been in and the clothes were fabulous. MoMa was breathtaking. I could have spent all day at the Met. The 9/11 memorial was beautiful and silently tragic and I recommend that every American should try to go to Ground Zero and just absorb the magnitude of horror that happened there. It’s silly but I loved the sidewalks and how the concrete literally sparkled in the sunlight–I remember reading somewhere that glass was ground up into the cement so that it would sparkle. Central Park was everything I’ve ever imagined. Uniqlo was quirky, I’m so glad they have an online store now…SoHo was eclectic. The raspberry swirl cheesecake from Junior’s was so good. I did so much walking that my calves and feet were on fire by the time Sunday morning came around–I ate so much good food that even with all the walking I did, I still gained five pounds in four days. It was great. I really enjoyed myself and the time away with my boyfriend…my only regret is that we did so much touristy stuff that we didn’t get to see the city for all the brilliant little facets that make up the entire jewel of NYC, and in that we didn’t get to truly enjoy all the time we had together. I would love to go back again and see everything that we didn’t have time to see 🙂

On to the photos!

Hahaha…I was walking through the airport terminal and I just couldn’t resist.

You may laugh, but I was completely blown away by this little contraption that was in the cab. It’s a TV/GPS/sorcerer in a box–AND you can pay your fare with a freaking credit card. Sorry. I’m from the Midwest 😛

Times Square at dusk. Loved it!

I was sitting on a bench across from the Ed Sullivan Theater when I took this picture. I didn’t really notice the guy with the flowers until later…I wonder if he was heading to a first date or the hospital to see a sick loved one or if he was bringing those flowers to his girlfriend/wife as an anniversary surprise or as an apology…or if he’d brought those flowers and had been rejected and was out walking to clear his head. Only me, haha.

My boyfriend took this in front of the Chase Fountain…I think somewhere near Rockefeller Center? I love this picture of me <;3

Love this one too…This was taken in front of a piano jazz place on Restaurant Row.

Our hotel, as seen from the outside.

Part of one of the memorial fountains at the 9/11 Memorial.

The 9/11 Survivor Tree.

A real life subway performer. Our train came before I got to hear him perform.

Central Park West. So pretty!

A Belgian waffle cart in Central Park. “No delicious waffles for me” said Lashawn not ever.

Omffffff….Dulce de leche, Belgian hot fudge, whipped cream, and powdered sugar all on one delicious little waffle. No wonder I gained five pounds.

I loved this sculpture for some reason. Maybe it’s because she was falling into a pond? Don’t know.

The NYC skyline at night from seen from Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center.

Hahahaha…I totally thought of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs when I saw this. Gummi bears!!!!

A Saturday afternoon street fair in SoHo.

A street view of Little Italy.

This guy was golfing with milk cartons. I f’ing LOVE it!

Part of the East Village. I really loved this neighborhood…if I were to hypothetically live in NYC, I think I’d live in the East Village.

Oh, Papaya Dog on 42nd…You and your delicious papaya juice. So smooth, so refreshing. How I miss you.

Season Two, Episode One: Of Changing Seasons, NYC, and How Apple Maps is the Smartphone Manifestation of Me and My Fabulous Navigational Skills

Posted in Humor, Random, Technology, Travel by

It’s September, fall is in the air and life is full of changes.  With fall comes new seasons of all our favorite shows, so I present to you…Season Two of Chasing Lala.  Enjoy.

I got the new iPhone 5 today in the mail.  I may have shrieked like a girl upon opening the box and realizing what was inside–my boyfriend had mentioned something about a possible surprise for me this week, so when my mom said that there was a package for me on the dining room table, I figured it was something of the Bret-centric variety…However, Bret does not work at Apple, so when I pulled out the sleek black box (Apple is not one to skimp on the aesthetics of a product) that was nestled inside the boring brown box it was shipped in, I had a very childish moment akin to opening a present on Christmas morning and realizing it was what you had been bugging your mom and dad and grandma and various mall Santas for all along.  So I shrieked and activated it as soon as I got a case and screen protector for it.

My first thoughts?  It’s crazy light and I love that the screen is bigger and not as harsh on my eyes.  Splendid job, technological nerd wizards at Apple.  I salute you.

