I am pretty tall, 6 foot, which I think registers me as "pretty damn tall" as far as women go. My whole life people, usually much shorter than me, would tell me I should appreciate my height, and that I was really lucky to be so tall. Notice it was always shorter people who said this to me, and they said it as though they had gained some sort of wisdom being short that I had missed out on. I think if the tables had been turned and I took them aside and said "Look- appreciate being short! You're very lucky" they probably would have been a little miffed at me. Yeah I know- we want what we can't have, the grass is always greener, yadda yadda.
Which reminds me of a time at church when I was about 13 or 14 and spent my Sunday mornings singing with the youth choir in front of the whole church. After the service an older lady, who I believe was the mom of a girl a few years older than me, took me aside and said "Sweetie you're so beautiful... but you should wear makeup. Then you wouldn't look so tired and dead up there!" She smiled at me kind of expectantly, like I was supposed to thank her for pointing out how pale and tired I looked. I stared at her for a good 15 seconds, and then I turned around and walked away. My mom was horrified and chastised me for being rude, but truly I thought this was a lecture this woman should have received instead. I pointed this out and my mom insisted she was just trying to be kind and didn't realize how fracking RUDE she was being. Especially to a teenage girl. Especially to a teenage girl who didn't identify with the other teenage girls her age, especially to a teenage girl who found all that "girl" stuff kind of pointless and stupid. Especially a teenage girl who already felt pretty alienated from her peers, for a myriad of reasons, one of them being her height.
Anyways, height. People have things they dislike about themselves, things they long to change. One of mine has always been my height, although I'm fresh out of options for changing that. For a long time I never really noticed it, but as I grew older people felt compelled to point it out. Especially when I gained a fondness for heels, especially very high heels. I began to truly tower over everyone, leading people to ask me my least favorite question: "Why are you wearing those? You're already tall." Nevermind that I just liked the way they looked, that I was aesthetically drawn to them. I don't really wear heels anymore, or if I do they have very small heels. I have a pair of platform heels that have 4 inches on them and I LOVE the way they look- but not so much the way I look on me. With them on I am 6 foot 4, an unacceptable height for someone in the real world. I'm sure things would be much different if I was an actress or a model but unfortunately I am neither.
I brought up this discussion on facebook, trying to detail how I've struggled with this fact of my being for many years, and I got a lot of "well you don't have it so bad" comments. And I know that, I know other people struggle with things much worse than this, that they struggle much harder and longer than I ever have and ever will. But for christ's sake this is MY struggle, and just because it's not as bad as being under 5 foot or being born with no arms or legs doesn't mean it's meaningless. So in case any of you are reading this and feel that argument bubbling up inside of you, I'll say this- I have a wonderful life, I have been so lucky, and so blessed in so many aspects of my life. I am well educated, I am privileged, I am well adjusted. But I struggle with this, and no amount of "quit whining, you have it good" will ever take that away.
Some days I wake up and life goes on like usual, I dress for work and slip my flats on and go about my business. But some days, today being one of those days, I wake up and I feel the full effects of being so tall. Today i got up and was looking at a trinket on my wall, which my head is level with. I considered that if I was a "normal" height, this trinket would be above me. I stoop down and try to imagine what it would be like to go through life at a normal height. When I was younger I dreamed of having some sort of surgery where they would cut the bones of my legs to make me shorter. Now I know that even if some sort of wacky surgeon was offering that surgery today I would not take him up on his offer. My height is what it is and one day I'll get old and start to shrink and I think that will be the one thing I enjoy about aging.
And one day I'll have a child or children and if it's a girl I hope she does not inherit my extreme height. I hope she is 5 foot 8, making her tall for a girl but still completely accepted among her peers. She won't feel, as I read on a blog once, "out of scale among groups of women friends, clumsily photoshopped into the scene." But if she is as tall as me, or taller, I hope I can tuck away my own insecurities and show her, daily, breezily, effortlessly, that it's no big deal. That being tall is a fine thing, that she is still a normal person even if she is 8 inches taller than her best friends, even if she gets stuck in the back row with the boys in elementary school pictures.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
sense memory
Smells, sights, sounds, textures that take you to another place. This happens to me a lot, probably because I have an extremely over active imagination. That always sounds like a good thing when you're in kindergarten and your teacher is complimenting your mom about your "vivid sense of imagination" but it turns out not to be a good thing when you live alone and imagine just all the ways a person could break in and kill you, or when you're in the woods and start thinking about bear attack scenarios. But like it or not I'm all imaginative and shit, and I have a pretty good memory. And great hearing- but that's another story.
