The Syllabus #3

I was hungry this week.  With the exception of one article about Varsity Blues and two tidbits about testicular vehicular accessories, everything you see here relates to food or occupying space in the world.  How 'bout it?

There's a chasm between the two ends of the spectrum of of this college admissions issue, and it doesn't say anything good about our priorities or the state of inequality in our society. 

Food allergies vs mere sensitivities.  I have an intolerance for food described as "crusty", a sensitivity to "creamy," and a legitimate, full-blown, anaphylactic shock level allergy to the word "moist" coming anywhere near my food. 

It's all CBDelicious, but I smell a missed opportunity if nobody has done CBD-infused protein powder and other weight lifting supplements.  Those jabronis at the gym need to chill out more than anybody.

Slate's Decoder Ring podcast explored Truck Nutz.  Who ever thought it was possible to spend 40 minutes considering the origins of the product and the motivations of its devotees?  Apparently there's a lot more to say besides, "There goes a guy who is insecure in his masculinity."  Although, when you think about it, it takes, well, balls, to to dangle the most vulnerable part of your anatomy in such an exposed and collision-location, even if symbolically.

Speaking of Truck Nutz, I know what Andy's getting for his birthday:  bike balls!

Men don't get to have all the fun this week.  Women can and should take up space in the world, too.  Without apology, period, full stop. 

Sweet Fancy Moses.  I take back everything I recently wrote about the unlikely scenario of Martha making her own vape juice.  If there's not a sous vide vape juice episode in this season  I will wax off  one of my eyebrows in protest.  Also, didn't you just know Martha was going to be the masculine one in this video? 

Somewhere, there exists a video of me in the Pepper Palace hot sauce store in St. Augustine.  I taste a sample of a hot sauce alleged to be the world's hottest and shrug like it's NBD.  End of video.  Minutes after the sampling, the full impact is realized on my empty stomach and I'm sweating like a whore in church, cramping, and racing down St. George Street trying to find a bathroom because I'm certain my bowels are full of jet fuel and a lit match is snaking its way through my intestines.  I never did find the bathroom, and I never did shit my pants (that day, anyway).   The storm came and went like a phantom in the night, and left no lasting effects.  Five out of five stars, would try again.  But why do we do this to ourselves?

One of the four horsemen of the apocalypse just rode in, and he sliced his bagels vertically.  Nope.

Is it Resting Bitch Face or is she thinking about Truck Nutz and vertically sliced bagels?

Wordless Interlude

Who Rescued Who?

This isn't going where you think it's going.  Not in this essay, and not in this dog's life, generally.

I've often heard it said that a person who doesn't love animals is a person not to be trusted.  Maybe no one phrases it exactly like that, but the general consensus seems to be that people who torture animals are almost certainly psychopaths, and anyone who falls on the spectrum somewhere between Michael Vick and Elmyra from Tiny Tunes probably possesses a healthy amount of empathy.  

As I sit writing this, I'm surrounded by a small menagerie consisting of two fat, indifferent cats and one very needy, anxious dog.  At this moment, all three animals want nothing more than to be on my lap getting pets, but the cats will never admit it and the dog is entirely too large.  I love that their desire to be near me forces them to tolerate, to varying degrees, being in close quarters with one another.  In this moment, their presence is comforting, but I may feel differently ten minutes from now when one of the cats is clawing at the upholstery and the dog is frantically trying to get eyeballs deep licking the other cat's balloon knot.  I tell you this so you don't suspect that I'm running inter-species UFC fights out of my living room as you continue reading, but I'm also not always about hugging and squeezing and loving these adorably wretched creatures for ever and ever.  I'm normal, is what I'm saying.

I love my pets so much but nothing enrages me more than those "Who Rescued Who?" bumper stickers.  I'll have you know, we straight up trash picked all our animals so I'm not taking an elitist stance here.  Our animals’ origin stories sound like the premise for an after school special about a scrappy band of hard luck misfits who escape the lure of the streets for a better life.  One cat was plucked as a tiny kitten from amidst the broken glass and crack rocks of a Baltimore gutter, and the other found me in a liquor store parking lot on a 5 degree December night in Utah.  The dog has severe anxiety, which must stem from the intense pressure everyone in his generation feels to develop a personal brand and always be hustling.  That, or he was severely abused as a tiny puppy.  It's one of those things.