I’m probably going to draw the ire of tech nerds all across the fair planet that we call Earth when I say that I really didn’t notice anything major beyond the navigation service change from Google Maps to Apple Maps, the loss of YouTube, the size of the screen and subsequently the size of the phone itself, and the weight of the phone. Still does most of the stuff that my lowly 4 did back in 2010.  It is, however, one damn fine looking phone 🙂

My new phone leads me to my next tangent (try to follow me, I know I tend to jump from topic to topic just as rapidly as I do in non-literary life).  In exactly 12 days (but who is counting?) I will be leaving on a jet plane to the beautiful, gritty, insomniatic city that is New York City.  Well…Manhattan, but when you think of NYC, you think of Manhattan, and probably Brooklyn.  And maybe Queens because of The Nanny and Kevin James (I got the theme song to The King of Queens in my head when I started typing his name, haha).  Oh my god I am sooooo excited.  Beyond excited.  I have wanted to go to New York ever since I was five, and what could be better than going with my fantastic boyfriend, whom I haven’t seen in nearly three months?

I promise to post pictures and I was thinking of doing sporadic little blogettes, if you will, throughout the day while we are there.  It’ll be sort of like Twitter but in blog form.  I did most of the planning, and there is so much I want to do:  the 9/11 memorial, Times Square (our hotel is like ten minutes from it!), Central Park, the Met, the High Line (this really cool park system built on the old high line train tracks that run through part of the city)…lots of food and shopping and just making some potentially awesome memories.  Some of my family on my dad’s side lives in NYC so it would be really nice to be able to meet up with some of them for lunch or something just to see them.

Also really hoping Apple Maps doesn’t get us lost and consequently robbed like that one episode of Sex and the City where Carrie got her Manolos stolen right off her feet.  I am really bummed that they removed Google Maps, but when in doubt there is Bret’s phone and it’s GPS, which hasn’t gotten us lost yet–I don’t know why I am so worried about navigational services when it is pretty much an unspoken fact/rule that I am not allowed to give directions.  Ask any of my friends…I suck at it.  We always get lost, which is a pretty spectacular feat seeing as I have a freaking map powered by a satellite to guide me.  I think I am just mildly anxious about getting lost or somehow separated from Bret in Manhattan and not knowing how to get back to the hotel in one piece because my phone’s GPS sucks.  Pretty ridiculous, but still.  Crazier things have happened.

Hmm…feels a bit like a cliffhanger 😉

Welcome to Season Two.

Season One, Episode Thirty-Two: Of Boobs, Cheetahs, and Justin Bieber

Posted in Comedy, Health, Humor by

So I joined a gym last month.

I am so guilty of this. I am in an imagined one-sided race with people at the gym and they don’t even know how intense the competition is 😛

I’m not really an athletic person–I got a D- in gym my freshman year of high school, and that was after the A’s and B’s I got on the written tests.  (Deduce your own conclusions from that.)  I’m rather clumsy and uncoordinated.  I’m that girl who trips over her feet and gets visibly flustered, yet does it again roughly fifteen minutes later–I love flip-flops, but I tend to catch the tops of them along the sidewalk for some unforeseeable reason and I always wind up stumbling.  I can’t catch, and my throwing skills are pretty sub par.  If I go to hell when I die, I will spend copious amounts of time being forced to play volleyball and badminton amid the fire and brimstone–my older brother is the athlete of the family, and I am okay with that.

But anyway, I joined a gym.  I figure that a little physical exertion never hurt anyone, and as long as the activities I participated in didn’t involve a single ounce of athleticism I’d be okay.  So I have gone quite a few times, and I like it.  I prefer the elliptical because it feels like fancy skiing (if I knew what skiing felt like, haha) and because it’s a guaranteed sweatfest.  Well…it was.  After the first few times my body got used to it, and I exercised the other day for a half hour without breaking a sweat.  No bueno.  So I hopped off the machine in search of a cardiovascular workout that would make me look like a sweaty mess.

I tried the stationary bike.  I got a little sweaty, but I had to keep messing with the seat because I’m short and I couldn’t find a good height to sit at…plus I kept sliding off the seat because it was at an angle (and it made my ass hurt later.  Now I see why the fitness magazines tell you to bring your own cushioned seat cover.).  I casually made my way over to the treadmill and stared it down for a good thirty seconds–I’m sure the other gym-goers probably thought I was insane, but there was a method to my madness.