But sense memory... I have a lip gloss that I never used but kept around because when I smelled it I remembered being 6 and playing with "my little ponies." I guess it was this kind of plastic-y girly powdery smell. I drive home and the sun is setting, casting a glow on the trees and I'm remembering walking home from the bus in high school in fall. It's October so it's getting darker out and I'm excited about Halloween. It's warm in the day but cold when the sun goes down and I hate that, because when it's so cold and dark I can hear this weird roaring sound that I think comes from the airport but it makes me nervous, like when you see a storm coming from a long way away.
I don't know if this counts as sense memory but every time I'm reading a news article about a court case and see the words "not guilty" I think of my dad. When I was 9 or so I was asking him about something and asked why they weren't found "innocent." He looked at me and said "Emma no one is ever found innocent, they can only be found not guilty. No court will ever declare someone innocent." He looked at me and all the sudden my childish notions about justice evaporated. I realized that once you are accused you can never again be innocent. Once that happens it doesn't matter if you really are innocent or not, a line is drawn and now the best you can do is convince someone you're not guilty. Today I was reading an article about "the Iceman" and it said "he was found innocent in connection with the death" and immediately I thought "you can't be found innocent, TIME magazine, you can only be found not guilty."
And this song reminds me of something that I can't quite put my finger on. You'd think it's Russia but it's not. And ignore the weird video, the song's title is "City of the green color" so take that how you will
But sense memory... I have a lip gloss that I never used but kept around because when I smelled it I remembered being 6 and playing with "my little ponies." I guess it was this kind of plastic-y girly powdery smell. I drive home and the sun is setting, casting a glow on the trees and I'm remembering walking home from the bus in high school in fall. It's October so it's getting darker out and I'm excited about Halloween. It's warm in the day but cold when the sun goes down and I hate that, because when it's so cold and dark I can hear this weird roaring sound that I think comes from the airport but it makes me nervous, like when you see a storm coming from a long way away.
I don't know if this counts as sense memory but every time I'm reading a news article about a court case and see the words "not guilty" I think of my dad. When I was 9 or so I was asking him about something and asked why they weren't found "innocent." He looked at me and said "Emma no one is ever found innocent, they can only be found not guilty. No court will ever declare someone innocent." He looked at me and all the sudden my childish notions about justice evaporated. I realized that once you are accused you can never again be innocent. Once that happens it doesn't matter if you really are innocent or not, a line is drawn and now the best you can do is convince someone you're not guilty. Today I was reading an article about "the Iceman" and it said "he was found innocent in connection with the death" and immediately I thought "you can't be found innocent, TIME magazine, you can only be found not guilty."
And this song reminds me of something that I can't quite put my finger on. You'd think it's Russia but it's not. And ignore the weird video, the song's title is "City of the green color" so take that how you will
Thursday, June 9, 2011
feeling old and young
I've been feeling really weird lately about something extremely typical and, dare I say, cliché.
I feel old.
I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now. It all started when I saw a young couple walking along the side of the road. They looked like they were maybe 16 or 17 and were obviously in some sort of very new and sparklingly wonderful relationship. Cue my next cliché statement "ah, young love." Anyways they were so young and so happy, kind of tentatively touching each other in a careless but still very calculated way. All this young, happy love predictably depressed me- because it feels like just yesterday that I was 16, shiny and new.
Not to say that I'm unhappy- I'm not really. I'm about as moderately happy as a person who lives a solitary life can be. And it's not going to be solitary forever so I can deal with that. But just seven years ago I was 16, and in another 7 years I'll be 30.
I can remember my whole life feeling like I was going down a path that was directly in front of me, and for so long my goal was to get to high school. And then I got to high school and my goal was to do well and set myself up for a good college, and I was so wrapped up in this goal that I didn't notice my life progress, I didn't notice my body grow and change, I didn't notice my mind shift inside my own head. And then one day I was graduating high school and at that point me and my friends all exclaimed how old we were getting- but we didn't really believe it. We exclaimed about our age but at the same time we knew we were still very young.
And so I feel old but still very young. My path that was laid out for me has come to an end and now I'm the one that has to figure out where the hell I'm going. In this way I feel old- I don't particularly like the responsibility of figuring this out alone. At the same time I recognize I can do pretty much whatever I want (except maybe firefighting. Not that I want to do that... but seriously that's not ever happening) and I am still young enough to really shake things up if I want. Like I could move to Sri Lanka and fight child marriage if I wanted. I could get a PhD in Soviet film if I wanted. I could get married, move to a farm and have 15 kids if I wanted.
But everytime I think about going back to school I can't help but frame it with my age. "By the time I finished that program I'd be 27... By the time I finished and started my residency I'd be 28...."
I guess at the heart of it I want to really live up my 20's and am scared to lose track of my own life and my own aging. I don't want to wake up one day and realize I'm 30 and not know what I was doing.
Well that turned out more ramble-y than I intended.
For the video of the day: my true future self
Monday, May 30, 2011
Leonard Cohen poem
I heard of a man
who says words so beautifully
that if he only speaks their name
women give themselves to him.
that if he only speaks their name
women give themselves to him.
