MOVING

Update your bookmarks!  Actually, I feel like an ass for being so presumptuous that you’ve got this bookmarked, but if you do…

I now blog at

http://anotherdwindleddawn.blogspot.com/

WordPress, you had to have seen this coming.  I like you, WordPress, I really do, but you often run too slowly, don’t allow me to have proper site previews, or let me edit the way I want to.

Your widgets are nice, but, let’s face it: you’re selfish.  I’m going with Google, WordPress.  I’m sorry, but this is just the way it has to be.

Everyone else,

I won’t have a way (at least so far I don’t see one) to publicize my posts from blogspot, so you’ll actually have to check for updates, if you’re so inclined.

Thanks!

To My Unborn, Unconceived (Probably) Child

Please visit my new blog home at http://anotherdwindleddawn.blogspot.com

I haven’t got my period yet this cycle.  I am not stressed out about this.  Not yet.  I have had some cramps, am unnecessarily cranky and am ravenous for chocolate, so it’s just a waiting game with my ovaries at this point.  But it got me thinking: someday I could make another human!

So what would I want that human to know if I were in some horrible accident post its birth and it never knew me?  What would it have to go off of?  These blog posts?  Dear God.  The stored files on my computer?  Holy Horus.  The things people tell it? (Don’t think I’m callous because I’m calling it an “it.”  One of English’s flaws is that we do not have a third person, singular, genderless pronoun.  “Them” is plural and so grammatically incorrect.  “It” is the best I can do without using that horrible him/her concoction.)  I’m sure people would say nice stuff about me, but normally people say nice stuff about dead people which is probably more often than we realize (or want to recognize) just inflated garbage because when someone’s dead we suddenly have to be nice to them.  That doesn’t really make any sense.  What is that person gonna do about it, really?

That person is dead.

Even though I believe in ghosts and am pretty sure that if someone called me a dick once I died that I would find a way to haunt them, and not like Patrick Swayze in Ghost haunt them, but just generally make them miserable haunt them, doesn’t mean that most other people believe in ghosts or would be capable, once they die, of pulling off a successful haunt.  I imagine you need to really plan out your haunting ahead of time and hone your apparition skills (source: Beetlejuice) and just because you suddenly have an infinite amount of time on your newly transparent hands doesn’t mean the still-living cocksuckers defaming your memory are going to be around forever, waiting for you to paranormally get back at them.  And the desire to haunt them will wear off if your take too long after they’ve forgotten about how shitty you were when you were alive, so you have to get to this haunting thing right away after death.  Which is why I’ll be sweet at it because I’m thinking about it now and planning it, and no, you can‘t know about my haunting plans because then, if I die and want to haunt you but you know about what I want to do, then when creepy shit starts happening to you, you‘ll just be all “Oh, Ashley, stop that!” or “Hey, you broke my vase!  You owe me!  What’s Michael Jackson up to?”  But I won’t be able to tell you what Michael Jackson’s up to because he’s not dead, just hanging out in Dubai, but you won’t believe me because no one believes me when I tell them that–and you’d think being dead would make people find my argument a little more compelling, but you’d probably just think I was being lazy when in actuality I wouldn’t be even more the opposite of lazy because, after you’d be all “I know Michael’s not dead!” then I’d be like, “Fine…” and I’d have to go to Dubai and haunt him a little, find out, and report back to you like he’s dead.  And that’s just unsuccessful haunting all together.  Not that it will matter because most people aren’t horrible like me and think it’s okay to talk shit about the deceased, so they won’t say crap about me which is actually pretty nice.

But really, you should be much nicer to people when they’re alive, especially if they’re an asshole (ew, see, that “they” is just wrong) because people who are assholes are more likely to punch you in the face if you talk shit about them and even ghosts can’t punch.  At least not at first.  And I don’t believe it’s out of respect for the still living because, if that dead person was a jerk and you say so the other people should be like, “Yeah, Jim was kind of a douche” because chances are that Jim was a douche to the people who are saddened by his death too.  Douchiness is douchiness.  I mean, if you were a douche and then you fall out of a hot air balloon it’s not really like people have an obligation to suddenly recognize your good qualities, if any, or pretend like you were sweet.

So what I’m saying is, if my child is my child then it will probably think about this (because nature over nurture, apparently) and not really trust everything everyone says because the people who know me well enough to tell my it about me will say nice things.  Granted, those things (except for the me hating on dead people stuff) will be utterly true because I am pretty fucking sweet, but my it deserves some empirical evidence of my true existence and not the fluff that will come about because I can’t stick up for my own damn self because I’m dead.