But I digress.  Let me be clear that I’m not shitting on the concept of animal rescue.  Adopt don’t shop.  Puppy mills are terrible.  The world would be a better place if the ASPCA no longer had to air those Sarah MacLachlan commercials (for so many reasons).  I’m just saying, asking the question, "Who Rescued Who?" is aggressively dumb unless you are literally riding shotgun next to a St. Bernard that has learned how to drive so it can rush you to the hospital before your lungs collapse from a sucking chest wound.  My particular animals have not rescued me in the slightest unless they thought I wanted to be rescued from large amounts of money, time, personal possessions, and sanitary living conditions.

Earlier, I mentioned the dog’s anxiety, which manifests in erratic, self-destructive behavior whenever he is scared or over-stimulated, which is most of the time.  We are not monsters.  We tried.  LORD did we try.  For 5 years, we tried all kinds of positive training with praise and treats; we tried every kind of collar and harness and Thundershirt known to man to get him to walk in a civilized manner without trying to dive into the path of every oncoming vehicle, dislocating my shoulders and shredding my flesh with the leash in the process.  We then did what any good parent at the end of their bullshit rope does, and resorted to pharmaceuticals.  Twice a day, old Charlie swallows the generic canine version of Prozac.  It’s not a miracle drug, but contrary to our fears, he isn't a sedated lump with no zest for life.  He’s still a maniac, but he’s no longer headbutting all of our visitors in the crotch or having a stroke when he sees children, the UPS truck, squirrels, or trash bags.  It's something.

This drug is necessary but it’s expensive.   Charlie's vet doesn’t carry it, so I have to get the prescription filled at a human pharmacy.  Once a month, I have to march up to the pharmacy counter at the Murder Kroger, of all places, and announce that I’m taking better care of my dog’s mental health than many people can afford for themselves.  

When I pick up the drugs, the pharmacist always asks for the patient's date of birth.  The first time, I had to just make up a date because they didn't have one on file and also he's a dog.  Now this guy has a fake birthday I have to remember, along with all the other unpaid emotional labor I have to manage in my life.  Then, as you know, you have to sign all the screens with the privacy notices and the offer to consult with the pharmacist.  Once, I tried to be cute and was all, "this medicine is for a dog, do I need to sign with a paw print?"  Nobody thought that was cute.   In fact, I’m pretty sure now I’m a meme somewhere that circulates with the tag #whitepeoplebullshit.  And they're not wrong.  

Clearly, we try to do what's best for our animals, but we fuck up sometimes and I feel okay about it.  For that reason, I resent when people refer to their pets as their children.  Having pets confirms the fact that I don’t want kids.  I am almost too selfish to properly care for these animals; surely any children of mine would be absolutely demented.  The great thing about pets though, is that I don’t have to worry about damaging their futures.  Most parents’ greatest hope is that after 18 years of care and attention, their children are prepared for bright futures as productive members of society.  My greatest hope is that after 18 years of care and attention, these animals have all died peacefully in their sleep so I’m not shelling out for expensive veterinary care to keep old-ass, decrepit animals from suffering.

While I think it’s ignorant to act like your pets are equivalent to human children, I still do it when people ask me if I have kids.  At my age, merely saying no tends to make people feel uncomfortable for having asked.  It challenges their world view somehow when a married, stable, healthy looking person has not procreated for whatever reason.  Here’s what I say instead.  An acquaintance asks if I have children and I say, “Yep and there’s 12 legs between them all.”  Then I lean back and watch the wheels spin while they do the math and try to figure out if I’m a Mormon with 6 kids, a wiseass with 3 pets, or an average person with 2 kids, 2 pets, and a love of word problems.

