Happy Halloween!

Ohhh yeaaa.  Happy Halloween to me!  This was the real day off I've had in about a week, and the last one I will have for the next fourteen days.  Needless to say, I was determined to enjoy it, and I think I am doing a fine job.  I slept in, pet the cat, enjoyed not one but two morning constitutionals (TMI, perhaps, but I'm just keeping it real and you all know that's the kind of thing that makes you feel accomplished even when you're having a lazy day), enjoyed a great workout, called my grandmom and my mom, cleaned the bathroom, and made my first-ever quiche. 

Right now, I'm sipping a hot cup of ginger tea and watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on DVD.  Because I own probably every good Peanuts special on DVD.  Some might find that hopelessly lame, but I'm alright with that.  Peanuts, especially the older strips and animated specials, is just as entertaining, if not more so, as an adult.  Sure, there is an undeniable nostalgia factor, but Charles Schulz had some pretty heavy hangups and a lot of unintentional existentialism comes across in his work.  It's also very witty and the humor is innocent yet sophisticated enough that there's still something there for adults.

So far, we have had zero trick-or-treaters.  I heard some kids rampaging past our windows a little while ago, but they didn't approach our door.  The porch light is off, so it's entirely possible, yet hard to believe, that kids in this town actually respect this signal.  I feel a little guilty, but I'm too lazy to get up and turn the light on.  If they don't want the store-brand bulk-bin peppermint patties I'm prepared to hand out, then it's their loss (and my gain, in probably more ways than one unless I forget about them and Andy eats them all, which is likely).

I've been cooking and baking and cleaning a lot lately (or at least thinking about wanting to do those things).  This falls at odds with both my work schedule and my desire to sleep all day.  My work schedule also interrupts my ability to be cranky and irritable.  This seems to happen every fall.  The weather turns cold and gray, and all I want to do is bitch and nest.  I'm beginning to wonder whether I have Seasonal Affective Disorder or if my mom neglected to tell me that I'm part bear.

Since I love food right now, let's talk about this quiche.  Not to toot my own horn, but SO GOOD.  I've been wanting to make quiche for a while, and I received the final push I needed when a blogger I recently started following shared her recipe.  I made the crust from scratch with the pate brisee recipe that I wrote about in August.  Then I perused some quiche recipes on allrecipes.com for temperature guidelines and how many eggs to use.  And then I made up the rest, because I'm defiant and don't like to follow directions. 

Quiche is great, because it's so simple and there's so much room to play around.  Eggs and whatever other crap I want to throw in?  I can handle that.  It's like my omelets, which Andy calls "scrambled eggs with shit in them" because they are hideous and sloppy.  So quiche is like scrambled eggs with shit in them, but baked in the oven with a pie crust.  It only sounds pretentious.  Here's the rundown:

Preheat your oven to 450 and begin sauteing the following: two small zucchini, thinly sliced; about half a red pepper and a green pepper, diced; one small onion, diced; and three generous handfuls of spinach.

Arrange your pie crust in your pie plate, line it with foil, and bake at 450 for five minutes.  Remove the foil and bake for five more minutes, then remove your pre-baked crust from the oven and reduce heat to 350.

Mix 5 beaten eggs, 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 to 1/2 cup grated cheese.  I used some cheddar and some mozzarella because that's what we had on hand, but you can get fancy if you like.

Transfer your sauteed vegetables to the pie crust, and add a handful of sun-dried tomatoes.  Pour the egg mixture over your veggies, sprinkle on a liberal dose of garlic, and throw that bad boy in the oven.  Bake it for 40-45 minutes, let it sit for at least 5, and then prepare to have a oralgasm.

The two of us devoured half of it, and now I have lunch tomorrow and dinner on Tuesday to complement my inhuman work schedule that prevents me from cooking or eating at normal times.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

I have been a negligent blogger.  I am sorry, but I've been working a lot lately.  It's been a rather abrupt transition to go from an utterly unfettered state of unemployment to working lots of hours at random times doing three different jobs.  Still no health insurance, but a girl can dream. 

In job related news, I was not selected for the job entailing boar semen.  Some of you may be dying to know what boar semen had to do with the job, and now I can tell you without fear of impunity.  It's not as glamorous as it sounds.  I wasn't interviewing to be a nipple tweaker in the animal porn industry (or would it be a teat tweaker?).  I wasn't interviewing to be the person who gathers the semen for artificial insemination, or the person who does the inseminating.  I wasn't volunteering for a medical study in which I would be inseminated with boar batter to study the gestation of a pig-human hybrid.  I was just interviewing to be an administrative assistant in a university's Animal Science department.  Pretty boaring stuff.  Boring.  Sorry.  I like puns, and you don't.

I'm still not entirely sure why boar semen was brought up twice by two different groups of people during separate segments of my interview.  The women who brought it up both intended to warn me that I may have eventually received phone calls about farmers wanting to order a particular type of boar semen.  I don't know if that was a test, but I laughed, so maybe I failed.  Oh well.  If you can't laugh about a catalog of swine semen, what good is your life?

I see strange enough things at my current jobs without throwing animal 'nads into the mix.  Case in point:  veiled racism?

As many of you might assume about Idaho, it is a very white place.  As in, a whole lot of whiteys and not much diversity at all.  At least, not to any extent that I'm used to.  It's weird.  But, being the case, I guess it's easy to understand why a person would be overly conscious of not being racist, to the point of creating unnecessarily awkward situations, because she has no real experience interacting with anyone even remotely different from herself.

This evening, I'm checking out an African woman when a white woman gets in line behind her.  The first woman, let's call her Jane, turns around and warmly greets the second woman by name.  We'll call her Betty.  Betty smiles an exaggerated smile and loudly and slowly tells Jane that she doesn't remember her name.  In perfect English with a noticeable but completely understandable accent, Jane (whose real name is quite common and not at all exotic or challenging) reintroduces herself even though it's obvious from her initial greeting and their later conversation that the women are part of some club together and have totally interacted several times before. 