Actually, now that I think about it, that’s pretty valiant of you, still-living people.  To push aside your own qualms and think of my it who never got a chance to know me.  That’s really, really nice.  See, now that’s a true thing I would say about you if you were dead first, “Dude, Sally would have been so sweet to my kid and told it how awesome I was if I’d have died first!  She was a saint!”  Of course, I couldn’t genuinely know that, but since you’d be dead, I would probably give you the benefit of the doubt.  Oh, gosh, becoming the thing I hate already.

Well, since you still-living people seem to have it covered, I guess I can forgo this whole thing.  Except that this entry will still exist and then cause the whole “Are these people lying to me about my mum?” question to be in my it’s head.  (Yeah, it is going to call me “mum.”  Deal with it.)

Unborn, (probably) unconceived baby, Mum was awesome.

Done.

P.S. I just got my period, so I could take out those parenthetical probablies and that whole first paragraph, but I’m not going to.  Instead, you can just relax with this little bit extra knowledge here at the end.

How To Remember Things

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Repeat what you want to remember five times to yourself. Like, if you want to get bread at the grocery store, well, you should probably just remember that, but if you don’t think you will just say, out loud, counting on your fingers (because that’s how I do it) “Bread, bread, bread, bread, bread.”

I’ve come to the conclusion that this might not work in and of itself, but because I’m convinced that it does work, and I do it, then it actually works. Like the power of suggestion or some shit.

That’s all. Just thought I’d share.

How To Lower Your Expectations

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To start out, find something you have little to no expectations about but still enjoy.  Probably a food source would work best for this.  For instance, I chose Taco Bell.  It is important that this something is not particularly meaningful nor very good, but still brings you unreasonable joy.

The next step is to pretend like you’ve never experienced the something before.  You might need someone to help you with this and you may need to bring up a conversation, for example, strategically before coming upon the something you want to pretend to experience for the first time.  Example:

Me: I’m hungry.

The Boyfriend: Well, there’s a Taco Bell right up here.

Me: What is this Tah-ko Bee-al you speak of?

The Boyfriend: Taco Bell.  You ask to go there on a daily basis.

Me: I’m sorry, but you must be confusing it with something else; I have never heard of a Tah-ko Bee-al.  Will you tell me about it?

The Boyfriend: Okay, what game are we playing that I don’t know about?

Me: *Sigh* Please just tell me about Taco Bell like I don’t know about it.

The Boyfriend (because he is great and humors me): Taco Bell is a fast food restaurant that has various Americanized Mexican foods.

Me: Is it good?  (stage whisper) Tell me that it’s bad.

The Boyfriend: Umm, is this turning into a sex game?  Because I don’t know if I like where it’s headed if it’s going to involve food that gives you diarrhea.

Me: Just tell me the quality of the food is very low.

(Side note: Step three is happening now!  You have to convince yourself that the something you’re about to experience for the first time for pretend is awful.)

The Boyfriend: The quality of the food is very low.

Me: Well, I’m hungry anyway.  We may as well give it a shot.

The Boyfriend (pulling into the drive thru): God, you’re weird.

Step four is pretty simple–have the experience.  Unless you’re really unlucky and something goes wrong like you find a toe in your burrito then whatever something you take part in will exceed your expectations.

So that’s just laying groundwork for the rest of your life and giving you a fallback experience.  Now, repeat steps one through four with increasingly bigger and higher expectationed things.  And, as a bonus, whenever someone or something lets you down, you can re-experience that original something.  For instance, when I get an email from the Red Cross about a job I was super excited for and envisioned myself in for a few weeks that tells me I am not qualified, I can just go to Taco Bell and be blown away by toe-less tacos.

It’s not really that complicated and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

Why is no one employing me to just be a genius?  Probably because I can’t spell “genius” without spellchecker.

Adventures With The Boyfriend

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I had no idea how that key lime pie yogurt was going to taste before I ate it.  But, surprisingly, that was not the most exciting thing that happened to me today.  Spoiler alert: it tasted like limey yogurt.

The Boyfriend Paul Walkered the shit out of our car ride today.  I am not even joking.  It turns out that he was planning on waking up at noon or I was supposed to wake him up at noon so he could get a book for a paper he needs to write.  I got up at 2:30 this afternoon.  Just cause: I was up til 3 am and then woke up again at 6 and at that point my body was all, “Okay, I’m good on sleep, Ashley–go do things on the internets!”