Planet Earth - Woo Season

[Sir David Attenborough voiceover]

Spring has sprung in East Nashville, and with it, a source of irritation for many.  This species is more invasive than the Bradford Pear, and the detritus it deposits in the streets leaves an odor worse than fallen gingko berries.  The Latin name for this scourge is festus bachelorettus, the common North American Bachelorette Party.

This species is easy to identify by a number of characteristics.  It travels in packs called "bride tribes," which are led by a Queen, similar to the social hierarchy of ant colonies or bee hives.  This bride tribe can be heard from afar with their distinct mating call, a loud and exuberant, "WOO!" issued by the Queen, and often echoed by all members of the group. 

Plumage consists of loose, barrel-curled waves in various blonde tones, often topped with a cowboy hat, because "Nashvegas, bitch."  Similarly, bacheloretti usually cover their hooves with cowboy boots newly purchased for the occasion, resulting in a stilted, colt-like gait that is exacerbated by excessive alcohol consumption.  Extra ornamentation often comes in the form of satin sashes bearing phrases such as, "Last Fling Before the Ring," or simply, "Bride Tribe."  Bolder, more aggressive members of the species don necklaces strung with penis-shaped beads, which experts theorize is an ancient fertility rite.

The bachelorettus maintains two distinct habitats at this time of year, one for nesting and one for preening or seeking a temporary mate.  The nesting usually occurs at a "super cute Airbnb" located within walking distance of a source of brunch (see below for eating habits).  In the evening, packs of bacheloretti travel by rideshare to their preening grounds, Lower Broadway.  It is in this zone that the bachelorettus takes its most recognizable form.  The roar of WOOs is nearly deafening as competing tribes flit from pedal taverns to honky tonks, gaining strength by consuming whiskey-based elixirs.

The Queen is rarely the strongest member of the tribe, as Queens are frequently in a weakened state from a prolonged period of fasting and overexercising.  When the night is over for the Queen, a series of nonverbal cues signal to the rest of the tribe that it is time to travel back to the nesting zone.  These cues include crying, vomiting, and engaging in pre-mating rituals with members of a closely related species, the brosephus basicus. 

The morning after this preening ritual, bacheloretti are ravenous and must seek sustenance in the form of the aforementioned brunch.  Brunch locations are often swarming with these hungry tribes, eager to replenish their stores with bottomless mimosas and avocado toast.  Fueled accordingly, the tribes will return  to the Airbnb to engage in prolonged grooming rituals in preparation for another night of preening and temporary mate seeking.  It truly is the circle of life.

The Syllabus #2

Let's get right down to it this week, shall we?  It runs the gamut from whimsy to pernicious social ills.  Buckle up.

There's just something about a white-suited old cur snuggling kitties

I'm halfway through reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.  It's keeping me up past my (9:00) bedtime and sucking me in every day on my lunch break (all 37 uninterrupted seconds of it).  It's a story that begins with a house fire and backpedals to sift through the events that led to the presumed arson.  What happens when two misfits from very different backgrounds, who both feel that life has profoundly screwed them, cross paths?

I'm in awe of a government that can get its act together so quickly to enact highly reasonable gun regulations in response to a tragedy.  It doesn't hurt that Jacinda Ardern gets it done with 'mom coming in the playroom for the 5th time to tell you kids to clean up your toys right g.d. now or they're all getting bagged up and donated to charity' realness.

"The parents charged in the college-admissions scandal this month risked criminal prosecution in order to gain an unfair advantage in a system that was built to offer them unfair advantages already."  Good point.  It's like riding the Tour de France on an e-bike and also your mom is paying someone to slip ex-lax into your competitors' water bottles to slow them down.  

See also:  Being Black in a White Academic World.  I realize as a white person I've enjoyed a tremendous amount of privilege throughout life, so I'm not about to say I know how the journalists in this conversation feel.  That being said, compared to my peers at the fairly expensive, competitive college I attended, I could clearly see I was substantially less economically privileged and connected in the world.  I felt kind of weird about possibly being perceived as poor or less cultured, but I never once questioned my self worth in response to others assuming I didn't earn admission on my own merit.  I can only begin to imagine how a person of color feels in the face of those kinds of racist assumptions.