Betty, still speaking at an awkwardly loud volume and slow pace, says to Jane, "I forget everyone's name.  I am so horrible with names.  I am not treating you any differently than I would treat anyone else."  I swear on a stack of David Sedaris books that I transcribed at least that last sentence verbatim.  She seriously said that.

So let's recap.  In an effort to not be (or at least not outwardly appear) insensitive or not-PC, this woman spoke to an intelligent adult the way one would speak to a two year old, presumably just because she had an accent.  And then she assured her that she was treating her like she would treat anyone else. 

And I watched all this in mute horror.  It was so very Seinfeld.  It took a great deal of willpower not to ask Betty if she was serious.  In a loud, slow voice. 

But I just stared at her, judged her, and made a mental note to blog about it later.  I treated her just like I would treat anyone else.

Fecal Trail of Tears - Part 3

This last segment has been a long time coming.  I have been debating whether it's a tale worth telling, because it involves developmentally delayed children.  So I just want to make it clear right now that the events in this story are true, and that my reactions of disgust are related solely to the presence of fecal matter and do not reflect my feelings towards the children in question.  I'm not making fun of the kids here, okay, people?  The mockery lies in my seeming inability to avoid other people's poop in my various jobs.  So don't get all up on my case that I'm making fun of anyone's disability, because I'm not. 

If you haven't read Parts 1 and 2, or you just need a refresher, go here and here.

As you will recall, my first job was just all-around awful.  The sloppy chocolate icing on the shame cake was cleaning a mess of feces off the wall and floor using plastic grocery bags for hand protection.  A couple jobs and three summers later, I found myself working at an overpriced Jersey Shore restaurant where I had a very close encounter with misplaced bowel movements.  By then, I had grown a proverbial pair and weaseled out of the cleanup.

Fast forward another couple years and I had graduated from college with an utterly useless English degree.  I got a job in a high school library, which was good in a lot of ways and terrible in almost as many.  I liked my job-related tasks.  I did not like having students call me a bitch or sexually harass me.  I especially didn't like when the kid who spent a year in juvie for beating the crap out of his mother used to say my name the way a child molester would say "Hey little girl, wanna come in my van for some candy".  If it was any other kid, I would have verbally shamed him and sent him on his way, but this kid was terrifying. 

But I digress.  The wonderful thing about this job was that I was finally confident that I would not ever have to touch someone else's poop again.  At least not in a work-related capacity.  What I do on the weekends is private, and we made a pact not to ever take pictures or disclose our real names, so there's no way that's ever going to end up on the internet oh god I've said too much already.

The fecal-free workplace was a welcome change for me, but I knew it wasn't a sustainable way to live.  Too much stress and frustration in a high school.  Not my bag.  After two years, I left the job so I could go to grad school full-time to complete my Master's degree in Library Science.  All I wanted to do was work in a nice, quiet, teenager-free, poop-free space filled with books.  Is that so much to ask?

Thus far, it seems that yes, that is too much to ask.  But my employment woes are no secret to most of you.  At the time, I realized that I needed some form of flexible, "easy" employment, so I applied to substitute teach in a "semi-urban" K-12 school district a couple towns up the road (and "up the road" kind of means closer to Camden, which pretty much everyone knows is a horrible place thanks to its designation in past years as the most dangerous city in the country, surpassing even Compton).

I spent my first day subbing for 2nd grade at the elementary school in the nicer part of town.  It was a cakewalk.  All these little cherubs were polite and obedient and gave me hugs (which was not that awesome, because children are crawling with germs, but at least they liked me) and told me I was pretty.  It was the easiest $80 I've ever made, except for that time I blacked out while hooking, and woke up next to a pile of sweaty $1's.  I don't remember a thing.  Probably because it didn't actually happen, but every once in a while I like to pretend I'm "hard" and have "street cred."

Reality is a harsh mistress, though.  The next time I was called to work, they sent me to another 2nd grade class at the elementary school across the street from the subsidized housing apartments.  What a difference socio-economic status makes!  I'm not going to fault anyone for being poor, and I realize that there are bratty children at every rung on the socio-economic ladder.  But these children were all kinds of bat-shit crazy, through no fault of their own.  There were maybe three nice kids who obviously had attentive parents.   The rest of the kids were probably born with crack in their systems and no self control whatsoever.  I almost lost my voice from screaming all day just to make myself heard over the din of ADHD crack babies whining and calling each other words I never heard until high school.

Each time my phone rang at 6 in the morning, I would cringe.  "Fuck" would often be my first word of the day on these occasions.  Almost without fail, I would be asked to sub at the ghetto elementary school.  Some days were better than others.  Fourth grade was manageable.  Kindergarten was very...soggy.  I lost track of the number of kids who peed their pants that day.  Fortunately the teacher's aide took care of the pants-changing and wet-underwear-bagging.  But still.  You're five years old.  Have some self-respect.

I quickly learned that the non-classroom teachers had the best gigs.  Art, gym, computers, music...they had the easiest schedules with the most prep time.  They also didn't have to endure any particular group of students for more than 45 minutes at a time.  So when I reported to the ghetto school to sub for the music teacher, I was ecstatic.  All I had to do was show a video to a few classes, spend an hour eating lunch and driving to another elementary school, show the same video two more times, and then I could go home early.  This assignment had all the makings of the Best Day Ever. 

I had just settled into the classroom and set to work relearning how to use a VCR so I could rewind the video I had to show to the first class.  My endorphins were surging, and I was mentally preparing myself for a great day, when the principal poked her head in the doorway.  "We need to reassign you.  Can you go down the hall and sub for the aide in the Preschool Disabled classroom?"