If I am dumb beside your body
while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips
it is because I hear a man climb the stairs and clear his throat outside our door.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
sorry blog
Hey blog, I got a job! So I guess this is goodbye...
Just kidding. But I do have considerably less free time now, which is a completely excellent thing. When you're working and you're bored or frustrated sometimes you fantasize about what it would be like to not have a job and do whatever you want all day long. But unfortunately it's not as fun as it seems, mostly because you can't enjoy doing anything without having a nagging worry about spending money and spiraling into debt and ending up on the street.
So yes, job is good. I'm a receptionist for a construction firm and they pay me well so all in all it's very nice and the job is easy. I mostly answer phones and transfer the caller to the correct extension. And the callers don't yell at me, so that's good. Once someone called and was kind of grumbling at me about a superintendent on a job site and was like "HE GOT THE WRONG TIME ZONE!" and I was just like "oh sorry about that, I'll let him know" and then he hung up. One of my jobs the other day was sorting through resumes, categorizing and filing them. This involved me reading the resumes and I realized I don't know if I could be in HR or any capacity where it was my job to hire someone. It wasn't that the resumes were tedious or annoying, although some of them desperately needed reformatting, but you could see the desperation written all over the page. Everyone was unemployed, most everyone had been laid off, and most everyone was willing to do absolutely anything as long as it was a job. So yeah, I count myself lucky.
Besides that my life is still pretty dull. I went to the theatre and saw Bridesmaids last weekend and while it was funny and sweet and endearing, I still can't believe it has been heralded as the movie to set the "path" for truly funny women. While it was "raunchy" it still had tameness about it. It was advertised as the anti "rom com," but it was still so formulaic! All in all I was a little disappointed. I was entertained and I laughed and I loved Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph but it seemed reined in somehow. Also I felt like Melissa McCarthy's character was trying way WAAAAAYYY too hard.
Well that's it for now. I'm doing some thrift store shopping today, still looking for wooden outdoor chairs that I can refinish. Also getting a sandwich at the best damn sandwich place in the world. I kind of wish this wasn't a three day weekend and I could just go to work tomorrow. That's how pathetic I am.
Just kidding. But I do have considerably less free time now, which is a completely excellent thing. When you're working and you're bored or frustrated sometimes you fantasize about what it would be like to not have a job and do whatever you want all day long. But unfortunately it's not as fun as it seems, mostly because you can't enjoy doing anything without having a nagging worry about spending money and spiraling into debt and ending up on the street.
So yes, job is good. I'm a receptionist for a construction firm and they pay me well so all in all it's very nice and the job is easy. I mostly answer phones and transfer the caller to the correct extension. And the callers don't yell at me, so that's good. Once someone called and was kind of grumbling at me about a superintendent on a job site and was like "HE GOT THE WRONG TIME ZONE!" and I was just like "oh sorry about that, I'll let him know" and then he hung up. One of my jobs the other day was sorting through resumes, categorizing and filing them. This involved me reading the resumes and I realized I don't know if I could be in HR or any capacity where it was my job to hire someone. It wasn't that the resumes were tedious or annoying, although some of them desperately needed reformatting, but you could see the desperation written all over the page. Everyone was unemployed, most everyone had been laid off, and most everyone was willing to do absolutely anything as long as it was a job. So yeah, I count myself lucky.
Besides that my life is still pretty dull. I went to the theatre and saw Bridesmaids last weekend and while it was funny and sweet and endearing, I still can't believe it has been heralded as the movie to set the "path" for truly funny women. While it was "raunchy" it still had tameness about it. It was advertised as the anti "rom com," but it was still so formulaic! All in all I was a little disappointed. I was entertained and I laughed and I loved Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph but it seemed reined in somehow. Also I felt like Melissa McCarthy's character was trying way WAAAAAYYY too hard.
Well that's it for now. I'm doing some thrift store shopping today, still looking for wooden outdoor chairs that I can refinish. Also getting a sandwich at the best damn sandwich place in the world. I kind of wish this wasn't a three day weekend and I could just go to work tomorrow. That's how pathetic I am.
Friday, May 13, 2011
sun safety propaganda
With summer fast approaching it's really, truly beginning. I mentioned this earlier. THE SUN. It thirsts for your blood.
I saw this video recently and by the end of it I was crying:
Besides the obvious, I'm not sure why it upset me so much. And I don't mean to diminish the cause by joking about it, because I fear skin cancer and believe in preventing it. I was the one in college tsk-tsking my friends trips to the tanning beds, bringing extra sun screen and reciting cancer statistics. Of course they ignored me. But I haven't always been so conscientious, unfortunately. As a child I resisted the sunscreen, and although my mother did her damndest to hold me down and slather me up I've had a few bad burns in my lifetime. Back then (ohhh sooo many years ago. Not.) sunscreen wasn't as convenient as it is now, and was usually gloppy and white and cold, and your skin never absorbed it very well so you were sure to be streaked in white even 30 minutes after applying it. Now a days there are gels, sprays, SPF in moisturizer and makeup, SPF even in sunless tanner.