Speaking of other ways the world can be a trash fire:  These pre-soiled $900 sneakers are the most ignorant consumer product since the banana slicer.

I do not like green eggs and wasabi.  Except I do love wasabi, or the farcical approximation I've been eating for the last 20 years.  In high school, a group of 4 or 5 of us were eating sushi at Sakana Oriental, a divey place on Route 45 that apparently still exists despite its ramshackle appearance as a former railcar diner.  Someone proposed a challenge:  If I ate everyone's remaining portions of wasabi, they would all pay for my meal.  I'm not in the habit of turning down dares, spicy food, or free things, so it seemed like a win-win-win all around.  For a brief, shining moment in time, it truly was.  I felt invincible, but my stomach lining begged to differ.  An apt SAT analogy is:  wasabi : stomach :: chlorofluorocarbons : ozone layer

I like to think I have healthier-than-average eating habits, but I did just relate a story about eating a fist-sized wad of artificially colored horseradish paste for a free meal, so I might have some introspection ahead of me.  Maybe this eating strategy will solve all my problems (doubt it).

Hi, I'm just out here mastering the tangentially related but mostly inappropriate segue:  Ew and No.

As previously stated, I love a good podcast.  The problem is, I now have so many daily and/or weekly jawns I feel compelled to consume that I have to listen at 1.5 speed to cram them all in.  Now the pace of normal human speech is infuriatingly slow.  At any rate, I've been speed-listening to:  You're Wrong About.  At its core, this whole podcast is just proof that we (the media and the public at large) are all terrible people who cherry pick facts, jump to conclusions, and sensationalize topics in ways that do a real disservice to the actual humans involved in the stories.  But it's fascinating!  Past episode topics include:  Terry Schiavo, Stranger Danger, The Dingo Ate My Baby, Lorena Bobbitt, and so much more!

In conclusion, please enjoy this picture of a bipedal mailbox I took on a run a couple weeks ago:

Keep East Nashville Weird

Hoe Culture

Hoe Culture, Alabama, 1937, Dorothea Lange

On Thursday of my spring break, I went to the Frist Art Museum to check out the members-only preview of the new Dorothea Lange exhibit.  I took this highly ignorant picture of one of the last photographs before leaving the exhibit.  The name, Hoe Culture, was my siren song.

As I was snapping this trash iPhone picture (of an important and skillfully composed piece of photojournalism taken 82 years ago with a bulky, medium format camera, on film, and painstakingly developed on paper - believe me, the irony is not lost) I looked down and realized that the strap of my crossbody bag had undone the top button on my shirt, and my entire left boob was out.  I was wearing a bra, obviously, and therefore didn't feel a draft.  There's no telling how long this situation existed.  I was alone, and very absorbed by the photographs.

At that same moment, a museum security guard sauntered behind me and whispered, "It's riveting, isn't it?"

The part of me that wants to believe no one saw the dingy left cup of my full-coverage grandma bra is positive he was referring to the exhibit. 

The part of me that felt instantly guilty for still thinking the word 'hoe' is funny at age 33 believes he was calling me out for taking that picture.  I'm a little embarrassed for that, but in a city lousy with murals painted for the express purpose of posing in front of them for Instagram pictures, I may have been the first (as a person who straddles the line between asinine millennial and adult who purchases an annual membership to an art museum, hence the aforementioned members-only preview event) but I know I won't be the last idiot to take that exact picture.

The part of me that lives in the real world and faces the consequences of my mistakes is pretty sure he meant my light Dust Bowl cosplay, reenacting the breastfeeding shot from Lange's iconic Migrant Mother series.

Crust Punk

Thought I'd drop in fashionably late to the Pi(e) Day party.  That's my style - show up late enough that all the guests are already drunk and glad to see you.  Before long, they'll be too drunk to notice your Irish Goodbye.

