Sometimes, when you’re really poor – having squandered all your money on mind-altering substances, $75 worth of cologne, and multiple rides through the automated car wash with the dancing Shrek stuffed animal at the end so the kids don’t get scared of the dryer – you punish yourself.
You are in the prepared foods aisle of your local grocer and rather than being kind to yourself and just picking up the can of Spaghetti-O’s like you want to, you reach for the Chef Boyardee pizza kit. “Remember how much fun it was making my own pizza when I was little?” you try to fool yourself.
You get it home and realize that when the box says “all ingredients are included,” they are lying. First of all, you have to get your own water. AND add oil. Who do they think I am? What, do I have a set of Ginsu knives and talk with a funny accent? Give me a friggin break, Chef.
Anyway, so you make the pizza and sprinkle on the 1 oz. of cheese they give you and this weird can of sauce that already has tiny pepperonis in the can. These things are weird and very un-meatlike; more akin to rusty dimes than actual food.
The thing bakes and your studio apartment starts to smell like feet and regret. You pull the thing out and burn your damn hand on the oven because apparently you’re a genius.
When you bite into the soggy crust and stinky-feet (not in a good, pungent-like-vinegar deliciousness kind of way) cheese, you want to cry.
You realize that childhood is over. The things that once thrilled you carry no meaning whatsoever. The foods that once comforted and made you happy are now just terrible and make you fatter. Plus, the pepperonis look like tiny, baby nipple areolas.
Good thing you live alone and are going to be eating this for 3 days, loser.
I’ve been absent for about a week now because life has been hectic. Started a new job last Monday, moved to Indianapolis this Friday, got engaged Saturday, bought my first Hummer on Sunday. Ya know, the yooj. I get up, I go to work, I make dinner, my life is boring. I guess this is what being a grown up is like. I guess this is what a grown up’s bedroom looks like:
Yes. My bedroom is that small. Yes. That flag is that big.
And, in a very odd coincidence, I discovered that the TV I bought years ago is a TAU.
The world works in mysterious ways.
People who can dance amaze me. These people can dance, which makes it really odd that they’re in a dance battle with Miley Cyrus and one of her baby prostitute friends.
-DANCE BATTLE 2 w/Miley Cyrus, Adam Sandler, Chris Brown etc (via jonmchu)
When I put on my pair of pantyhose this morning, I realized they were ripped, so that I couldn’t wear pantyhose with my skirt, and I looked like a dummy at work. And on the way to work, a car full of Irish Dancers cut me off, and I slammed the horn and had to swerve to avoid a wreck. I got to work an hour before my boss, so I would have to stay an hour late, because we don’t have time cards, and he didn’t know that I was there an hour before.
And before I even sat down, I realized that someone was in the desk that I was in yesterday, and the new desk didn’t even have a phone. Then the scab from where I burnt my hand on the toaster oven last week started bleeding and it got on my gray shirt. When it dried it looked like dirt and people thought, “Look at that dirty/bloody girl.”
On my way to do some interviews, I got lost in Carmel for about 45 minutes in the company car, and I ran down the gas tank and had to pull over at a Steak n Shake to look at my unfolding street map. And I didn’t even get to have any Steak or Shake.
When I got back to the office, I ate lunch at my desk and spilled key lime pie yogurt on the front of my shirt. Then Phil, who took my desk, asked me where the pencil sharpener was, and I said I didn’t know, even though it was right in front of me and I just didn’t see it.
I needed to print something, but I wasn’t allowed to print. I had to borrow Phil’s phone and explain to the help desk that I was actually an employee. On the way to do another interview, the cut opened again and started bleeding again. I wonder if I’m a hemophiliac.
I went back to the office and stayed late because I felt bad leaving. I left my cell phone in the office. Didn’t realize it until 10 miles down the road. Turned around, had to go back in rush-hour traffic. But the office was locked, and even though I banged on the door, no one inside heard. Or they pretended not to hear.
A nice man in a suit did let me in finally. On my way home I got a phone call from my new apartment complex and was notified that I can’t move in until this Friday even though I was supposed to be able to move in yesterday.
I filled up my gas tank and it was $53.
There’s been a healthy dose of buzz about this movie:
“American Teen,” a Sundance darling, is a documentary about 5 high school students in Warsaw, Indiana who intermingle, have issues, go to prom, get way too close to the camera with their acnefied faces to deliver sobbing soliloquies about the pangs of adolescence, and somehow come out on the other side of graduation with a better understanding of each other and Proactiv. I will probably go see it, because it reminds me of one of my favorite PBS shows ever: http://www.pbs.org/americanhigh/index.html. Anyone remember “American High”? LOVED IT.
The movie also obviously hearkens to another one of my beloveds:
For my high school graduation, my fave teacher presented me with a framed copy of an original “Breakfast Club” movie poster from the ’80s. ”It’s so you,” she told me …or something to that effect. That poster hung in my room for the past 4 years until the frame just broke and fell off the damn wall.
Now the brain, and the athlete, the princess, and the basket case, and the criminal are stuffed into a corner along with my old Compaq computer and a huge inflatable rocket that we were going to set off but couldn’t find proper glue for last 4th of July.
There was supposed to be a point in there somewhere…