I guess my concern and fear comes from the fact that I feel no matter what I do I'll still get sick. I'm fair skinned with blonde hair and blue eyes, up there on the chart of most likely to get skin cancer. And despite all my knowledge about protecting my skin, there were times in my life where I just didn't care, as a child hating the process, and as a teenager just wanting to fit in and enjoy the sun like everyone else. All I can do now is just hope for the best and keep an eye out for weird moles.
Wellll that was depressing. So protect your skin! Watch the video! Wear a hat and sunscreen but still go outside and enjoy yourself. Doooo it.
In conclusion, enjoy this article about chihuahua derby racing.
I saw this video recently and by the end of it I was crying:
Besides the obvious, I'm not sure why it upset me so much. And I don't mean to diminish the cause by joking about it, because I fear skin cancer and believe in preventing it. I was the one in college tsk-tsking my friends trips to the tanning beds, bringing extra sun screen and reciting cancer statistics. Of course they ignored me. But I haven't always been so conscientious, unfortunately. As a child I resisted the sunscreen, and although my mother did her damndest to hold me down and slather me up I've had a few bad burns in my lifetime. Back then (ohhh sooo many years ago. Not.) sunscreen wasn't as convenient as it is now, and was usually gloppy and white and cold, and your skin never absorbed it very well so you were sure to be streaked in white even 30 minutes after applying it. Now a days there are gels, sprays, SPF in moisturizer and makeup, SPF even in sunless tanner.
I guess my concern and fear comes from the fact that I feel no matter what I do I'll still get sick. I'm fair skinned with blonde hair and blue eyes, up there on the chart of most likely to get skin cancer. And despite all my knowledge about protecting my skin, there were times in my life where I just didn't care, as a child hating the process, and as a teenager just wanting to fit in and enjoy the sun like everyone else. All I can do now is just hope for the best and keep an eye out for weird moles.
Wellll that was depressing. So protect your skin! Watch the video! Wear a hat and sunscreen but still go outside and enjoy yourself. Doooo it.
In conclusion, enjoy this article about chihuahua derby racing.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
love this song
and I know, and you know it too, that a love like ours is terrible news
but that won't stop me crying, no that won't stop me crying over you
but that won't stop me crying, no that won't stop me crying over you
Monday, May 2, 2011
the internet improves my life. also ruins it. everyday.
Sometimes (alright let's be real... ALL THE TIME) I get online and either I stumble or find a link that's so delightful and wonderful and I laugh and think about how lucky I am. Whether it be a website selling the world's biggest gummi bear or this video about the human slinky:
Human-slinky by bbqkarubi
Or finally finding out about kittehroulette.
And then, inevitably, I will come across something immensely upsetting. LIKE THIS ARTICLE ABOUT "NEW" SUN SAFETY RULES!
NOOOOO!!
Sunblock no longer good enough. Now you have to wear an "antioxidant enriched moisturizer"! WHAT IS THAT. Or how about this:
"Old rule: A little sun is healthy—20 minutes three times a week allows your body to produce vitamin D.
New rule: It’s not smart to go out-of-doors unprotected."
Kids- the sun is your enemy. It does want to kill you. Do not leave your home without slathering up. At the very least you will get ugly looking from wrinkles and at the very worst you will DIE.
And I knowww that it's most likely bullshit, that you can go outdoors to get the mail without sunscreen and you'll live to tell the tale. My logical brain knows this. My grandfather is approaching 95 years old and lived and worked on a farm when sunscreen wasn't even a thought. But also my grandfather lived in Minnesota and didn't spend the summer laying outside in a bikini. In Florida.
And while I know this is likely advertising execs trying to manipulate me and I know I should resist... I can't. I pass the sunscreen aisle and my neurotic, anxiety prone, slightly hypochondriac self can't pass it up. Bought the sunscreen. Will wear it.
And of course at the end of the summer, I will find a mole that has most likely always been there and then convince myself I have cancer. Then half an hour later I will convince myself I am dying of cancer.
Damn you internet. Damn you.
Human-slinky by bbqkarubi
Or finally finding out about kittehroulette.
And then, inevitably, I will come across something immensely upsetting. LIKE THIS ARTICLE ABOUT "NEW" SUN SAFETY RULES!
NOOOOO!!
Sunblock no longer good enough. Now you have to wear an "antioxidant enriched moisturizer"! WHAT IS THAT. Or how about this:
"Old rule: A little sun is healthy—20 minutes three times a week allows your body to produce vitamin D.
New rule: It’s not smart to go out-of-doors unprotected."