Speaking of our Celtic friends,  here's a little something, just in time to help you St. Patrick's Day revelers carbo load before you binge drink and hunt for leprechauns or whatever the hell Americans do to celebrate this Irish holiday in a manner that is completely unrecognizable to actual Irish people.  You see, I am still riding on the sober coattails of Dry January, so I feel like it's my duty as a person who is, for the moment, certifiably Better Than You, to judge you harshly but also provide you with a delicious, less intoxicating alternative to green beer or Car Bombs:  Pie.

Pie is a matter of religious importance in my family.  We all worship it.  That we agree on a fondness for pie is not remarkable.  Pie is not exactly controversial in and of itself, though I realize there are those among us who walk the earth wrongly preferring cake.  For many of my family members, though, the pie filling is largely irrelevant.  It's the crust that is literally and figuratively foundational to the pie.  The filling can come from a can, as is often the case with pumpkin, but the crust must be homemade, or GTFO. 

My grandmother, matriarch of the family, is also Lord of the Crust.  She's a wonderful cook, and I've been fortunate to learn a thing or two growing up in her kitchen.  In her heyday, her holiday meals were as if Norman Rockwell's Freedom from Want and a Dutch still life birthed an edible baby right on the dining room table (too vivid?).  In her hands, a simple tuna salad sandwich is elevated to heights that would make Ina Garten seethe with jealousy.  But beyond all other culinary feats, her pie crust takes the cake reigns supreme.

My family isn't particularly religious.  Even at holiday meals, saying grace is optional depending on who is in attendance.  The one ritual that is non-negotiable is finishing your pie crust.  If you don't finish yours, someone else will gladly finish it for you.  God forbid you linger a little too long over your wine glass before savoring the last few bites of crust, because someone will swoop in and claim adverse possession.  And if you voluntarily surrender your pie crust?  That is offensive and a serious breach of trust.  We don't take kindly to crust abandoners.

When I was about to get married and move to Idaho (the very place where I started this blog in a pique of unemployment and social isolation nearly 9 years ago), my grandmother and I sat down at her kitchen table with her primary-colored, checkerboard patterned recipe box so I could transcribe some of her most famous treats.  She has several crust variations in her repertoire, including one that calls for Crisco (at one time it called for lard), but her more recent ride-or-die recipe for pie crust, a pâte brisée that I think she adapted from Martha Stewart, was my top priority.  She was kind enough to copy it for me in her own iconic, left-handed cursive, which makes it extra special.  I'm feeling benevolent, so I'll share it here.   Plus, I realize you can easily Google some version of the recipe so there's no point keeping it to myself, which also means there's no real reason to share it here, and yet...

The instructions call for a food processor, which I did not have at the time.  A good substitute is to freeze your butter and quickly grate it over the large holes of a box grater, pausing periodically to fluff the butter shreds into your flour.  When all the butter is grated, work quickly with your fingers, two forks, or a pastry blender, to incorporate the butter into the flour until the texture ranges between gritty sand and pea sized nubs.

Pate Brisee

makes enough for one lidded pie or two topless pies

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

2 sticks very cold butter, cubed

1/2 cup icy cold water

Add dry ingredients to the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to distribute the salt and sugar.  Sprinkle the cubed butter atop the flour and pulse ~10 times so that the mixture looks like sand and gravel.  With the motor running, drizzle in 1/4 cup of the water.  After about 10 seconds, turn the motor off and assess the texture of your dough.  If it looks very dry with a lot of loose flour remaining, add more water a teaspoon at a time with the motor running, until the dough starts to form a ball.  The amount of water you end up using will vary greatly depending on the temperature and humidity in your kitchen. 

Be careful not to run the food processor for more than 30 seconds. You don't want the heat of the motor to melt the butter.  The butter needs to stay very cold and remain somewhat marbled if you want a crust that is flaky, not chewy.