I am not a runner.  Not necessarily by choice, more or less by my lack of athletic prowess, my questionable coordination, and the fact that I can trip over nothing.  Oh…and did I mention that I’m a 34DD?  Yeah, that too.  So I turn on the treadmill and put it at 3.5 mph, a good speed for getting my walk on.  The chick next to me is running at a speed of 9.3 mph, and not to be outdone, I crank that shit up to 5.9 mph, bust out that Justin Bieber song that I’m embarrassed to admit I really like (“As Long As You Love Me”), and start running like a cheetah.


…Make that a cheetah with huge boobs and lungs not used to running.  I lasted about a minute and a half before I had to slow my shit down and walk without looking like a winded old lady.  Fighting the urge to hunch over and gasp for breath, I walked it out and attempted to find my inner Usain Bolt.  I made it for about two minutes this time before my chest started screaming at me to stop–it wasn’t that I was out of breath, to my partially winded surprise I actually had found a decent rhythm and was doing okay.  It was my boobs who were threatening to cause a chesty revolution and attack me.  Now I’m used to having to double up on sports bras and the such when I exercise, it comes with the territory, but that day’s choice of a strapless bra underneath a Target sports bra wasn’t getting the job done.  Nay.  I’m sure the boys in the gym enjoyed the show, but I was in pain and I had to jump off the treadmill and call it a day.

Sweaty and broken, I immediately Googled “how to run with big boobs” and found all kinds of sites where girls complained about running with large chests and how it really sucked.  It also seemed like they were running in search of making their ladies smaller–I like being chestacular, I would just like to be able to run without being in pain.  So I have decided to go on the search for the Holy Grail of Sports Bras.  I hear compression bras are the way to go, but I need a really spectacular one to lock these babies down, or my half-assed dreams of running will never be fully acheived.  I have received suggestions of trying the VSX line by Victoria’s Secret, or even Under Armour, which I think I will test out in the upcoming weeks.

Speaking of running, I’ve decided to participate in the Cleveland edition of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.  It’s Saturday, September 15.  I won’t be running in the 5k, but I will be doing the 5k walk.  I’m collecting donations and my goal is $200.  If you feel like donating, please click here.  You don’t have to feel like giving a lot, even $5 will help.

I have mixed feelings on the Susan G. Komen Foundation after all the crap happened with Planned Parenthood funding earlier this year, but I have friends who lost their mothers to breast cancer when we were in high school, one of my former co-workers’ mother had a double mastectomy due to breast cancer, my boyfriend’s mother and sister have both suffered from it, and no woman (or man, for that matter) is immune from it.  I feel like we need to make strides to find a cure for breast cancer, hopefully in my lifetime.  If you choose to donate, thank you and I appreciate it.  If not, please just take the time to do monthly self-exams and stay vigiliant.

Season One, Episode Twenty-Nine: Chasing Charming

I loved Disney movies as a child.

I loved to sing along with the songs, and I adored the princesses, especially Jasmine and Belle. As a gap-toothed, messy haired eight year old, I loved that Jasmine decided she’d run away before marrying someone she didn’t want to (I just found the idea of marriage ridiculous since you know, all boys were gross and had cooties) and I loved that Belle would rather help her kooky dad with his inventions and read books all day instead of being interested in that jerk Gaston (because, yet again, all boys were gross and had cooties). I will admit, that even at eight, I was fascinated with the idea of a happily ever after, where all your dreams came true and all the wrongs were made right by true love’s first kiss. I had no idea how unrealistic that was.

Belle is my all-time favorite Disney princess. She was the only one who didn't care that girls who could read weren't considered cool. And she was the only girl in her town who didn't fawn over that bastard Gaston.

I had a fairly good idea that life didn’t actually work out like it did in The Little Mermaid or Aladdin. There was no magical Genie, full of jokes and goodhearted cheer, who would make all my wildest fantasies come true. I wasn’t going to rub a lamp and become a princess or marry Jonathan Taylor Thomas. It didn’t work like that. I also wasn’t going to be attacked by a crazy lady who was half octopus. I was pretty grateful for that 😛 But still, I loved the idea of finding my own Prince Charming, this amazing and beautiful and perfect guy who was going to sweep me off my feet and we’d get married and have a happily ever after of our own. I figured that I’d find him eventually, and when I did, it was going to be the greatest thing ever. I’d have the big stupid house with the white picket fence and the two kids (one girl, one boy) and the dream car and the obligatory golden retriever and life would just be friggin’ grand.

...Because in 1996, JTT was part of every girl's happy ending.