But I was like, “WTF, body, it’s only been three hours and you were like busy yesterday what with the mac n cheese and going out to dinner and shopping late at night.”

So I forced myself to stay in bed and stare at the ceiling til 9ish when I fell back to sleep.

By 2:30 I felt like I’d punished my body enough and came out to go do things on the internets.  Then I had to poop, so I did, and then I had to shower because of the pooping.  Then The Boyfriend, who independently roused himself, called in to me as I was drying off and told me he needed to go to the library and it closed at 4 so, “we have to go…now.”

There was little urgency in his voice, but then I saw it was 3:30.  Balls.

So we set off for a library branch neither of us had been to in a part of town that was completely foreign.  “Foreign,” as it turns out, is my polite word for “scary.”  No, I don’t mean foreign people, I mean not-familiar.  And full of scary people.

I was convinced we were going to make it no matter what, but that could have been the guilt of my showering and forgetfulness infringing on his book-retrieval time influencing my optimism.  But because this city is weird and there is Leonard Avenue and Old Leonard Avenue, neither of which we had to be on except for when 5^th Street became one of them for like five seconds, and because there are random one-ways and parking on the street between regular business hours in the right lane with no warning, and because city schools are overcrowded and the traffic from them insane, The Boyfriend was a little stressed about driving.  So he switched to Delivery Boy Mode.

I do not like Delivery Boy Mode.

The Boyfriend delivered pizzas at one point a few years ago.  He also used to valet.  This mixture made him not wear a seatbelt and totally disregard the safety of everyone around or in his car.  I took on the precautionary responsibility of shouting out the color of the upcoming stoplights.  I wanted to say something about how being late would be better than not making it there, or anywhere, at all, but then I felt like my mom and just said, “Yellow.  Yellow!  ORANGE!”

We actually did make it with fifteen minutes to spare thanks to The Boyfriend’s skills, so we quickly got out to go inside, but we parked on the side of the building and didn’t know where the entrance was.  Knowing right away rather than just looking was much more efficient seeing as we only had fifteen whole minutes to traverse the tiny branch, so The Boyfriend asked me if there was an entrance around back.  “The Boyfriend, I don’t know!  How am I supposed to know that?”  So, because it makes more sense for the place you enter to be at the back of a building, we went there first.  There was no entrance.  But there were hoodlums.  It was at that moment I realized that in my post-shower, fast-paced dressing I picked out unnecessarily-short-for-the weather shorts and had neglected to put on a bra but did choose a particularly tight shirt.  Granted, I am pretty pre-pubescent boy chested, but it was obvious nonetheless.

It didn’t matter though because the hoodlums weren’t hoodlums at all, just kids who hung out at the library after school, and we quickly rerouted ourselves to go in the entrance.  I just wanted to give you that sexy image of me.  You’re welcome, internets.

We found the book in record time.  In fact, the librarian was even impressed.  We know because he told us so.  And so is the combined power of one and nine tenths of an English degree.

Then we had to go to the pet store for kitten food and then I wanted Panda Express which The Boyfriend has never had before.  I learned once that by crying The Boyfriend will take me to the Chinese buffet, so I know that he doesn’t hate bad Asian food, but I still got all stressed out about the decision because I hate making food decisions.  The only good thing that came from my choice was that now I don’t have to make one again for at least a month because I can say, “Uh, I JUST picked Panda Express, The Boyfriend.  It’s your turn.”  At that point we had to get back home because being outside in the daylight for more than an hour was really way too stressful for either of us.

Then I learned: The Boyfriend is paranoid.  I am too, but I am aware that I am predisposed to paranoia, so I have to keep myself in check now that I realize The Boyfriend is the same way, or maybe worse.  On the way back we drove through a few random alleys because apparently just going straight until High Street then left and left again to our street was too much.  I was like, “Hey, this is the way I walked when I had to park a million miles away.  I don’t feel like we should be driving here–it’s awfully pedestrian,” but The Boyfriend was just all, “Where’s my apartment?!”

Then there was an alley which wasn’t an alley at all but a parking lot for an apartment complex that he was like, “Should I go down here?” and then did, so I was like, “Sure!” because he already made the turn even though I knew it was a parking lot.  It turned out fine because the lot was open on both ends and got us closer to home anyhow.

But there was a dude standing by his car in the parking lot and he waved and The Boyfriend waved back then was all, “I think that was my landlord.”  I told him it definitely was because the same realty group owned the place we were driving through and where we live.  Then I had a mini panic attack:

“That guy was in the parking lot yesterday–he saw me get in your car and drive away!  He knows, he knows!”