Oh.  My.  God.  It was happening again.  Just like the time old Jeanie commanded me to clean the shit off the wall in the bathroom, my vocal cords were paralyzed.  "Buh.  Uh.  Sure?"  Katie, you are a coward.  Why did you agree to that? I thought as I slunk down the hall to a place I feared more than clowns and bears and people staring at me.  I feared it more than being stared at by a clown riding a bear.  I was on the verge of vomiting.  I was so disoriented by the abrupt and unpleasant shift that had just been foisted upon my day.

I'm not good with kids.  Kindergarten was difficult enough.  I could have used a translator to help me understand kidspeak, and those children were developmentally normal, for the most part.  How on earth would I, the person who had never babysat, never changed a diaper, never interacted with children, function in a room full of three and four year old kids who have the bodies of toddlers and the minds of babies?  I guess I wasn't even worried for myself so much as I was afraid of how my ineptitude would affect the kids.  How am I supposed to understand what they want or need?  How am I supposed to act around them?  Regular kids are mysterious and difficult as it is, but this was just a completely different universe of uncertainty.

It was heartbreaking.  These kids had autism and cerebral palsy and all sorts of difficulties.  I can't even imagine what that is like for their parents.  Just looking at these kids forced you to imagine how much of a struggle the rest of their lives are going to be.  It was just sad.  The entire day was one giant Debbie Downer.  It didn't help that most of the kids cried the whole day and threw hissy fits over the most inane things.  It was just awful and sad.  My normal reaction to behavior like that from average kids would be anger and impatience, but with these kids, you just wanted to hug them or give them a cookie or something.  You just felt BAD.  It wasn't a feeling of pity, it was more a sense of injustice that life is going to be a lot harder for these kids than it will be for average kids.

It wasn't until mid-morning that I understood why I had been reassigned.  The other aide and I took a group of four of the higher-functioning kids to the bathroom for a potty break.  On the way there, she told me the sub caller had originally assigned an old man to the Preschool Disabled room, and when he showed up they realized he would be useless because it would be inappropriate for him to touch the kids.  I didn't realize that would even be an issue until she indicated that we had to go into the bathroom with them and help them undo their pants before they went into the stalls.  I felt a little creepy about this, but I guess I shouldn't have, because "I'm a woman" and it's obviously okay for me to unbutton a little boy's pants but not for a man to unbutton a little girl's pants.  If not for this hideous and unfair double standard, I would have been living it up on easy street, showing videos about walking, talking trumpets and flutes while some crusty old man was helping three year olds pull down their pants.  Ain't that a b'.

At 11:30, the first group of children went home, and we had a half-hour respite before the afternoon onslaught.  One child remained in the classroom with the teacher, the other aid, and me.  He was a little boy with autism who had a completely normal twin brother.  His parents were going through a messy divorce, and they kept him in preschool for the whole day so he'd be out of the way.  Oh.  My.  God.  Like I said before, absolutely heartbreaking. 

The kid could almost manage to feed himself, but the teacher had to help him a great deal.  After he ate a small portion of his lunch, he proceeded to run to the other side of the room, fling himself on the carpet, and start flailing his arms and legs and moaning.  It was disturbing, but according to the teacher, he did it all the time.  So we let him be and ate our lunches. 

Then we noticed pungent odor coming from the child's direction.  The teacher gave the other aide a knowing glance, eyebrows raised.  "You think he pooped?"  "Yep.  Come on, Katie, give me a hand with this."

For the second time that day, I was speechless.  I couldn't imagine what "giving her a hand" would entail.  Does it take more than one person to clean the poop off this kid?  Is there cause for concern?  Should I put on a hazmat suit?  I'm pretty sure I was shaking at this point, from fear, embarrassment, and nausea because by then, the poop smell was nearly asphyxiating me.  Did this kid eat an entire bag of garbage for breakfast?

As it turned out, "giving a hand" meant grabbing one of the kid's arms and half-dragging, half-carrying him between us as he protested, kicking and screaming, all the way to the bathroom.  What happened next was nothing short of a miracle of compassion.  I don't know if the woman really didn't need anything more from me or if I looked like I was so close to vomiting that she wanted me to leave lest she have two messes to clean up.  But once we got into the bathroom, she turned to me and said, in the most angelic voice you can imagine, "I can take it from here." 

So I staggered back to the classroom and managed to make it through the rest of the day.  On my way home, I stopped for coffee and a quick back-alley hysterectomy.

Purple Nurple

Hay guys.  Today and for the rest of this week, this blog will be wearing purple to show it's (my) solidarity with the LGBTQ community and to raise awareness about the issue of anti-gay bullying. 

Bullying is bad, y'all.  From an outside perspective, it's easy to see that most bullies are probably insecure people.  They choose targets who embody traits they fear in themselves, for whatever reason.  Or, out of jealousy, they bully someone who is successful or courageous in some way that the bully envies. 

But when you are the target of a bully, it's hard to see that.  All you know is that someone is making your life hell and telling you that you are worthless or you don't belong.  And it has to stop. 

And not all bullying happens on the playground.  It happens in high schools, colleges, workplaces, and social spaces.  It is even written into law in such instances where two people who love each other can't build a life together just because they happen to have the same kinda 'nads.  That is some bullshit right there. 

I'm not here to get up on some kind of soap box and be all serious and preachy, even though this is a very serious issue.  I just want to make sure you're all thinking about this for a few minutes today.

You might say, hey, you're white and straight and female, what do you know about being bullied?  Well, I'll tell you.  I had a bully once.  Her name was Stacey.  She used to curse at me and beat the shit out of me in 6th grade.  Once she actually kicked me in the spine during a game of Silent Ball, because I caught the ball and she didn't.  In the SPINE.  During goddamn SILENT BALL (I hope people at other elementary schools played this game, otherwise that will only make sense to like 10 people).  That is also some bullshit right there.  And the school did absolutely nothing to stop it, despite my mother's repeated visits to the principal's office to complain about the situation after teachers refused to do anything. 