Yeah…life doesn’t work like that. And if it does, Lord have I kissed enough frogs to warrant me my freaking happy ending. My son’s father was a class act who was separated from his wife and swore he was going to get divorced, and I was stupid enough at 18 to believe him. He wound up leaving me to go back to her twice, the final time being after she had a kid exactly ten months after my son was born. There have been guys who turned out to be crazy morons who may or may not have beat their past girlfriends. There have been guys who couldn’t kiss their way out of a well-lit paper bag with the exit clearly marked. There were guys who were even worse in bed. There were guys who strung me along, guys who just wanted to be friends with benefits, and guys who turned out to be racially confused drug dealers. I’m only 26, and I have to admit that I’m tired. I feel like I deserve a happily ever after.

Frogs may be cute, but they are NOT good kissers.

And I kind of wish that Disney had put more effort into the realism of the “happily ever after”. Why not show what happened to Belle and the Prince after they got married? All we saw was them dancing at the end of the film. Why not show what would happen once they got comfortable and Belle realized that the Prince wasn’t going to be all sweet and romantic like he was when they first fell in love? Why not show Jasmine getting frustrated because Aladdin wouldn’t take that damn monkey outside to poop? Why not show Ariel laying in bed, wishing that Eric would get the hint that she wanted to have sex instead of him watching Pawn Stars again and falling asleep before midnight? I wish they had showed us girls that it’s not easy, that the idea of a happy ending takes work and patience and a healthy dose of rationality. Maybe then people wouldn’t give up on a relationship the first time you have a huge fight. Maybe then we wouldn’t rush into marriage and rush into divorce even more quickly than we rushed into the wedding. Maybe we wouldn’t be so preoccupied with the end game of our relationship…maybe then we’d focus on the now. I’m learning that the now is the best part of being in love with someone. When you focus on the end game all it does is stress you out and cause you to feel like crap.

My boyfriend is here on business; that’s how we met. I knew from the beginning that he was going home after he was all done here in Cleveland–home being roughly five and a half hours away. It’s not crazy far, but I’ve never been in a long-distance relationship before, and honestly, the Internet really hasn’t been much of a help in telling me all the fabulous ways for us to stay together (But really, is the Internet ever really helpful? Really.). I’ve had people tell me it’s not going to work, while others have said that it most certainly will, if you are willing to put the time and effort into it–I’m more than willing to try, but Jesus Christ, I wish that there was something that I could have referenced as a child that I could draw upon now to make me feel better once he leaves in June. Seriously, Disney, you need to come up with a modern princess who I can relate to. Right now, the only princess I’ve got is Emma from Once Upon A Time, and she doesn’t even know she’s a princess, damn it!

Pfft. Try telling her that there's such a thing as a happily ever after. Emma'd believe that as much as she'd believe she's really a fairy tale princess. And then she'd probably kick your ass.

All I know is that I can’t be the only one who is tired of chasing after a guy who doesn’t really exist. Perhaps I’ll stumble upon Charming when the time is right. Maybe I already have 🙂

Season One, Episode Twenty-Eight: Of Hangovers and Poetry

Posted in Random, Writing by

Blehhh.

Nothing ruins a perfectly sunny day off like a friggin’ hangover.  I slept it off til almost 12:30 this afternoon, and while the headache has finally left my cranial premises, I still am dealing with this annoying twinge of nausea.  And I have wasted said day off in the confines of a itty bitty hotel room.  Yesterday I went on quite the jaunt around Downtown Cleveland, walking around in the chilly April sunshine and taking pictures and composing random poetry on my iPhone.  I don’t have too much to talk about today, so I’ll share my impromptu poem I came up with yesterday.

 

This hotel room

Makes me feel claustrophobic

–it’s far too narrow–

Cramped and brown

It makes me vaguely apprehensive

The angle of the windows chokes out the sunlight

But if you crane your head

–just so–

You can catch a glimpse of the lake,

A tiny sliver of sparkling gray-blue beauty.

I’d rather be outside

In the windy chill

At least the sunshine is warm

When it shines down on you.

 

This park bench is prime real estate

The wood feels cold under my jeans

And the far too big windshirt that I surreptitiously stole from my boyfriend

The wind blows in off the lake

–and honestly, anyone who thinks that Chicago is the windiest city has never been to Cleveland in the spring–

Which shimmers like a murky blue jewel

In the late April sun

I sit on this bench, under the pretense of reading

–I’ve got a Salinger novel in my lap–

But really, I just couldn’t take the claustrophobic brown crampedness

Of that goddamn hotel room.