Turn your ball of dough out onto a floured surface and quickly form a ball.  Cut the ball in half and, again, time is of the essence, quickly flatten and shape each half into a disk.  Wrap tightly in plastic and immediately refrigerate.  The dough needs to chill for at least 30 minutes before using*.  It can be refrigerated for up to a week or frozen for a month.  Frozen dough will need to thaw in the fridge for several hours or overnight.  Don't thaw it on the counter.  Also, you wont, like, die from eating old pie crust but the taste and texture will be a bit stale.

*Pro tip:  When you are ready to make a pie, freeze your pie plate for about 30 minutes.  Let your dough rest on the counter for 5-10 minutes, then roll out on a floured surface until it is large enough to cover the bottom of a 9" pie plate with roughly 1/2" overhang.  

Grab your pie plate from the freezer and gently transfer your crust to the plate, smoothing out the bottom and sides.  Quickly crimp your crust edges and pop that SOB back in the fridge, not the freezer this time.  When your oven is hot and whatever excuse-to-eat -crust filling you are using is ready, only then should your prepared crust emerge from the fridge.  Plop in that filling and get it into the hot oven as quickly as possible.  You want the heat to shock the nearly-frozen butter for maximum flakeage.  You're welcome.

  

Apple Pie, Thanksgiving 2017

Unpopular Opinion

I heard there’s recently been a surge of pro-life/anti-choice protesters outside Planned Parenthood because it’s Lent.  Am I missing something, here?  Aren't you supposed to give something up for Lent?  What does harassing women who are either seeking routine medical care or making a private, difficult, and deeply considered decision have to do with Lent?  I guess they gave up minding their own damn business?  

Surely they haven't given up respecting women's bodily autonomy, because I'm pretty sure God isn't impressed if you claim to give up an action you never did in the first place.  That would be like me saying, even though I'm a pescatarian, I'm giving up eating steak for Lent.  It's meaningless!  It doesn't count!

It’s ok though, I have my sign ready for the counter protest:  

Papa Don't Preach:  I'm not keeping my baby

What else is going on right now?  Oh, speaking of women’s rights, I trust you are all having a bitchin’ Women’s History Month.

As a librarian, I have my finger on the pulse of monthlong recognitions that require thematic book displays.  I assume everyone else is similarly aware?  At any rate, each March, we female-identified humans enjoy 31 whole days of royal treatment perfunctory reminders of our gender's achievements despite the constant pressure of the thumb of the patriarchy.  

I guess women should be grateful?  I mean February is Black History Month and that’s only 28 days, which smells like bullshit to me, but what do I know.   At least we're allowed to claim 100% of the month.  I'm frankly surprised we don’t cut things off on the 25th, as if we've earned a scant 80% of the month.  

I decided to lean into that pay gap mentality, though.  All month long, I’m giving only 80% effort, especially on traditionally gendered or domestic tasks.  I stop doing laundry when it’s 80% dry.  The problem with that is that wearing wet underwear is definitely going to give me a yeast infection and Andy does his own laundry so I’m really just being a martyr and shouldering unnecessary emotional labor here.  But honestly, can you think of anything more fitting for Women’s History Month?  

I leave 20% of my legs unshaven.  And not the top 20%.  I'm talking boots with the fur, except I supply the fur.  

I got only 80% of a Brazilian, which I think is called a Sicilian.  

I stop cooking when food is 80% done.  Let me tell you, the resulting salmonella has been an unexpected weight loss hack!  I’ve also been eating until I’m only 80% full.  I’m taking up so much less space these days, it seems I have 20% fewer reasons to apologize.  

[Hold on, I know I said I'm apologizing less, but I really didn't feel good typing that, even for satirical purposes.  Let me break the fourth wall here, as if I haven't been speaking directly to the audience (of 1, hi Mom!) the entire time.  Ladies!  You are smart and you know this already, but go 'head girl and take up as much damn space as you want.  In other words, don't just sit around the house - sit around the house, if you know what I'm saying.  Ugh.  Clearly, I need to do some work on myself.  My mind, not my body, my body is fine the way it is and so is yours!  I need to work on framing body positivity in an actually positive way instead of bringing down the house with a 'your momma's so fat' joke.  So in closing, I'm not going to apologize, but I do promise to try to do better.]