So that really sucked.  But, her life is probably a shithole now, because she had hardcore ADHD and an unstable mother, and I'm pretty sure she bullied me because I was smart and she was dumb as a brick.  I didn't choose to be smart any more than anyone chooses to be gay.  It's just who I am.  And being smart is a good thing - certainly not a source of shame.  Just like being gay.  I think gay people are AWESOME, and if every gay person was out and proud, the world would be a better place.  You might call that reverse discrimination, but I just call it love.  I'm saying it.  I'm gay for gay people. 

Muffin

Just know that I made the most orgasmically amazing apple muffins yesterday.  Later, I will post pictures and a recipe, but I have things to do before I go to work, because I'm one of those people now (people who work and prioritize real life over the internet).  But anyway, these muffins totally redeem my Saturday night dinner shame.  Although, judging by all your comments, I'm not alone in my propensity for combining incompatible food items, heating it, and calling it a meal.  And some of you are probably going to have fajita lasagna the next time you cook for one!  So everyone wins.

Also, I've been reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  It's terribly interesting, and vaguely horrifying.  I've been wanting to read it since I heard NPR's Fresh Air interview with the author earlier this year.  If you haven't heard about the book yet, it's a nonfiction book about an African American woman from Baltimore who died of cervical cancer in 1951.  While she was being treated at Johns Hopkins, researchers took tissue from one of her tumors and put it in culture, only to find that the cancer cells grew like crazy.  Her tumor cells resulted in the first immortal human cell line, and were used in countless experiments and advances, like sending the cells into space to examine the effects of zero gravity, and developing the polio vaccine. 

Problematically, however, her cells were so hardy and prolific that they contaminated countless other cell cultures and totally effed up a lot of other people's research.  Also, her family was poor and undereducated, so not only could they seldom afford their own medical care despite the mother's contributions to the field of medicine, they didn't even understand the implications of the use of her cells, and thought she was alive in a lab somewhere.  And it was over 20 years before they even knew that anything was going on with Henrietta's cells.  That is some bullshit right there!  But this book is so good!  Can't recommend it enough!

This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices

Here's a fun game!  Let's play "guess how many layers of clothing I'm wearing right now to be warm inside my house!"  If you guessed two, you would not be guessing high enough.  Four would be too many.  Right now I'm wearing three layers.  A t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a fleece.  It's only October, and I'm inside.  I would turn the heat on but 1) I don't want to pay for it and 2) the temperature decals are worn off of all the thermostats so if I did turn the heat on, I would have no idea where to position the dial.  If I don't turn it up high enough, it's pretty much a waste of energy because I'll still be cold, and if I turn it up too high, that's also a waste of energy until I realize it's too hot, at which point I would have to dial it down to a random position that may or may not be too low to be effective.  What is a girl to do?

Also, I reached a new level of culinary shame this evening.  When Andy's here, I'm really good at cooking respectable, nutritious meals.  When Andy isn't here, I have zero interest in cooking for myself.  He happens to be up on Lake Pend Oreille this weekend helping my cousins do some stuff at their lake property, so I've been left to my own sloppy devices.  Andy's cutting down trees with chainsaws and fighting bears, and I'm here listening to Prairie Home Companion and blowing on my frozen Reynaud's fingers to restore the sensation.  But that's beside point.  For dinner tonight, I examined my options, and found an unlikely combination of leftovers.  It was so wrong, but so right.

Tell me, what would you do if you had a few leftover lasagna noodles that you boiled but didn't use, and leftover fajita fixings, but no more tortillas?  If you answered fajita lasagna, you would be correct.  Correct and disgusting.  Actually, IT WAS DELICIOUS but I felt a little strange about slapping refried beans, tofu, veggies, and hot sauce into a lasagna noodle, rolling it up, and eating it with my hands (in my defense they were whole wheat lasagna noodles).  Although, you never know, maybe I just invented the hottest new kind of fusion cuisine.  Mexitalian.  You can thank me later, because your mouth is probably full right now. 

You're welcome, by the way.

Homesick for New Jersey - The things I miss...

I've been in Idaho for exactly four months.  It's alright.  I mean, it's pretty, and clean, and uncrowded, and has topographical variation.  In other words, it's everything New Jersey isn't.  Because New Jersey is a very particular sort of place.  Lately, it seems that the whole world wants a piece of it.  Whether that piece is desired for the purpose of mockery or sincere admiration is up for debate, but still, Jersey's kind of a big deal right now.

As this week's episode of South Park demonstrated, though, not every state can be New Jersey.  Only New Jersey can be New Jersey, and it's best for everyone if New Jersey remains within the confines of its current geopolitical boundaries.  Still and all, I miss it.  I miss it so.

Below you will find a photo montage of the things I miss.  Not all items on this list are Jersey-exclusive, but many are.  Some items are merely things that Idaho doesn't have because it is practically a third-world country.  Please also note that these items are not all in priority order, but I'm going to be sappy and place pictures of my family and friends at the top of the list because I totally miss them the most and even if I didn't I would still lie and say I did because some people might have their feelings hurt if I said I missed hoagies more than I missed them.

Mom, I'm sorry.  One could argue that this is the worst picture ever taken of us.

Okay I lied this might be worse, or at least more weird.

Ma and G-ma, deliberating over something vitally important, like which fork to use to serve the pickled herring, probably.

All these ladies.

And these folks, especially Keith for letting me grind all up on him.

These a-holes.

These creeps.

And all these people.  I think that about covers everyone.

Awww, this guy!

Hell yea I'm wearing footie pajamas and pretending to look surprised by the sight of the Christmas tree. 