(Side note: No one is supposed to live in this apartment except for The Boyfriend.  Not me, not the cats.)

But The Boyfriend didn’t care about that.  He was, however, weirded out that Landlord recognize him.  He told me he’d only met Landlord a few times, and that was when he had long hair (The Boyfriend, not Landlord–I doubt Landlord has changed his haircut since he got into the realty business so his actual face matches his face on billboards and the like), so there was no way he could know who he was now.  No. Way.  It was totally weird.

So I had to bring it down:

“You have this parking thing with his name on it hanging from your rearview…You were driving into *his* parking lot, he had to think you were a tenant there…He’s one of those guys who owns so much stuff and deals with so many people he probably just–”

“Waves at everybody?”

“Exactly.”

Then we came back and ate Panda Express and watched Community on Hulu even though The Boyfriend wanted to read.

I don’t really have a good ending to this, but I ate six pieces of toast tonight and now I feel awful.

Shouldn’t have eaten that yogurt.

I trusted those holes and they betrayed me

Please visit my new blog home at http://anotherdwindleddawn.blogspot.com

I had an insanely disappointing experience with maccarroni and cheese this morning.

I just know my whole day is going to be ruined.

You see, there is a very specific, albeit intuition-based, science to making boxed mac n cheese. I violated that on so many levels today. I really deserve the tragedy that befell me, but my acceptance of that doesn’t remove my disappointment nor make my tummy any more full of mac n cheese.

First, a little history.  I had my first experiences with boxed mac n cheese with Lyndsey.  It was one of the few things as growing insatiable middle schoolers we could cook on our own.  Since I was always over at Lyndsey’s house, she was in charge of the cooking.  She made it just right that first time, setting my expectations high.  Amazing.  However, that was apparently where she lucked out because on subsequent occasions she burnt, undercooked, or (the worst) flooded the mac n cheese.

I took on all mac n cheese cooking responsibilities from there.

I tried out different brands of boxed mac n cheese dinners.  Even those single-serving ones by Kraft.  Disgusting.  But then all Kraft mac n cheese is gross.  Add water?  Really?  Ew.  I found Kroger mac n cheese to be the best.

Since then I’ve loved the stuff and decoded the exact, eye-balled amount of milk to tip into the pan and the heaping spoonful of Country Crock to add to the salted noodles and bio-hazard-orange cheese.  It’s fucking magical.

But this morning it all came crashing down on me like so many unopened boxes of the stuff.

Too much milk.  I flooded it.  The worst.

There’s no going back once you flood mac n cheese because you don’t realize it’s happened until after you start to stir and you can see the milky, pale orange water collecting on the bottom of the pan behind every stir. By then half of the cheese mixture is just gone unless you’re willing to drink the stuff. You desperately try to stir harder, hoping it’s going to thicken, but in vain.  You know it won’t.  With every mix of the spoon it just gets worse.  You’ve coated the noodles thinly, that cunnilingus-resembling sound that Jo Koy talks about is nonexistent, and you know there’s only one possible salvage technique that’s going to leave what was once going to be a steamy, glorious lunch as a sub-par snack: you’ve got to drain it.

Draining never works that well–you have less flavor and no thickness.  But you’ll do anything to avoid sipping at cheese water.  My problem was in my pot choice.  I was lazy this morning–a victim of my own devices.  I used the black pot which has no lid but was clean instead of just washing the red one with the non-ill-fitting lid with built-in draining holes.  Now, I drained the boiling water with this lid, but that was with the severe concentration of my hungry, giddy, middle-school-minded self.  Now, as I held the slightly-too-big-cover just at the edge of the pot I was a jaded, 22-year-old, unemployed college grad about to eat watery mac n cheese for breakfast at 2:42 in the afternoon.

Life sucked.

And then my futile grip, and ergo my will to go on, gave way, and two thirds of the orange, liquid mess rained down on a sink already filled to its brim with dishes.  I wanted to scream out in anguish, to berate the sky with the sorrow and anger ready to burst worth from me, but The Boyfriend was asleep having worked overnight, so instead I cursed the lid for its inadequacy in the hushed tones of a stage whisper:

“You fucking fuck.  I cannot fucking believe this shittiness.  What a dick move, lid.  Seriously.  You are an asshole.  A total fucking asshole.  A cocksucker of epic proportions.  Ser-i-ous-ly.  I hope you suck cocks in hell when you die, and I hope you hate it.  For real, lid.  I am not even playing anymore.  Fuck you and fuck your holes.  All of them.  Both sides.  The big holes and the little holes.  What, you thought I’d take mercy on the little holes because they’re little?  Fuck no I won’t.  I trusted those holes and they betrayed me like little fucking betraying betrayers.  I am not even going to let anything cool down even a tiny bit ever again before using you to strain stuff.  I’m serious.  You suck.”