P.S. I take my pubic hair fashion cues from HBO's The Deuce.  If I ever spontaneously decide that paying someone to pour hot wax on my crotch and rip out all the hair is a good idea, that's a cry for help and a sign that a psychiatric evaluation is in order.  No shade to the miracle working aestheticians of the world, but that particular procedure is not for me. 

The Syllabus

This is the writing equivalent of the teacher who spends the entire week screening a feature length film that is only tangentially related to the curriculum because she spent all of her planning periods for the past month weeping in her car.  I think that only happens in TV and movie depictions of our broken education system, but you get the picture. 

Here's some stuff that has occupied my attention recently, for better or for worse:

This guy!  He puts to shame the plans I once had to write a will requiring that my remains be cremated and used to antique my enemies.

You know I love a good podcast, and this one surpasses my wildest dreams:
Gay Future.  The premise is entirely fictional, which I did not immediately accept.  For a hot minute I was frantically Googling and searching Amazon, desperately wanting it to be true that in 2002, Mike Pence wrote, if not published, a YA novel set in a "dystopian" near future where everyone is gay and Clay Aiken is President.  You know what they say, one man's dystopia is another man's utopia.

This girl clearly has no functional knowledge of basic zoology.  It's common knowledge that jaguars are very protective of their digital privacy.

Microneedling!  Can you handle it?  I'm not so secretly a glutton for experimentation with skincare.  I admittedly had grotesque skin for years and I'm emotionally and physically scarred from it.  I will try anything that promises noticeable results for less-than-outrageous sums of money.  Y'all.  I'd microneedle my brain if I thought it would help with the emotional scars, but instead, I'll pay $25 for some knock-off Amazon product if there's a possibility it will make my face look a little less like a squirrel chewed on it.  I've used my roller three times so far, and I swear it's working.  It's not painful at all (says the person who has thrice had a large swath of her back tattooed, twice in color, and almost fell asleep every time) and by the next morning, all the redness is gone and you look normal and refreshed.

Duolingo - I'm making a modest effort to recall whatever Spanish I learned in high school and build on it.  We went to Madrid for Christmas this year, and we were mostly able to function, to the extent that people appreciated that we were trying but could instantly tell that their English was better than our remedial Spanish and met us more than halfway.  Now we want to do a language school in Ecuador this summer.  Why?  Mostly for funsies, but also because retiring outside the US is looking more and more appealing with each passing day.  And with no kids to worry about, retiring early and teaching English abroad could be a sweet gig. 

I don't know how I progressed from a morbid yet juvenile comment about having the executor of my will throw my cremains in the face of an unspecified enemy to a serious rumination about my retirement prospects, but I've clearly grown as a person of the course of this post.

SPRING BREAK

Trigger warning: This post contains a discussion of the uncomfortable contrast between

childhood expectation versus adult reality. If you or someone you care about is affected by

adulting under the influence of unrealistic expectations or false delusions, please know you

are not alone. There is no known cure for adulthood, but like most problems in life, ignoring

it is a pretty decent coping mechanism.

Here we are, into the second week of March, wondering where the time has gone, as if the
regular demarcation of 24-hour intervals based on the earth's rotation on its axis remains a
surprising phenomenon. It's like the Earth and the Sun are our masters, and we are the dog
that is continually confused about where the ball went when the human only pretended to
throw it for us.

Where did the ball go?

What even is time?

Alright (alright, alright), philosophy and physics aside, I am stoked that the passage of time has
brought me to this particular juncture. For us educators here in Nashville, this week is
SPRING BREAK BITCHES.  If you're a teacher and have a later spring break, hang in there.
You'll make it to the promised land before long. I'll keep a seat warm for you.

I'll just be over here emptying my bladder at my leisure and eating meals at a table where I will
take time to be civilized and actually chew my food instead of (metaphorically) just shotgunning
a bottle of Soylent on the toilet. I know, I know, multitasking leads to mistakes, but we don't
need to consider the ramifications of that one.