 

So I sit here, fingers chilled

The wind ruffling the loose hairs that lay against my neck

The air a vague combination of exhaust and manure and springtime

And I think

Because that’s what you do when you’re alone on a bench in a park

You sit and you think

And I watch the people and the cars

Hurrying past, off to live another day in their mediocre adventures

The wind comes up again and I think I’ve decided

That perhaps I should move my contemplation to a less windy location.

–“April 24, 2012 5:33 pm”

Season One, Episode Twenty-Seven: Naughty Bloggers and Quite Possibly the Shortest and Most Random Post to Date

Posted in Comedy, Humor, Random by

I have been a naughty blogger.

It’s been what, like almost a month and a half since I last posted?  For shame!

In my defense, however, things in the life of Lashawn have been pretty hectic, and in a good way 🙂  I’ve been training for the casino opening, and I have to say that although my roulette skills need some serious tweaking, I could probably deal a successful hand of blackjack in my sleep.  We open in like 26 days or some shit…super excited, but hella nervous.  It kind of feels like how I used to feel before going on stage and singing–butterflies in my stomach, heart pounding, a general feeling of excitement…all under the nagging urge to vomit.  Fantastic.  I’m sure I’ll do fine once I get my girlish nerves out of the way, which should hopefully be the first few hands at the blackjack table, or the first few hours I’ve dealt roulette…because god forbid I have another tear-filled breakdown at the wheel again like I did during training on Sunday.  We will just be optimistic and hope for the best.

I’ve also been spending time with my gentleman lover (hahaha that sounds so awkward and horrible, yet awesome at the same time–makes me think of Anchorman).  We have done pretty much a whole bunch of nothing, which sounds boring but is actually pretty splendid.  We did go on some fancy schmancy art walk through Tremont the other night, but neither of us was really impressed with it, which leads me to believe that 1.) we are neither cool nor hip, 2.) we don’t know crap about art (although it really seemed like the theme of the evening revolved around taking random photos and either framing them or screenprinting them onto a large canvas, and then selling them for like $250 a pop), and 3.) it must be an acquired skill that neither one of us possess.  We ate dinner at a restaurant that was virtually non-Lashawn friendly (meaning it was super trendy and had super gross food on the menu), but the appetizer and the bread was yum, so it wasn’t entirely a crap dinner for me.  I also got chocolates from my favorite little chocolate shop (Lilly Tremont) and cupcakes (A Cookie and a Cupcake), so the night wasn’t exactly a culinary bust.

I shall post more frequently, I feel kind of like a deadbeat parent…which shall never happen again.  I am going to post a delightful picture for you from our hipster date.  I think I could frame it and sell it for like $50, hahaha.

Season One, Episode Twenty-Five: One Day I Will Get Slapped By Julia Child’s Ghost

Posted in Comedy, Culture, Humor, Random by

I am a picky eater.

I always have been, I most likely always will.  My list of things I won’t eat probably outnumbers the list of things that I do eat by a landslide.  I’ll share a general consensus of the things that I don’t eat with you just so that you can get a ballpark estimate of the way things are for me at mealtime.

  • Fish, shrimp, shark (I suppose that could be fish, but I just think it deserves its own spot on the list of things I don’t eat), mussels, oysters, clams, lobster, crab, sea urchins, porpoise (you never know)…pretty much anything that swims and/or dwells in saltwater or freshwater ecosystems.  I can’t do it, it’s gross.  And it smells.  And I really loved The Little Mermaid and I don’t want to chance eating Sebastian or Flounder or one of Ariel’s cousins or whatever.  Judge away, but you all remember what happened to that crazy French chef who tried to turn Sebastian into Ariel and Eric’s lunch.  Just sayin’.

    Pfft. Les Poissons indeed.