I was pretty upset.

Left with half of a cereal bowl worth of thinly-coated, watery, orange noodle soup that vaguely smelled of the former glory I had envisioned, I thought I could add some shredded cheese to it to give it some thickness.  It was still hot enough to melt it anyway.  I only had Mexican blend in the fridge, but I really enjoy Mexican cheese, so it couldn’t hurt, right? Fucking wrong! It was awful. Too salty, greasy, and the flavors were just off.

So I had some toast, which is pretty hard to fuck up, and called it a meal.  The barrage of noodles is still all over the dishes in the sink.  I have to go clean that shit up now.

The whole thing was just so disappointing.  I mean, I ate it, but I was not happy about it.

What Do You Do With a BA in English?

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Oh, it is time to start writing again.

I woke up this afternoon to all kinds of awesome.  Ideas, that is.  I finally have my life figured out. That’s right–done.  I am going to online tutor for moolah, I am going to write some blogs for a little more cash, and I’m going to write romance novels.  My life will revolve around the written word even more so and I will always be happy.  I will also be a professional job applicant who is never called in for interviews.  You know, just someone to give the people who look over resumes something to shred.  Or send to their delete folder.  I will do this for free out of the goodness of my heart.

As it turns out, I am qualified for nothing.  I spent four years in college working my tail off and three years tutoring to come out with no skills except, ya know, I can write good.  I have a BA in English, but this song was right all along.  I feel like a total asshole for the seminars I hosted, bringing in people who have real jobs to talk to prospective graduates like when they go out into the world they too will get real jobs and become real people with real lives and more real stuff.

I would like some real please.

Instead I am here typing at midnight and will be up for at least four more hours because I don’t have to be awake tomorrow until…well I have a dinner date at 8:00pm.

I can’t really complain though: I love my life.  I love waking up next to The Boyfriend.  I wrote him a poem today which was inspired by this lady who I idolize and think is like a billion times funnier, blonde me. (I called The Boyfriend “The Boyfriend” before reading her blog, btw.  Also, I had my hyperbole cartoon pre-knowing-about-her too.  So there.)  My friends who I also love are on the verge of graduating with degrees in actual things too such as journalism, teaching and computer-inter-technolo-webz so I can live off them if need be seeing as The Boyfriend is also working on his English degree.  Hopefully, though, he never graduates and keeps his totally rad student job.  Or gets an awesome job with the school and then marries me so I can have some health insurance.

Not that it matters because I’m about to start spitting out some world class sexy-time writing.  Well, no, not really.  This romance stuff is just as hard as I thought it’d be.  That is to say, I’m freaking myself out trying to be good.  Because readers deserve good writing and the only way any publisher is going to pick me up is if it’s good.  Don’t get me wrong, though, I am not convinced this will be an easy task at all, I just need to hype myself up so I go through with it.

Being published would be my only actual ever dream coming true.  Like, I have wanted things to happen before and worked towards goals and stuff, but I’ve never for so long desired, fantasized over, and made so many deals with the devil/promises to God I never intend to keep about as this being an author thing.  Oh, I feel so teeny tiny when I say that like I’m looking up at the whole enormous world from an itty bitty stool, touching the tips of my fingers together in front of my mouth and gnawing on my inner lip and blinking giant eyes that take up my whole forehead.  Not giant like creepy, but giant like cute and scared.  Basically this is me as seen by what I imagine everything is when I think about my name on a book cover with my story inside:

.

That would have been funnier if WordPress would let me put more whitespace between paragraphs, but whatever.

Did you know I actually sent a short story into a magazine?  Like almost a month ago.  Uh hu.  This is like a regular wait time though, so it’s not like they’ve rejected me and just decided to ignore me.  Not yet.  Not like all the possible employers I’ve applied to.  They’ll get back to me.  It hasn’t been that long.  Not THAT long.  Stop freaking out, okay?  Jeez!

Okay, so this was a lot of hard work.  Too much real.  Thanks, world.  It’s time for me to go eat some peanut butter and play video games.  Yeay!