Deciduous trees.  In the town and on campus, there are a smattering of deciduous trees.  But not enough for me to get my fix of fall colors.  And once you leave the town proper, it's nothing but rolling hills of brown, dead prairie grass or harvested wheat, and pine trees. 

So convenient.  So ubiquitous.  So delicious.

See above.  Possibly brewed with crack.

What I wouldn't give for a tuna hoagie right now.  It's unbelievable.  I would even settling for hearing someone call it a hoagie, rather than a sub or a hero.  It's a HOAGIE.  H-O-A-G-I-E spells delicious.

I-295.  Call me crazy, but I miss multi-lane highways populated by speedy, aggressive drivers in compact cars.  If you've ever been stuck on a one-lane road doing 45 behind a logging truck for 60 miles, you'd understand.

Yes, I'm posting this picture twice on purpose, because it's significance is twofold.  Not only is it a multi-lane highway where people drive like they have something to prove, it is also a prime example of a road that is both PAVED and FLAT.  No hills, no hairpin curves, no "unimproved sections."  We can all agree that 295 has plenty of room for improvement, hence it's status as perpetually under construction, but still.  When you drive down a road with "highway" in the name, you expect it to at least be paved, right?  Well, in Idaho, you can't make that assumption.

Guidos.  No, not Italian-Americans (although we could use some up in here - here being Idaho - because it is IMPOSSIBLE to find good crusty rolls or legitimate pizza).  I'm talking about anyone who tans to the point of looking like a suitcase, wears too much hair product, and single-handedly keeps Ed Hardy in business.  Guys who wear gold chains, multiple chunky rings, and who think a wife beater and gym shorts constitute a real outfit for going out.  Girls who think a hairstyle is skunk-streak highlights on a rats nest that has been flat ironed and subsequently teased.  I'm not really sure why I miss them, because, honestly, these people kind of suck, but I guess it's just a Jersey thing.  It's like comfort food.  You know that Cinnabon is going to make you gain 8 pounds and have 3 heart attacks, but it's so gooey and familiar.  Guidos pretty much play on the same sensations.  They are void of any and all value, but there's just something comforting about knowing they exist.

Punctuality.  As my former band director loved to say - "To be early is to be on time.  To be on time is to be late."  Everyone is late for everything here.  Showing up early gets you nowhere.  Showing up on time makes you look desperate.  Even if you are five minutes late for something, you will probably still have to wait for the person you are meeting, or wait for the event you are attending to start.  Everything takes forever because no one is in a hurry.  What the hell?  I'm just trying to get things done, is that so much to ask?

Full service gas stations.  Seriously?  You want me to pump my own gas?  Furthermore, to what are the slacker high school students supposed to aspire?  In New Jersey, at least you can rationalize their failure by saying, "Well, somebody's gotta pump our gas."  What are their alternatives here?  Flipping burgers?  Harvesting the potatoes that will become the french fries that go with the burgers?  Fortunately, I have an Andy, and he has become my full service gas station.  I have pumped my own gas exactly twice since leaving New Jersey.  Partly because I don't really need to drive anywhere except the grocery store and laundromat, and partly because I usually make sure Andy is in the car with me when I am close to needing a refill.

As you can see, there are a lot of things I miss.  I didn't realize how much I was missing all these things until I sat down and thought about it, and now I am sad.  At least I was sad for about 3 seconds until I remembered that I'm making veggie fajitas for dinner, and I have this sweet recipe for apple muffins that I want to try, and I made a bangin' veggie lasagna for dinner last night.  So, feelings for dinner.  And maybe for breakfast if the muffins turn out.  I like food.  And New Jersey.  This is becoming incoherent because I'm hungry.

Have a great weekend everyone!  And I hereby declare this weekend "Hug A Person From New Jersey" weekend.  Spread the love (but not the herpes - be selective about who you hug, and if possible, do not hug them if they are naked).

EDIT:  In reference to Kat's comment - "HELLZ YEAH! People here in England say I am very American. I think what they mean is that I am very Jerzey. I use acronyms constantly. I throw down terms like awesome, dude, word, and yeah yo."  I forgot all about the superb vernacular!!

Is it illegal to do something in New Jersey?  (Probably - I never realized how many rules there are in the East until I got to the West and found that I can pretty much do anything I want.  Shoot a bear?  Sure!  Drink and drive?  Probably not but the odds of getting caught are pretty low, there are like no cops anywhere.  But that's not the point.)  It's not illegal, it's illiggle.  And the Philadelphia Eagles?  Iggles.  

That small, trickling body of water that might also be called a stream?  Not a creek...crick.
All this discussion is making me hungry.  "Jeat yet?"  "No, jew?" 

A few weeks ago when I was on the phone with my grandmom, I realized just how Jersey she is.  She was talking about something being liggle that she felt should have been illiggle.  Then the conversation shifted to her impending 59-year high school reunion, and her apprehension about potential seating arrangements.  Apparently she didn't want to sit next to someone named Snooki.  I laughed, and she immediately explained that Snooki is an old man named Bill (or something else totally normal, I forget).  Because she knows who the Guidette Snooki is, and immediately saw the need to correct my confusion.  Ah, New Jersey.  South Jersey, anyway.  North Jersey might as well be another country.

 That's all.  Carry on.

Interview Schminterview

If nothing else, I can now truthfully state that I have been to a job interview during which boar semen was mentioned.  Twice.  By two people.  In separate and unrelated instances.

The only other time I've ever had anyone bring up semen in an interview was the time I applied to be a custodian at a porn shop with viewing booths.  And I mean, the job title was 'Semen Removal Specialist' (used to be "Gizz Mopper" but OSHA said that method of cleaning was too slippery and dangerous, so the "SRS" was responsible for throwing down some of that barf sawdust the janitors in elementary school use, and I didn't even get that job) so that's kind of a given.