  • Steak, shredded beef, cubed beef, anything that is essentially NOT ground beef.  Not really sure how or why this quirk came into being, but I’ve tried steak and thought it was gross.  It was too chewy.  Perhaps I need to try a slab of cow that has been cooked medium well or better and slathered in cheese and bacon–the steak I had was medium rare or some shit, and was NOT delicious.  Maybe I was too busy thinking about how reddish pink the piece I was chewing was, or maybe I’m just not fancy or cultured enough.  I don’t know.
  • Poultry.  That includes chicken, duck, quail, grouse (whatever the hell that is), pheasant, Cornish hen, and turkey.  Pretty much anything with wings that lays eggs.  I do, however, eat eggs.  But only scrambled and with cheese.  No negotiations.  I do remember that I used to eat Chicken McNuggets as a tot, that I adored them with sweet and sour sauce.  I remember why I stopped eating them too–I was at a McDonald’s down on Euclid Avenue waaaay back when I was 4 or 5, maybe I was a little older, I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I took a bite of that crispy morsel of chicken dipped in that golden sauce and into a bone.  I bit into a big hunk of chicken bone.  I freaked out in a quiet fashion and spat it out into my McNugget box (I was very classeh).  I remember telling my mom that I was full of chicken and just wanted my fries.  But I never ever ate chicken again after that day.
  • Pork.  Well…I eat bacon, sausage, and bologna.  And chorizo.  Anything else…no dice, as Charles Bronson would say.
  • Most vegetables.  I will eat ketchup, potatoes, etcetera, etcetera…I’ve started this new thing where I blend up veggies and mix them with meat or whatever so that I get the nutritional benefits without actually having to see the vegetables on my plate.  This goes back to an intense dinnertime showdown between five year old Me and my dad and a plate of cold and slimy Popeye spinach.

    Yuck. Twenty-one years later it still grosses me out.

  • Most fruit.  I’m trying, though.  I think if I can’t see it in its original form, I’m good.

I have reason to believe that I have an irrational fear of trying new foods or trying the foods listed above.  I seriously freak out.  I’ve smacked a fork away once or twice when faced with the seemingly inevitable prospect of trying pork ear or steamed kale or whatever.  I like to think that I look like a lioness backed into a corner.

What?!?!?! You want me to try the Grilled Palm and Garlic Heart Puttanesca? Noooooo!!!! Rawrrrrr...

So, as I said, I’m picky.  Insanely picky.  My boyfriend, however, is not.  He loves food, especially fish and veggies and fruit and weird grains that I’ve never heard of.  We go to fancy restaurants and I think he gets embarrassed because I have to critically analyze the menu for something that I will remotely try.  I unapologetically eat like a five year old.  I love pasta, so usually they have something pastalicious on the menu and I just tweak it to my culinary whim.  I’m sure I sound like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally when I order.  I like going out with him to eat, but honestly I would just like to go to some seedy little Mexican restaurant that makes great tacos or a fabulous quirky place that makes amazing grilled cheese that rocks my world.  I like simple comfort food.  I may eat like a five year old, but it works for me.  I like eating mac and cheese and burgers and pancakes and waffles and cookies and grilled cheese…And I do try new things, I just have to adjust them.

I’m sure it drives him crazy, I’m sure it drives everyone who has eaten with me crazy.  I just like to think its another one of those quirks that makes me me.  And I’m sure I’ll broaden my horizons more as I get older; I already have expanded my culinary horizons by leaps and bounds since I was five.  I just need to do it on my terms.

Maybe one day I’ll just go ahead and try the Duck Meatball Soup.

Season One, Episode Twenty-Four: Chubby Babies Wielding Arrows and Slutty Streetwalking Mailmen

Posted in Comedy, Humor, Random, Writing by

I hate painting my nails.  I always inevitably wind up smudging a nail somehow.  Usually it’s when I think my nails are dry and then I figure it’s safe to go pee and I smear them trying to carefully take my pants off.

Hi.

Well, anyway, I am sitting here contemplating an idea for a story that keeps tickling my synapses and researching ghost towns and drowned towns and thinking about how deliciously melancholy the idea of an entire town under water is.  I’m also thinking about fairy tales and possible names for my main character and how bright my nail polish is (China Glaze lacquer in Pink Voltage.  It’s very very neon pink.) and how much I liked the pilot episode of Smash that I just watched on Hulu.  The mind of a writer is a fantastic thing.  We multitask.

These are obviously not my nails because they are not smudged. No, these are phantom nails I found via Google.

It’s Valentine’s Day.  Yay.  This will actually be the first V-Day that I will not be at work or watching sitcoms over a bowl of Ben and Jerry’s.  I’m excited.  I’m not exactly sure what proper Valentine’s Day etiquette is, but I guarantee you that I will screw it up somehow.  I’m not exactly a particularly classeh ladeh.  Part of me keeps reminding me that there’s a new episode of New Girl on tonight and that I have chocolate gelato in the freezer.  To that schlumpy sweatpant-clad part of me, I say nay.  I will go get overdressed and put on an acceptable amount of makeup and venture out into bitter cold and snow to have a good time.  I’ll be like a hooker mailman (I just giggled at the mental image), but instead of mail I will be delivering…joy.  Yes.