I, for one, can’t wait to lay on the couch reading and staring out the window waiting for the
endless rain to stop.  It’s a slight departure from the fantasy spring break that 1990s MTV
promised me, in the sense that I expected to spend it just like Carson Daly. At his peak, he
was broadcasting in the sun, surrounded by the bleached, tanned, and waxed masses getting
day drunk.  Like Carson himself, that fantasy remains a well-preserved but increasingly
irrelevant relic.

Back when I was a pimply, doughy 13-year old with a bedtime and no encounters with any

substance more potent than Red Bull, I took for granted that everyone would experience
this kind of spring break as a rite of passage. If but for a brief, shining moment in time, we'd
all get to look hot in a bathing suit as a stranger slurped body shots off our toned abs, while
still more beautiful strangers bounced to club remixes in a shallow pool under the hot,
trashy, Florida sun.

Twenty years later, 33-year old me would be miserable in that MTV fever dream. I have
managed to ditch the acne and baby fat, but fully embrace a sensible bedtime. Also sunscreen.
I don't belong with the beautiful people. I don't even want that, and I'm not sure if I ever
really did. Thinking about pretending to enjoy all the gyrating and jostling is exhausting.
The very thought of all that cheap booze, sun exposure, and objectification is stomach-churning.
I think deep down, I've always known I was more of the pale, responsible, NPR-tote carrying,
Terri Gross-worshipping type.

Much as I hate to admit it, even Carson’s current day-drinking companions, Kathie Lee and
Hoda, are a still little too baller for little old me.

Don't bother saving a lounge chair for me this year. I'll just be sitting in my apartment,

savoring each bite of solid food, listening to podcasts at 1.5 speed, and plowing through

my backlog of unread Oprah magazines and holds from the public library.

Spring Break 2019, putting the #lit in literature.

Vape Lyfe

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Glossing Over

There's a slight gap in my resumé, here.  Allow me to explain:

Between July 2013 and February 2019, we have been through some times.  We as in the Royal We, and we as in the collective of our beleaguered nation, but I don't need to tell you about any of that.

Unless I suddenly take another unannounced hiatus and revisit this cyberjawn in another 6 years, when I somehow gain illicit access to a computer despite a dystopian future that closely resembles the three-way love child of the Irish Potato Famine, The Handmaid's Tale, and HBO's Westworld.  In that event, hi, person from the future.  Remember Barack Obama?  He was so good.  We miss him now, but probably not as much as you do, because it sounds like shit got way worse for you.  Sorry for everything.

Well that took a turn.  Everything seems to take an unexpected hard left into a dark alley these days.  When we last spoke in 2013, I was fixin' to move to South Carolina.  At that point in time, "fixin' to" was not in my vocabulary.  Now it is.  In South Carolina, we owned a very adulty house, we made some friends, I got sexually harassed (#metoo), and I changed careers.  Now I work with children, which no one saw coming, we live in a whack-ass apartment in Nashville, and sometimes I do standup comedy open mics because I did some soul searching and decided that public humiliation was something missing from my life.

What's the deal with male comics always talking about butt stuff?

Don't Call It A Comeback...

Cause it's a resurrection, baby.

That's right, we're raising this blog from the dead, Weekend at Bernie's style.

Or maybe Weekend at Bernie's 2, which was, as I recall, a delightful but pointless romp that sadly didn't amount to much in terms of plot or box office earnings.

Most reasonable adults would look back on things they posted to the internet nearly a decade ago and cringe, turn away in horror, and then try to discreetly sweep all of it into a metaphorical dust bin.  The thing is, the internet is forever.  What I said, I said.  Most of it was dumb, some of it was moderately amusing, a portion of it was insensitive and tone-deaf.  We all grow and change (hopefully), and as Oprah says, "When you know better, you do better."  Some things never change.  I still love Oprah.

The point is, there's no age limit on navel gazing, and it turns out, I have more to say, which means more inane things that you, dear reader, can fully ignore.

Welcome back.