Actually, I'm kidding.  About the second thing.  I really had to talk about boar semen in this morning's interview.  What IS this place and how did I get here?  They expect to make a decision by the end of next week, so keep your fingers crossed, and if you happen to be a boar, keep your balls crossed or something.


P.S.  Is it just me or do the last few posts seem like they were written by a 14 year old boy?  I realize I've been talking about poop and farting and other bodily functions a lot lately.  Not that those topics are ever far from my mind, but I usually make an effort to incorporate other topics into my writing to create the illusion that I am a well-rounded individual.  But who am I kidding, you have probably all figured out the truth by now.

Still Not a Real Post

I'm sorry.

News: 

The other day, my blog had 34 hits from Kuwait, apparently.  That was almost as many hits as I had from within the US, so that's kind of really weird and possibly some kind of mistake.

Also, someone googled the phrase, "i pooped out a black olive," and found my blog.  I really hope this wasn't someone who read the post about Andy crapping out undigested food, and wanted to find it again.  In my heart, I want to believe that someone else in the world was experiencing the same extraordinary phenomenon.  And by the way - the second black olive has still not emerged.  Andy is convinced it will make a popping sound when it comes out, like uncorking a wine bottle, but I'm pretty sure it will go out not with a bang, but with a whimper.  And probably surrounded by things that were actually digested, thus causing it to pass undetected. 

Something else - I had a direct interaction with a certain Tote Bag Lady at one of my places of employment.  It was terrifying.  She is kind of surly when she isn't holding a gigantic mug of beer.

AND last but not least, I have another job interview tomorrow for a totally legit, full-time, benefits-having job.  Not a library job, but something that will keep me off the streets and let me go to the dentist.  Send some good vibes my way tomorrow, please.

Day of Days

Happy National Coming Out Day and Canadian Thanksgiving to all my gay and/or Canadian friends!  And to everyone in general, because who doesn't love fabulousness and feasting?  I know I love both things.

Sorry these posts have been a little thin lately.  Work is tiring, guys.  But most of you probably already know that because I'm sure most of you aren't lazy derelicts (like me), and many of you even have kids which is a job in and of itself.  But seriously, transitioning from a life of (impoverished) leisure to a life of (really pretty easy) toil kind of takes a lot out of you. 

Once I get used to my new schedule I promise this freak show will be back in full swing.  But today I have to work an 8-hour shift which is something I haven't done in a long time. 

So today - eat, drink, be merry, and above all else, be gay (proudly and openly, please)!

Re: Relations

The other day I posted this quick blurb:

"Throughout my life so far, my most successful relationships have been with very specific types of people.  These are the people that allow me to make fun of them and who listen as I describe the consistency of my bowel movements. "

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my husband:

"This afternoon, I thought I pooped out a cockroach. On closer inspection, it turned out to be an unmolested black olive that, evidently, I forgot to chew."

"I almost forgot: This evening I intentionally swallowed a whole black olive--washed down with beer to avoid choking. Now the waiting game begins." 

I really couldn't ask for more.  Friday night, I made pizza loaded with onions, tomatoes, artichokes, and black olives.  As I watched Andy engulf his slices, housing four in the time it took me to eat two, it occurred to me that he might not be chewing his food. 

I was right.  The next morning, Andy called me while I was walking to the gym.  "You're not gonna believe this!" he exclaimed.  I knew he was grading tests, so I assumed I was about to hear about another completely incoherent, illegible essay.  No.  I was in for a real treat.  He described, in lurid detail, how he shat out an intact half of a black olive. 

Last night, as you might guess from his second comment, he upped his game and swallowed a whole black olive.  I told him the same thing you might tell a little kid who swallows a quarter.  "Andy, it might take a couple days for you to get that olive back."  So he's been slurping coffee all morning, but so far, the olive is still trapped like a Chilean miner.

Relations

Throughout my life so far, my most successful relationships have been with very specific types of people.  These are the people that allow me to make fun of them and who listen as I describe the consistency of my bowel movements. 

Discuss.

And then things got weird

I don't know what the universe is trying to tell me, but I hope it's something good.

This morning on my walk to work at 7:15 am (I know!  I'm like a real person now!) I performed two good deeds.  It was exhilarating.

It was a dreary, raw morning but it had just stopped raining and was not as cold as I feared it would be.  As I was traversing a grassy area shaded by enormous pine trees, I spotted a fluffy golden retriever romping towards me.  "Ohmygodpuppies!" I thought.  I was excited about getting to pet a big dopey happy animal but he saw a squirrel and tore off in the opposite direction. 

A minute later, I crossed paths with a guy holding a leash.  "DUKE!" he kept calling, to no avail.  He asked me if I had seen a golden retriever and I informed him that his dog was on the lawn behind me, chasing squirrels and having a blast.  He looked relieved, thanked me, and trotted off to wrangle his furry companion.

I managed to walk about 20 feet further before I had another opportunity to increase my good karma.  A very frantic, lost-looking girl (or should I call someone my age a woman?  That feels weird.  A chick?  I don't know.  A female who appeared to be my age +/- 5 years.) approached me and asked if I was a student.  I said no and asked her if she was looking for something.  She was looking for the music building, which happens to be one of the only buildings I know how to find, because it's right up the hill from my apartment and I have the pleasure of enjoying the never-ending cacophony that issues forth from its walls at all hours.  I pointed her in the right direction and as she skipped away, the clouds parted and a bluebird landed on my shoulder. 

I am clearly the nicest and most helpful person to ever walk the earth.

Later, I saw Mullinda, which is what I have decided to call the woman with the offensively disproportionate mullet.  It's ironic, because 'linda' means pretty in Spanish, and well, I probably don't need to explicitly state that she one of the most aesthetically displeasing individuals I have ever seen, but I guess I just did anyway.  She was wearing a Hawaiian shirt today.  On a rainy day in Idaho. 