Hmm. They look as though they were delivered some joy by a fat cheeked baby wielding arrows or a hooker mailman.

In other news, my unemployment was rejected on supposedly justifiable grounds, and I am not really wanting to fight the decision, although I have been advised by everyone and their mom to fight it until I get it.  I don’t really feel like fighting with my old boss.  That is a battle not worth fighting because I’ll just wind up getting pissed and I don’t need the stress.  I had four years of that shit and I actually like not having to deal with her anymore.  I might reapply, but if the state ruled that the firing was allowable, I highly doubt that I will receive any compensation.  Just saying.  I don’t feel like wasting time over $165 a week.  Hell, if I have to I’ll apply at Target or something to tide myself over until I find out what is going to happen with the casino.  I applied for state benefits, so I’m just waiting on a response from them.  I highly doubt that I will get rejected when my gross weekly income is nada.

I just thought I’d drop on in and write a quick post because I have been neglectful of a lot of stuff as of late.  This whole days blending together thing is really becoming an issue.  I’m mixing up my days of the week and sleeping a lot.  I think I need to find a routine hobby so that I don’t turn into a crazy person.  Maybe I’ll join the gym so that I have to actually leave the house on a regular basis.

Season One, Episode Twenty-Two: Musings of the Unemployed and Adorkable

Posted in Comedy, Humor by

It’s been like a week and a half since I got fired, and while it hasn’t been as horrible as I thought it would be, I have discovered a few things about being unemployed that I thought I should share with you.  Since I love making inane lists, I figured I would bust out my deep introspectiveness out on y’all that way.

Enjoy.

Things That I Didn’t Exactly Know About Myself Until I Lost My Job, Version 1.0 (Because I’m pretty certain that there will be more editions as the time goes by):

*I am pretty lazy.  I actually kinda sorta knew this about myself, but not having a job to apply myself to has really brought out the lazy side of me.  I’m sure some may argue that my sudden laziness and sleepiness could be depression from my firing manifesting itself, but I’m just going with I’m inherently lazy.  I slept for like 15 hours the other day.  In two evenly spaced increments of time…I think I got up to gather my laundry in a sleepy, stumbly fashion at noonish, and then proceeded to lay back down and sleep til 5 pm.  And I think I was momentarily confused as to why it was so dark, realized what time it was, said “eh” and got up to go deep fry some mini tacos.

…which brings me to another thing I’ve learned about myself.

*I eat.  A LOT.  Several times a day, as a matter of fact.  I kinda knew that I had a big appetite, but back in the days when I had a job, general lack of morale and the crushing sadness of doing inane work made me forget that I was hungry.  Now that I’m unemployed, I do stuff like sleep half the day and then get up and deep fry some Jose Ole mini tacos in my deep fryer and read the Steve Jobs biography.  I’m pretty sure I’ve gained weight in the past week and a half.

Mmm...Damn you, Jose Ole Mini Tacos. You're a tiny calorie-laden bomb of deliciousness.

*I really have no concrete sense of time.  Since I don’t really have a structured day except for when I go to casino class, I pretty much have blurred the line between night and day.  I have stayed up until sunrise a few times in the past week.  I’ve woken up after sunset a few times as well.  I might have been a Cullen in a past undead life.

*I have a pretty persuasive mind, that if taken into the wrong hands could very well be used for evil.  Like I listened to Lana Del Rey on iTunes and couldn’t decide if I liked her or not, so I Hulu‘ed her horribly awkward performance on Saturday Night Live and thought she was a crap singer.  But I couldn’t stop thinking about her song “Blue Jeans” and wound up talking myself into buying a few songs even though I think she is pretty awful.  I listened to them a few times and I was like “god, she is horrible” and then my mind was like “is she really, Lashawn?  Perhaps you should listen again”.  And so I did.

Oh, Lana, I know you are terribly mediocre singer, but there is just SOMETHING about you that makes me go "hmm...I have to listen to you again".