Kids- the sun is your enemy. It does want to kill you. Do not leave your home without slathering up. At the very least you will get ugly looking from wrinkles and at the very worst you will DIE.
And I knowww that it's most likely bullshit, that you can go outdoors to get the mail without sunscreen and you'll live to tell the tale. My logical brain knows this. My grandfather is approaching 95 years old and lived and worked on a farm when sunscreen wasn't even a thought. But also my grandfather lived in Minnesota and didn't spend the summer laying outside in a bikini. In Florida.
And while I know this is likely advertising execs trying to manipulate me and I know I should resist... I can't. I pass the sunscreen aisle and my neurotic, anxiety prone, slightly hypochondriac self can't pass it up. Bought the sunscreen. Will wear it.
And of course at the end of the summer, I will find a mole that has most likely always been there and then convince myself I have cancer. Then half an hour later I will convince myself I am dying of cancer.
Damn you internet. Damn you.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
feeling alone
Every night I check the closets, the bathroom, and everything else in my 600 square foot apartment. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and tense when I hear a noise. My ears strain, and the silence roars. My imagination whirs, I think of someone breaking down the door, coming in while I'm asleep. I reach out to touch Ryan's gun, which isn't even loaded, then my hand shrinks away. I've only shot the thing once and hated it so I can't actually imagine myself shooting someone.
Eventually I hear the creaking steps of the upstairs neighbors, bane of my existence ever since we got a "notice" from the landlord saying that someone had complained about "loud voices" coming from our apartment after quiet hours. I'm certain it was the upstairs neighbors and now track their every indiscretion in a notebook, my eyes slitted, hating them even though I know nothing about them except they like the word "fuck" and they smoke, because I can hear them coughing all the time. I'm not quite sure what I will do with the list of indiscretions, but it makes me feel better to track those coughing bastards, their late night parties and their drunken name calling and crying.
It's harder to be alone than I imagined. Hopefully I'll score a !!!JOB!!!! soon and will be more preoccupied.
Eventually I hear the creaking steps of the upstairs neighbors, bane of my existence ever since we got a "notice" from the landlord saying that someone had complained about "loud voices" coming from our apartment after quiet hours. I'm certain it was the upstairs neighbors and now track their every indiscretion in a notebook, my eyes slitted, hating them even though I know nothing about them except they like the word "fuck" and they smoke, because I can hear them coughing all the time. I'm not quite sure what I will do with the list of indiscretions, but it makes me feel better to track those coughing bastards, their late night parties and their drunken name calling and crying.
It's harder to be alone than I imagined. Hopefully I'll score a !!!JOB!!!! soon and will be more preoccupied.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Cat Food whaaat
After I saw those weird, psychedelic Friskies commercials I didn't think I could possibly feel weirder about cat food
Until I read this article about the marketing campaign. Apparently Friskies was hoping to reach out to cat owners who are really, realllly into the experience of feeding their cat. And I quote:
" "Feeding wet," as Schlueter calls it, can for some owners be a highly ritualized and intimate pet interaction... This is a time for cats and owners to bond over a heap of moist, processed meat. And, according to Schlueter, many owners like to imagine what their cats are feeling and thinking during these moments of culinary ecstasy. This trippy ad, which is for wet food, is meant to capture the altered consciousness of the cat—the sensually heightened bliss it derives from chewing on a pile of damp Friskies."
Disgusting. So after I read that I thought, no, things cannot possibly get more bizarre.
Then I saw this "commercial" (although it's more of a short film):
WHAAAAAT. What was that? I looked it up and found it on youtube and watched it again. Then I called Ryan in the room and made him watch it. I tried to think of what Fancy Feast was up to... what is the point of that? Who are they marketing to?
And then I realized they are marketing to ME. Women cat lovers, in the 20 to mid 30's range, most likely educated young professional women of the marriageable age who are seeing their friends settle down and who long for the same. This woman looks like someone I could know and who is probably a little bit older than me. But she could be ME. She met a man who loves her so much that he noticed that she loves cats (Ryan said if I invited him over to meet my parents for the first time and then spent the whole evening playing with a cat that this most likely would be a deal breaker for him. But obviously this young commercial man finds it endearing), or more specifically ugly fluffy white cats with smooshed in faces who will deposit their very, very long fur on every item of clothing you own so you will need to at all times have a sticky hair roller in your purse, and a back-up in your car so you won't trail long, white cat hair everywhere you go, whether it be the doctor's office or a very important interview. But I digress...
Of course then comes the transformation of the bachelor pad into a little kitty paradise, the PROPOSAL (I also suggested to Ryan that he might want to take note of that. From the look he gave me, I'm guessing my suggestion was not noted), the very subtle but effective view of the rInG!!!!@!@!@! And of course everything in boxes, moving, starting your life together, just you, your honey and your little kitty cat. And feed that little surrogate child some fancy feast IF, of course, you truly love your cat. Because here comes the punch-line, "the best ingredient is love." Of course if you really loved your cat you would feed them wet food only sparingly, since it causes their little kitty kidneys to malfunction and eventually kill them. Or so the vet said.
