MacArthur Genius Grant Award to Me, Please

For years I struggled with wanting to eat Pluck U chicken fingers (hot sauce, obviously), but also something chewy. Or a chicken sandwich, but also spicy. All the previous results? Messy.

Then it hit me: chicken fingers on a hot dog bun with blue cheese.

Self, where have I been all my life?

The Call of the Wild

So I was watching Into the Wild last night, and all I could think of during the scenes where it was snowy out and the guy found a school bus to live in is HOW GREAT those conditions would be for napping. Seriously.

Maybe the movie also spoke to me because I also recently went hunting for the first time. It was by accident, really. I went to Food Emporium and asked for a cooked lobster, but the guy said they were old and gross and I didn't want them. He offered me a live one, but I said I was scared, so he said he'd steam one for me if I gave him 12 minutes.

I walked in, the lobster was alive; I walked out, it wasn't. Visceral, like gutting a moose with your bare hands.

I guess if you had to pinpoint the one difference between my story and that of Christopher McCandless, it's that I didn't get maggots in my kill and starve to death. Instead, I went to the ballet, then came home and ate my lobster with some sea salt and vinegar chips, Cherry Garcia, and Diet Dr. Pepper. That's some Jack London shit, son.

SNACKS

I don't know if I can tell you enough how much you must try Liberte Mediterranee yogurt if you see it. The Plum and Walnut is hello delicious it tastes like purple and NOW THEY HAVE COCONUT FLAVOR TOO.

Also you are all fired for not telling me sooner about sea salt and vinegar potato chips. They almost make up for my complete lack of reason for being.

3 Lists

(Because lists do really well on digg, didn't you know?)

1. Things I have lost in my apartment in the last two weeks:

• $250 gift card
• my camera
• a cinnamon roll while I was eating it

2. Things my mom bought for me while she was visiting (not including meals & entertainment):

• groceries (including 5 liters of Diet Coke)
• flowers
• lipstick and eyeshadow
  
• a candy thermometer, a coffee spoon, and a dishtowel with a hilarious catticism on it
• a purple yoga top
• 9 pairs of socks, 1 pair of leggings, 10 pairs of thunderpants
• 3 shirts
• 168 pounds of cat litter

3. Things she brought in her suitcase:

• cinnamon roll ingredients
• toffee, chocolate-pb rice krispie bars
• 6 steaks (for my brother)
• 12-pack cat food
• 4-pack toilet paper (used to help keep things in place)
  

Some Good News, Some Bad News

The Good: I finally figured out why my apartment has been smelling so funky lately, particularly in the refrigerator corner of things. I'd feared it was some sort of cat litter thing. But in fact, it seems that at some point in the past, I optimistically bought produce, and then someone helpful (my mom or cleaning lady, I'm guessing) put said produce in the crisper for safekeeping. Results below.


The Bad: I have absolutely no guesses as to what sort of foodstuffs the above items once were, and I may be wanted for questioning in several ongoing investigations.

Since You're Going to Ask Anyway

I want wine glasses for Christmas. I'm only posting it so I don't forget.

French Toast Post II

Okay first off, I'm not feeling bad about not cooking anymore, since tonight I decided to make French toast and the ingredients cost me $25. And that wasn't even for the eggnog kind, since it's not eggnog season yet so I couldn't find any.

Does anyone need 10 eggs?

Also I think I might be pregnant with a rage baby. It would explain my incessant craving for French toast and my rage-baby bump. Details about my rage-baby shower TK.

Another Piece of Information About the Movie Changeling

(This one is not a spoiler.)

It will make you -- and by that I mean it is making me -- crave French toast all the time.

And then I went on flickr to try and art it and I came across something called Eggnog French Toast. Seriously dudes, could anything be better than the holidays?!?

Good News and Bad News

The bad news is that I'm about 50 pounds short of the weight requirement for someone my height to start taking alli, (the only FDA approved, over-the-counter weight loss product).

The good news is that means I get to put on 50 pounds, and then start losing weight for real.

Self-Portrait

Yeah it's bad times, guys. I'm thinking I might have to give up TV, so that I can go to sleep earlier and wake up and exercise. Or at least just go exercise instead of watching garbage like The Locater. (True story.) But I'm so not ready. Only Jeff VanVonderen could convince me that it's time, and HE RELAPSED which brings me to my next point: Why bother? I worked out 4 times a week for two years and it's not like it helped my life.

I'm going running now but if my knees explode, you'll know why. I had to stop doing situps because my muscles couldn't contract around all the stomach that was in the way.

Also my bathroom sink keeps randomly filling up with water and then re-draining, leaving behind what can best be described as bloody mucus. So if you are looking for a renewable source of someone else's bloody mucus, you should totally come by.

Two New Lows

Last week I turned off Intervention before the first commercial. A whiny bulimic boozer dude? Snore.

Then tonight I started walking to the gym and then was so tired I turned around before I was halfway down the block. But don't worry, I ate two dinners to make up for it.

I bet if I died I'd look like the Montauk Monster.

From Bad to Worse

That reality TV problem I mentioned a few days ago? Got uglier when I found myself staying up to watch (a rerun) of "Step it Up and Dance." Help.

And it turns out that breaking a fork with my snout mouth was only the beginning. The day after I typed that, I was eating so voraciously that I bit my tongue. Hard. As in, so hard I almost started crying. and then 20 minutes later looked and saw that I'd sliced off a flap of skin and was still bleeding. Photo below may be disturbing to some viewers. Especially those sensitive to tongue lesions.