*I read.  A LOT.  I mean, I know I read a lot, I pride myself on my superb love of all things literary.  I learned to read at three and a half, reading is pretty much an intrinsic part of me just as much as my love of music or cheese.  But I didn’t know that I will pretty much read anything, good or bad.  I blame it on my persuasive mind (see above notation).  I also think it might have to be partly due to the crushing boredom that is starting to sink in.  I spent four hours on Wikipedia tonight, reading about random shit and random tangents that I clicked on in the originally random article I started four hours earlier.  I think I’m gonna have to dust off my library card before my brain starts oozing out of my ears from lack of superb reading material.

*I like the idea of exercising, but I don’t actually like to do it.  I think that I might have to talk myself into liking it though, if my thoughtless eating and laziness continues.  I don’t want to be the girl that gained 65 pounds after she lost her job.  That just seems like the beginning of a very slippery slope that could lead to some pretty serious repercussions.  It’s time to bust out my free weights and my Gazelle and the Pilates DVDs I bought a few years back.  And that Women’s Health book of 584546846 exercises that I got on a fitness kick.

I get a pretty good workout on my Gazelle, but Tony Little makes me giggle.

Season One, Episode Twenty: I Don’t Want To Be THAT Guy…You Know, The One Who Throws Around Their Awesomeness

Posted in Comedy, Humor, Random by

Oh.  My.  God.

I feel like I’m gonna throw up.  I think I’m being attacked from the inside by the delicious kugel I just sucked down like a friggin’ Dyson.  Ughhhh.  But you don’t want to hear how the noodley goodness is doing roundhouses in my tummy.  So I digress…

It’s January Fifourth (it’s that gray area between the Fourth and the Fifth, because to some it’s still nighttime and to others it’s early morning…I say it’s still Wednesday, but I know some of you may not concur with me and say it’s Thursday–and some people in the New Zealand/Australia area might even go a step further and say it’s nearly Friday), and I am contemplating the new year and the obligatory resolutions that come along with it.  I don’t really get the concept of making resolutions, especially when people make crazy and outlandish ones that they never really keep.  According to USA.gov, some of the most common resolutions made in America are as follows:

  • Drink less alcohol
  • Eat healthy food
  • Get a better education
  • Get a better job
  • Get fit/Lose weight
  • Manage debt
  • Manage stress
  • Quit smoking

I wonder how many people actually are still keeping those resolutions by the time June rolls around.  I always feel like New Year’s and Lent fall too close together, and there is just way too much resoluting and sacrificing for Jesus and I just can’t do it.

Maybe I’m just non-committal?  Could be.  Whatever the reason, I have compiled a short, but detailed list of previous resolutions of yore and why they failed:

  • Swear less.  I’ve tried that one for Lent a few times too.  It doesn’t work.  I may look sweet and aw shucksish, but I have the mouth of a trucker.  I think all my attempts lasted a few hours.
  • Lose 10-30 pounds.  Pfft.  I love food waaaaay too much to eat healthy.  I hate most healthy food and I can rationalize consuming half a package of Oreos during an episode of New Girl.  That one has lasted me a few weeks, but I always crash and/or burn.
  • Get fit.  Yeaaaaaah…I lasted nearly a year on this one.  I am a pretty vain person, and I like getting all buff and toned and wearing smaller pants.  Who doesn’t?  I am also a sucker for having super toned arms and a fit back, so this was a resolution that I enjoyed…until work derailed me and I fell off the workout wagon.
  • Be a nicer person.  I am, for the most part, a pretty nice person.  Even more so if I like you or think you have potential to be included on my golden list of compadreship.  But if I don’t like you?  Oh that is a sad card to be dealt, because I am quite bitchy and mean.  In both the preppy mean girl mean and in the smart person who makes mean comments that sail over your head and that you don’t really get until you think about it later.  I can usually do good on this one until I inevitably run into a person that I decide I hate.
  • Be less messy.  Oh man…yeah, that one doesn’t get too far out of the gate.  I don’t even know why I try to make that one, to be honest.
  • Try to go to bed earlier.  Um…yeah.  You see how well that one worked out.

I decided that this year I’m just going to not make any resolutions and see how that works out.  Ash Wednesday is February 22nd, and I have to come up with something particularly good to impress Jesus, so I’ll come up with a good Lenten thing to give up.  Maybe I’ll actually keep it?  That would be a first.  I don’t think I have ever kept a resolution or whatever I gave up for Lent.

Wow.  I am a non-committal, foul-mouthed, slightly chubby, mean and messy nocturnal Catholic who eats badly.

You can't argue with perfection.

At least I’m funny.  That’s gotta count for something, right?  😛