Anyways- creepy to realize you are being pandered to and sought after. In a cat food commercial. Fancy feast wants me...
Until I read this article about the marketing campaign. Apparently Friskies was hoping to reach out to cat owners who are really, realllly into the experience of feeding their cat. And I quote:
" "Feeding wet," as Schlueter calls it, can for some owners be a highly ritualized and intimate pet interaction... This is a time for cats and owners to bond over a heap of moist, processed meat. And, according to Schlueter, many owners like to imagine what their cats are feeling and thinking during these moments of culinary ecstasy. This trippy ad, which is for wet food, is meant to capture the altered consciousness of the cat—the sensually heightened bliss it derives from chewing on a pile of damp Friskies."
Disgusting. So after I read that I thought, no, things cannot possibly get more bizarre.
Then I saw this "commercial" (although it's more of a short film):
WHAAAAAT. What was that? I looked it up and found it on youtube and watched it again. Then I called Ryan in the room and made him watch it. I tried to think of what Fancy Feast was up to... what is the point of that? Who are they marketing to?
And then I realized they are marketing to ME. Women cat lovers, in the 20 to mid 30's range, most likely educated young professional women of the marriageable age who are seeing their friends settle down and who long for the same. This woman looks like someone I could know and who is probably a little bit older than me. But she could be ME. She met a man who loves her so much that he noticed that she loves cats (Ryan said if I invited him over to meet my parents for the first time and then spent the whole evening playing with a cat that this most likely would be a deal breaker for him. But obviously this young commercial man finds it endearing), or more specifically ugly fluffy white cats with smooshed in faces who will deposit their very, very long fur on every item of clothing you own so you will need to at all times have a sticky hair roller in your purse, and a back-up in your car so you won't trail long, white cat hair everywhere you go, whether it be the doctor's office or a very important interview. But I digress...
Of course then comes the transformation of the bachelor pad into a little kitty paradise, the PROPOSAL (I also suggested to Ryan that he might want to take note of that. From the look he gave me, I'm guessing my suggestion was not noted), the very subtle but effective view of the rInG!!!!@!@!@! And of course everything in boxes, moving, starting your life together, just you, your honey and your little kitty cat. And feed that little surrogate child some fancy feast IF, of course, you truly love your cat. Because here comes the punch-line, "the best ingredient is love." Of course if you really loved your cat you would feed them wet food only sparingly, since it causes their little kitty kidneys to malfunction and eventually kill them. Or so the vet said.
Anyways- creepy to realize you are being pandered to and sought after. In a cat food commercial. Fancy feast wants me...
Friday, April 22, 2011
I have to cook now
That's what sucks about being an "adult" and living on your own and shit.
I have to cook. EVERY DAY. Unless I want to live on coffee (I view even this as a cooking ordeal. Ryan bought a coffee pot and I swear the thing hates me. It doesn't recognize me as its master and therefore feels free to fuck up my coffee or just somehow malfunction and drip coffee grounds all over the counter. And it hisses at me like a cockroach) and cereal all day every day I have to COOK. For the first two weeks in our apartment Ryan and I (scratch that. just me) were really excited about cooking. I looked up recipes and tried to master techniques. Well now we're in week three and I'm definitely over it.
Last night I made a meatloaf. It's my mom's recipe and it's delicious if you're into meatloaf. I made it for Ryan before he returned to the good ol' South and he loved it. So I made it again, but this time just for me. Now I'm eating meatloaf for the next five days, which is fine because now I don't have to cook for five days. But kind of gross too.
Another thing about being "ADULT" (yeah right) is I go bonkers now if any of the food goes bad because I spent my money on it so now it matters if money is being wasted. So I was going through the fridge making sure all the food was being consumed and I found some two week old carrots. I'm thinking shit, now I have to eat like 8 raw carrots because it's NOT getting wasted. Then I looked at the meatloaf and you knowwww what I put carrots in the meatloaf. Sounds insane but didn't really notice them. It's like those dumb Chef Boyardee commercials about the secret vegetables in that god awful ravioli.
It's always good to teach children early on that vegetables are gross. And ravioli is the only thing you will ever need in your life. Also- don't pay attention to food labels. Just eat it. I think that's a lesson for the masses.