And THEN, I was on the phone and ignored a call from an unknown number.  Later, I listened to the voice message and learned that a place where I applied for a job two months ago (because the deadline was two months ago, not because I'm super proactive) wants to bring me in for an interview.  Not a job I actually wanted, but one that would offer health insurance and a lot more money than my current 2-3 jobs combined.  Conundrum, sort of?  Although an interview doesn't necessarily equal a job, so we'll see.

So, universe, what does all this mean?  Two good deeds, a mullet, and ambiguous/complicated news, all in one day?  THANK GOD there was no double rainbow, because my brain would have exploded from trying to understand all these signals the universe is apparently sending me. 

There was a time...

When mullets were funny.  Because so few people had them, and those people were rare anachronisms.  And then they became ironic and hipsters started self-consciously getting mullets BECAUSE it is a stupid haircut.

However, the fine folks of Idaho seem to have missed the memo explaining that mullets were out of fashion.  And then the next one saying that they had become the ironic coiffure of the hipster elite.  The telegraph lines must have been down on those two days.  Or the fax machines.  I don't know what the hell they use to communicate out here, smoke signals maybe?  But anyway, there are more mullets per capita in Idaho than there are in Williamsburg (the one in Brooklyn...the other Williamsburg probably just has more powdered wigs, I'm guessing, and now that I've said that, hipsters are totally going to start wearing powdered wigs) and way more wolf howling at the moon shirts.  The thing is, though, all the mullets and wolf shirts belong to sweaty, middle-aged people who probably don't even know what a hipster IS, nor do they realize that they are SO out of fashion that they are once again IN style, except the rule is that if you were sporting the trend the first time around, you are too old to repeat it, and it's just so sad because these are fast times we live in and these people just can't keep up.  Either that, or they are emotionally stunted and trying to perpetually live in their glory days where mullets actually WERE cool (if there ever was such a day). 

Maybe I'm just overthinking it, but here's a visual, so you be the judge.  Sad?

Also, is it just me, or does a mullet seem like kind of a high-maintenance haircut?  I'm sure you have to get the front part trimmed frequently so the mullet doesn't start looking more like a Farrah and less like a mullet.  And the back probably needs regular trimming and conditioning so it doesn't get all stringy.

The above illustration is based on a specific, real individual I saw the other day.  The front of her mullet was cut extremely short and spiky, and the back hung down below the waist of her pants.  She was also wearing a hideous sweatshirt with some kind of animal on it, but I really wanted to draw a wolf howling at the moon.  Deal with it.

An Open (Love) Letter to Fitness Establishments

Dear Gym,

We've known each other for almost three years now.  Our relationship has had its ups and downs, but for the most part, it has been a pretty great experience, at least for me.  I was skeptical about you, at first.  I didn't think I would like you, I didn't think it would last, and I definitely didn't think I was your type.  It didn't take long for you to win me over, though.  You made me feel like a real woman, and I grew to love you.  In fact, I craved you all the time.  I couldn't go more than a couple days without yearning for your sweaty embrace.

Suddenly, though, a couple months ago, our trysts became too much for me to handle.  I felt like you were taking more than I was able to give.  I had to cut you out of my life completely.  It was hard, but at the time, I really felt like I didn't have a choice.

At first, I tried to convince myself that I was better off without you.  I kept telling myself that I didn't need you, that I was fine on my own.  I was angry and resentful.  Then, enough time passed for me to put things into perspective.  I realized that I did need you, desperately.  I was falling apart without you, and I craved you more than ever.  I just wasn't the same person, inside or out.

Two weeks ago, I finally swallowed my pride and came crawling back to you.  You welcomed me with open arms, and I was so, so happy.  I felt like your prodigal ho - you didn't ask questions or try to make me feel guilty in passive aggressive ways.  You were just glad to have me back.  These last two weeks have been so magical.  You've reminded me how good it feels to sweat and really work it.  The things you do to my body are just unbelievable.  Things I could never do on my own, if you know what I'm saying.

Gym, I love you.  I need you in my life.  Let's never fight again.

Love,

Katie
xoxo

Fecal Trail of Tears - Part 2

Poop has colored my life in various shades of brown since moments before my birth (but that is truly a story I'm saving for later).  My first job was no exception.  If I were to assign a value to the first work-poop incident, based on the amount of poop and the level of trauma it caused, it would be the darkest brown you could perceive without calling it black.  The Wikipedia entry on shades of brown calls it 'seal brown.'  That's pretty apt, because someone clearly broke a few seals that night - the seal of their anus, the seal of my dignity...need I go on?

My next few jobs were pretty uneventful, at least in terms of bowel movements.  I worked as a cashier in a drug store - no poop.  Just a crazy, obese black lady that would fill her cart with clearance items, ask me to price-check each product, and then buy only one thing.  She kept her wallet somewhere in the separate zip code of her cleavage, but at least she had the decency to use an actual wallet instead of just tucking a wad of sweaty $1's under a floppy, unfettered breast. 

Then I was a telemarketer for a company that sold electric scooter chairs to the elderly and disabled.  My boss was a paraplegic Vietnam vet who must have taken a cue from the Hair Club for Men guy - not only was he the president, but he was also a member.  He'd zip around the call center floor eavesdropping on all of us, but not pooping on anything.  The low point of that job was calling the phone number of an old man who, according to the woman who answered the phone, had just been buried that day.  I wanted to kill myself immediately, but I suspect she may have been screwing with me, because I would totally say something like that to a telemarketer.

The following summer, I got a sweet job as a bus girl at a popular, expensive restaurant at the Jersey shore (but it was nothing like the show, I promise you).  Apparently, it was inconceivable that an English-speaking, mentally-competent female would eschew being a waitress in favor of busing tables.  It took a while for my coworkers to stop speaking to me louder and more slowly than normal, but the customers never quite caught on.  If I had a dollar for every person who loudly over-enunciated the question, "Where are YOU from?" and looked crestfallen when I said "South Jersey" and not "Mother Russia,"  I would have had so many dollars.