That is called being a pig, people.

Okay Okay Okay

Here is a new post. Thing is, I have a job now, so I have to take all my good ideas and throw them on a list to use there. Don't worry, once the site actually launches and I discover that there are "limits" as to what I can write, I'll put all the good stuff back here.

But even though I have a very glamorous, very important new job in which I am changing lives EVERY SINGLE SECOND, I still have problems, you know? I'm not untouchable. Here are a few things I'm grappling with this summer:

• Although I still work out, I work in a very cupcake-heavy environment, and I have put on 73 pounds in just four weeks.
• I can't figure out how to walk the four blocks from the new icy place to my apartment without eating the entire thing on the way. FYI: cantaloupe, lychee, black cherry, and regular cherry (well, technically it's called FDNY Cherry but I don't recognize FDNY as a sovereign adjective) are all delicious. Pink grapefruit was surprisingly bland.
• I have some issue with my frontal lobe that makes me unable to stop my impulse to watch any competitive reality show ever made. I've watched Design Star, Shear Genius, America's Best Dance Crew, and the Legally Blonde show in the last week, and tomorrow I re-board the Project Runway bus. What a loser!!!!
• I can't decide whether to eat pizza, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, or burritos for dinner.

Today I was so hungry that I bit a tine off my fork. True story.

Happy Handsome Birthday

Dear Dwayne The Rock Johnson,

Happy birthday today! I know we haven't really been in touch ever since you un-friended me on MySpace. Maybe it's because Disney closed the account when they got done promoting The Game Plan. Is that it, The Rock? Maybe.

But I also realize that maybe it's because you were afraid of how close we'd gotten. It's true that we have an unbelievable amount in common—you're scared of spiders, I'm scared of roaches; you are tall, I am tall; we both regularly eat entire cheese pizzas. we both have tattoos. It's fate, really. And I suppose with your separation so fresh in your past, you may be wary of the idea that you could love again so quickly.

Anyway, I want you to know that I wish you the best. Maybe for this birthday I'll go stand by myself and stare creepily at the wax figurine of you in front of Madame Tussauds in Times Square. And I have a very special gift for you, so I guess I'll just hang on to it until we meet. (Hint: It's my virginity!)

Your friend,
Love,
The Imaginary Nurse

Secrets of Free Cone Day

Because I'm an out-of-the-closet ice cream fan and overall disgusting hog, I got a lot of emails from people asking if I was going to Ben & Jerry's annual free cone day. So I'd like to break it down for you using something I like to call math. An ice cream cone the rest of the year costs like, what, $5, max? Seriously.

Step one: Divide the amount you make annually by (the number of hours you work each week times the number of weeks per year you go to work). That's your hourly wage.

Step two: Multiply the number of hours you'd spend finding, getting to, and standing in line at a free cone locations by the number you found in step one. Is that number more than the $5 paying for you cone would cost? If so, you just lost money on the deal. Especially if you then factor in the square root of standing in line with a bunch of tourist families and wacky college students.

This is actually some advice I took from consumer advocate Ron Burley, who says to stop fighting a retail dispute if the value of the time you've spent arguing your side threatens to become greater than the amount you stand to gain. It's also the argument I use when I want to justify not doing my own laundry.

By that token, btw, community college is a bit more expensive than it seems, because you have to go there in person during business hours to have someone sign a piece of paper saying you can take a class... then return in person during business hours to be allowed into a room where you use a public internet connection to sign up yourself up for said class... thanks, school!

My Unofficial Party Endorsement

Those of you who know me know that I don't (or rather, shouldn't) get too involved in politics. However I have finally found an organization that sums up everything I stand for and want from my nation. Join with me and let's make a difference!

Fortune Favors The Imaginary Nurse

Some people might think that I am very unlucky as of late. There was a fire in my building, I had to get stitches, I got in my first car accident, I struggle to retain cat dancers. However, I must point out a few facts:

1. The day of the fire, I went to the grocery store and found TWO bags of Easter-shaped SweetTarts for half-price, even though all the drug stores I'd searched the week before were totally out.
1A. Perhaps because Easter fell so early this year, the SweeTarts were extra-powdery and fresh. Could someone please research whether the production schedule is affected by the date upon which a holiday falls? Thanks!

2. I have two cats, and sometimes they sit like people!












3. My hair is straight.

So in light of that evidence, now who is unlucky? That's right, it's you. :(!

Things I Thought Were Normal Until I Said Them Out Loud 2

Well, as it turns out, not EVERYONE likes to eat ice cream in the shower.

I do, because it seems obvious to me that when it's cold out, there's nothing better than having a warm shower. Except for ice cream, but you can't do that when it's cold because you get too cold. Unless, of course, your body is being warmed by the shower at the same time that you are eating delicious ice cream.

How is this complicated?

I mention this because, if there's hot water, which hasn't been a given this last week or so, I'm about to do just that.

I Have Many Passions

Besides just my love of education. For example, I greatly enjoy spaghetti, other pasta, pizza, ice cream, cheese, candy, and other edible items. From time to time I might discuss some of them. Also, I promise to start putting up pictures. SIGH.

Anyway, here is a new yogurt I am obsessed with. Especially the grapefruit lychee situation. It is not flavorfully any better than the Emmi Swiss pink grapefruit kind. But guess what? It has other exciting words attached. They aren't even flavors, they're just things I want! Flavor flavor verb flower? Don't mind if I do! God I love marketing:What I am saying is that I would buy Tomato Yum Rage Spaghetti Love sauce so fast it hurts.