One thing I will say (until I retract it)- making my own salad dressing from now on (until I'm tired and like nope). For some reason the salad dressing I bought at the store has been making me gag lately. I just hate it. But I have to eat it because I BOUGHT IT. Vicious cycle. But I found a dressing recipe online and I could eat this all day long. It's delicious. I got this from The Reluctant Gourmet
Ingredients:
1 glove of garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
5-6 tablespoons oil (vegetable, corn, canola, olive or some combination)
pinch of dried parsley
pinch of dried thyme
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Add the vinegar, garlic, and mustard well. Slowly add the oil while whisking the mixture. Add the herbs and salt and pepper and season to your tastes. I used olive oil and a nice spicy Dijon mustard. Don't make it if you hate mustard, obviously. DELISSHHH.
UPDATE: Ewwwww I just watched that commercial again and how gross is "micro-beef (ravioli)"? Call it lil' bites or something. ANYTHING ELSE
I have to cook. EVERY DAY. Unless I want to live on coffee (I view even this as a cooking ordeal. Ryan bought a coffee pot and I swear the thing hates me. It doesn't recognize me as its master and therefore feels free to fuck up my coffee or just somehow malfunction and drip coffee grounds all over the counter. And it hisses at me like a cockroach) and cereal all day every day I have to COOK. For the first two weeks in our apartment Ryan and I (scratch that. just me) were really excited about cooking. I looked up recipes and tried to master techniques. Well now we're in week three and I'm definitely over it.
Last night I made a meatloaf. It's my mom's recipe and it's delicious if you're into meatloaf. I made it for Ryan before he returned to the good ol' South and he loved it. So I made it again, but this time just for me. Now I'm eating meatloaf for the next five days, which is fine because now I don't have to cook for five days. But kind of gross too.
Another thing about being "ADULT" (yeah right) is I go bonkers now if any of the food goes bad because I spent my money on it so now it matters if money is being wasted. So I was going through the fridge making sure all the food was being consumed and I found some two week old carrots. I'm thinking shit, now I have to eat like 8 raw carrots because it's NOT getting wasted. Then I looked at the meatloaf and you knowwww what I put carrots in the meatloaf. Sounds insane but didn't really notice them. It's like those dumb Chef Boyardee commercials about the secret vegetables in that god awful ravioli.
It's always good to teach children early on that vegetables are gross. And ravioli is the only thing you will ever need in your life. Also- don't pay attention to food labels. Just eat it. I think that's a lesson for the masses.
One thing I will say (until I retract it)- making my own salad dressing from now on (until I'm tired and like nope). For some reason the salad dressing I bought at the store has been making me gag lately. I just hate it. But I have to eat it because I BOUGHT IT. Vicious cycle. But I found a dressing recipe online and I could eat this all day long. It's delicious. I got this from The Reluctant Gourmet
Ingredients:
1 glove of garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
5-6 tablespoons oil (vegetable, corn, canola, olive or some combination)
pinch of dried parsley
pinch of dried thyme
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Add the vinegar, garlic, and mustard well. Slowly add the oil while whisking the mixture. Add the herbs and salt and pepper and season to your tastes. I used olive oil and a nice spicy Dijon mustard. Don't make it if you hate mustard, obviously. DELISSHHH.
UPDATE: Ewwwww I just watched that commercial again and how gross is "micro-beef (ravioli)"? Call it lil' bites or something. ANYTHING ELSE
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
prairie dogs?
I just had to google that to figure out how you spell "prairie." Ridiculous.
But there are PRAIRIE DOGS on the side of the highway. Running around and jumping in their holes and looking out and holding their little arms against their little prairie chests. They aren't secretive about it either. I get really excited about them when I see them but I guess this is something everyone else here is used to.
I always thought of myself as a bit of a city gal, not really being keen on small towns or places where one has to actively search for a shoe store (and other necessities). When we decided to move here I was feeling very happy about the decision and being able to see Denver from my apartment's little porch. We're on the outskirts, where there's public open space about a mile down the road and views of the foothills. Everything was feeling very idyllic.
And then I drove THROUGH Denver.
I can honestly say I've never been one to get too angry about traffic- I'm generally a very easy going person. Apparently that was a different life because today I found myself pounding my steering wheel until my hands hurt and screaming obscenities that have never before left my mouth (you goddamned cock sucking sheisty little piece of shit and offal) and almost dissolving into tears when I saw the 7 lane highway packed with cars. And I reiterate... WTF. How can 7 LANES BE PACKED AT 2:30 IN THE AFTERNOON ON A WEDNESDAY?!?
I would rather endure the threat of bear attack on a daily basis and dig holes to poop in than find myself crying about traffic. Maybe that's extreme, maybe I'm more of a "mid size town with decent road structures and a Whole Foods a few miles away" type of gal rather than a rugged outdoorsy type or a city dweller.
Denver, that's strike one. You'd better shape up your act or perhaps I'll have to give in to my wanderlust sooner rather than later...
But there are PRAIRIE DOGS on the side of the highway. Running around and jumping in their holes and looking out and holding their little arms against their little prairie chests. They aren't secretive about it either. I get really excited about them when I see them but I guess this is something everyone else here is used to.