But I digress, this story isn't so much about my resume as it is about poop.  One night after closing, I stepped into the customer bathroom to pee.  Normally I would have used the employee bathroom, but it was usually pretty gross, and all the customers were gone, so I indulged myself.  I headed for the middle stall, ready to unleash eight hours of pent-up kidney fury, when I spied something so disturbing I forgot all about my own bodily functions.  The Mud Golem was near.

Against the wall, partially behind the toilet, rested an enormous pile of excrement.  If I wasn't certain that a horse would never have fit inside the stall, I couldn't have accepted that this mass of biological warfare was a human product.  Again, there was no possible way this was an accident.  Getting a little on the back of the seat, maybe.  Dropping one on the floor in front of the toilet - I get it, you pooped your pants and it just sort of flopped out.  But behind the toilet, shoved up all the way against the wall?  Most certainly a delibrate act of fecal terrorism.

I reeled backwards out of the stall, having flashbacks to rival the likes of Timothy Leary.  The trauma of my last close encounter of the turd kind embedded itself in my spinal fluid, and I was reliving every horrific second of the clean-up.  I washed my hands, furiously, and marched out of the bathroom to find the hostess, a kindly, sassy old woman who would surely sympathize with my plight. I approached her station, where she was counting down the tips for the night and flirting with the two teenaged bus boys.

"Diane...I don't know how to say this politely, but there's a huge pile of poop on the floor behind the toilet in the middle stall of the ladies' room." 

"Well, someone's going to have to clean it up."  She glanced around accusingly at the three of us bus persons.

Without thinking, I employed the most desperate yet effective survival tactic I had yet learned in my brief 20 years of life.  My pointer finger flew up to the tip of my nose and I blurted "Not it!" before the other two guys had time to absorb the severity of the situation.

But Diane was already a step ahead of me.  She marched into the kitchen and emerged a few minutes later with the head chef and a diminutive Mexican dishwasher who was staring at his shoes, looking demoralized as he wheeled out a bucket and mop.  "Carlos is gonna take care of that turd, but don't worry, I'm gonna cook him up a steak to take home with him," explained the chef.

God bless you, Carlos.  May the wind be always at your back, and may you always be three steps ahead of INS.

As you can see, our protagonist was learning important life lessons.  While she hadn't yet learned how to avoid jobs where she would encounter a stranger's poo, she was learning how to avoid close contact with it.  In our turd and fecal third and final installment (because all good things come in threes, just like pee, poop, and diarrhea...but I think I may have just gone too far, I'm sorry) we will see that our protagonist came close to wiping the poo of our Lord, as he so famously said "Whatsoever you do for the least of your brothers, you do also for me" or some kind of hippie garbage like that.  All I know is, I've been wiping my own ass for the last 19 years (guys, I'm 25) and I'm not about to start wiping anybody else's.

Dear Diary

Fact:  In 4th grade, my mom bought me a Snoopy diary at the Hallmark store.  Snoopy had a speech bubble that said "No Snooping!"  The diary had a combination lock, so I felt that the warning, while a clever pun, was a bit redundant.  I mean, seriously?  If you want to read the inner-workings of a nine-year-old's mind badly enough to bust the lock off, you're probably snooping in more places than her diary, if you know what I'm saying.  But nobody ever molested me, or my diary. 

Unless you count me.  No, I didn't molest myself, but I can't say the same for my diary.  I wanted a diary because I wanted to be like Anne Frank (that whole Jew thing again).  I knew that Anne Frank named her diary.  Kitty.  I thought that was way lame, but like, millions of people read her diary so she must have been doing something right.  My nine-year-old brain didn't stop to consider that she was also totally dead from the Holocaust- the key to her fame was clearly giving her diary a name.

So I named my diary.  What did I name it?  Flamhomo.  Swear.  To.  God.  I was nine years old and my Snoopy diary was my gay best friend.  Now I blog, and a few dozen people read it, and I have real, live gay friends.  Just goes to show you how powerful a little girl's dreams can be.

Bikes

Today was stressful, and sure to cause both a breakout and a few new gray hairs, because I'm completely gross and can't seem to leave one phase of my life behind before embracing all the downsides of the next.  So I never got around to writing Part Two of my turd trauma.  I had a lot of errands to run, but apparently so did every person in Northern Idaho.  Too.  Many.  People.  Which is a strange way for me to feel after spending almost 25 years of my life in New Jersey.  But when everyone is used to dealing with crowds, everyone knows how to navigate and stay out of the way.  That doesn't happen here.  Nobody gets out of the way.  No one hurries.  Everyone walks slowly.  It's unbearable at times.

But I have to get something off my chest.  Bikes piss me off.  Not all bikes.  Actually not even bikes.  Bike riders.  Most of you suck.  You need to grow a pair and start riding in the bike lanes instead of on the sidewalk.  That's right, I said it.  Stop acting like I'm in your way when I'm walking on the sidewalk.  See, the activity is implicit in the name.  You walk on a sidewalk.  Things with wheels belong in the street.  Unless you're in a wheelchair, in which case, I'm sorry.   Use as much sidewalk as you need.

Contrarily, I saw one bike rider the other day that I wanted to high five in the worst way.  I saw this guy riding a bike that, at first glance, appeared to be way too small for him.  He was lower to the ground than one would be on a normal bike, yet he was leaning very far forward to reach the handlebars.  That's when I noticed his seat was missing - he was sitting on the basket platform over the back tire.  Most people would throw in the towel and find an alternate mode of transportation until a proper ass-platform could be acquired, but you, sir, soldiered on.  Way to be.