I always thought of myself as a bit of a city gal, not really being keen on small towns or places where one has to actively search for a shoe store (and other necessities). When we decided to move here I was feeling very happy about the decision and being able to see Denver from my apartment's little porch. We're on the outskirts, where there's public open space about a mile down the road and views of the foothills. Everything was feeling very idyllic.
And then I drove THROUGH Denver.
I can honestly say I've never been one to get too angry about traffic- I'm generally a very easy going person. Apparently that was a different life because today I found myself pounding my steering wheel until my hands hurt and screaming obscenities that have never before left my mouth (you goddamned cock sucking sheisty little piece of shit and offal) and almost dissolving into tears when I saw the 7 lane highway packed with cars. And I reiterate... WTF. How can 7 LANES BE PACKED AT 2:30 IN THE AFTERNOON ON A WEDNESDAY?!?
I would rather endure the threat of bear attack on a daily basis and dig holes to poop in than find myself crying about traffic. Maybe that's extreme, maybe I'm more of a "mid size town with decent road structures and a Whole Foods a few miles away" type of gal rather than a rugged outdoorsy type or a city dweller.
Denver, that's strike one. You'd better shape up your act or perhaps I'll have to give in to my wanderlust sooner rather than later...
Monday, April 11, 2011
5 things about colorado so far
..where I have recently moved.
1. It is very dry. Very very dry. On the positive side of this, my hair behaves more than when I lived down south. On the downside, I wake up and every day my lips are chapped. I have to put on chap stick ALL THE TIME and I wonder if this will ever end. My nose sometimes bleeds. My skin feels dry and cracked. Will my body get used to the dry, arid air? Will I always feel like a fish that poked its head out of water?
2. People drive terribly. TERRIBLY. They do not follow the speed limit and by this I mean they always go about 10 below the speed limit. They don't change lanes well. Stop signs occasionally cause confusion.
3. On top of this bad driving they have very bad ROAD RAGE and get very, VERY angry about all the terrible driving going on. They seem to be in a very big hurry all the time and need to express how hurried and pissed off they are by screaming, cursing, hand gestures, and last but certainly not least honking. They honk all the damn time. And a small anecdote about the ROAD RAGE mentioned earlier... Ryan and I were making a trip to Walmart for a few items for the apartment our first day moving in. We were exiting the Walmart parking lot and there was a slight misunderstanding about lanes between us and the lady in the turn lane next to us. No big deal, both of us were going about 15 miles per hour and we swerved and they swerved and no harm was done. The lady FREAKED OUT and honked and visibly flicked us off (with both hands) and we could hear her screaming from inside her car. We both started laughing because this was the biggest over reaction either of us had seen in a long time. At the stop light she GOT OUT OF HER CAR, approached our car, and started screaming at us, called us assholes and told us not to laugh because she had kids in the car. Then got in the car and sped off. This is just one example of extreme road rage I have witnessed. What gives? Why is everyone so angry? Perhaps its the vicinity to Denver and just big city attitudes but who knows.
4. Great beer selections available
5. Most the time the sky is so blue...
1. It is very dry. Very very dry. On the positive side of this, my hair behaves more than when I lived down south. On the downside, I wake up and every day my lips are chapped. I have to put on chap stick ALL THE TIME and I wonder if this will ever end. My nose sometimes bleeds. My skin feels dry and cracked. Will my body get used to the dry, arid air? Will I always feel like a fish that poked its head out of water?
2. People drive terribly. TERRIBLY. They do not follow the speed limit and by this I mean they always go about 10 below the speed limit. They don't change lanes well. Stop signs occasionally cause confusion.
3. On top of this bad driving they have very bad ROAD RAGE and get very, VERY angry about all the terrible driving going on. They seem to be in a very big hurry all the time and need to express how hurried and pissed off they are by screaming, cursing, hand gestures, and last but certainly not least honking. They honk all the damn time. And a small anecdote about the ROAD RAGE mentioned earlier... Ryan and I were making a trip to Walmart for a few items for the apartment our first day moving in. We were exiting the Walmart parking lot and there was a slight misunderstanding about lanes between us and the lady in the turn lane next to us. No big deal, both of us were going about 15 miles per hour and we swerved and they swerved and no harm was done. The lady FREAKED OUT and honked and visibly flicked us off (with both hands) and we could hear her screaming from inside her car. We both started laughing because this was the biggest over reaction either of us had seen in a long time. At the stop light she GOT OUT OF HER CAR, approached our car, and started screaming at us, called us assholes and told us not to laugh because she had kids in the car. Then got in the car and sped off. This is just one example of extreme road rage I have witnessed. What gives? Why is everyone so angry? Perhaps its the vicinity to Denver and just big city attitudes but who knows.
4. Great beer selections available
5. Most the time the sky is so blue...
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