Delicious Treats: My Life

I've really hit a kitchen low:

I considered making the Mayonegg.



Am I gross? Maybe. I like to think I'm just bland though.

Book Review

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett It took me a couple of days to really get in to this book, but once I did I read it straight through. Surprisingly light for the subject matter, The Help explores the relationships between white women and their hired black help in mid-20th century Mississippi.

Overall, the book was good. Stockett has a nice voice, and it reads easy. It was a little too fluffy for my taste, barely brushing on the dark side of the issue. It reads more as a coming-of-age story than a commentary on the social turmoil of the time.

Have you ever read a book that you really enjoyed while you were reading it, and immediately afterwards you were like yeah! it's so good! go read it! but then a week later you just feel sort of meh about it? That's how I feel about this book. It's a good read, very interesting, but probably not as good as I initially thought.

Behind the Times

So remember that one time (21 years) that I thought Narwhals were fictional fantasy beasties? I was sure set straight. They're real.I somehow missed the news of Amy Winehouse's death, too. It only took me 3 weeks this time though. Her voice was amazing, take a listen.

Misadventure

Whenever I go to Altanta it's bad news. OK, maybe I'm not the best driver. I'll admit it. My mother's nerves run in my veins and traffic gives me little hives. I may or may not be joking.

Why do people always get so weird about me and Terry sharing a fitting room? Yeah, ok, we are adult women and not 14 and maybe it's looked down upon in store like the GAP but really, so what who cares? Sometimes you need your best friend's opinion without having to step out of the room. GET OVER IT ATTENDANT. IT'S NOT WEIRD.

I always joke that I keep Terry around bc while I may be an unlucky person in general, her luck always takes the bad-luck cake. Like a few weeks ago when she got drenched (DRENCHED like thrown in a pool) by some rain and then had to spend an hour in the nuddy-pants hanging out in a creeper's apartment who was trying hard to feel it up.

Have you ever been to IKEA? That place is freaking awful.. have you noticed what jerks a lot of the people shopping there are? HELLO. Also, the parking lot. THE PARKING GARAGE. I'm sorry, multiple parking garages. And is it just me but does a food court in a furniture store just seem like a bad idea? And no I don't want to get my own furniture down, I get paid to do that at work. Actually, I get paid to find a strong boy who is also getting paid to get furniture down. I won't even do it when I'm getting paid, I sure don't want to do it when I'm footing the bill.

Basically, I should just stay OTP. In the woods. Or at my laptop watching Lonely Island vids.

Unless you're driving. Then I'll tag along. After I take a Valium.

BOOK REVIEW

Super Sad True Love Story

By Gary Shteyngart

First of all, Gary Shteyngart is one of my favorite authors. If you haven't read Absurdistan or The Russian Debutante's Handbook, I would highly recommend doing so. His writing is humorous and gross and weird, but overall it's just really good.

Super Sad True Love Story, like Gary's previous novels, follows a young(-ish) Jewish guy, Lenny, on his quest to win the heart of a much younger and damaged woman - Eunice. Meanwhile the United States is literally collapsing around them and they are having to fight for survival.

In their dystopian world, people have to rely on technology as a means of communication and networking so much that when people actually speak face to face, they call it "verballing" and it is a foreign and strange occurrence. Super Sad goes back and forth between Lenny's e-mails and journal entries and Eunice's e-mail and chat accounts - never is there a conversation observed that is not through these means.

It's a dark story, but this book made me laugh a lot. It reads lightly, and it made an excellent pool read, but it is not vapid. It serves as a nice commentary on the government over governing, and our increased reliance on technology to communicate effectively. It also feels like a very relevant read, as the US is collapsing due to bankruptcy and their inability to pay off their loans to China. UH OH.

Here's a (funny! real funny.) promotional video for this book and the author:
So, yeah. Check it out from the library, buy it on Amazon, or you local bookstore. Two thumbs up.

Read more about Gary Shteyngart here.

Tangent

Isn't it funny that no matter when you go to Kroger you ALWAYS SEE PEOPLE YOU KNOW?? I took a "nap" and woke up at 10pm and my inner dialogue went like this:
me 1: "girl, get out of bed brush your hair and go buy some groceries."
me 2: "but I could skip dinner and just sleep... or I could eat flax seeds and green tea..."
me 1: "stop bitching and go buy groceries."
So I did. And I even put on a little mascara. And as I was leaving I was thinking that my chances of running in to people I know are pretty slim, seeing as it's 10:15 on a Saturday night. To further decrease my chances of awkward run-ins, I even chose the east-side Krogs.

And then I ran in to this girl who I used to work with in Madison, who once or twice supplied an under-21 me with over-21 libations and used to tell me about all the old men she had slept with. Only now she's dating our old boss. (To be fair, he's really nice and pretty cute.) And it was awkward because for some reason I feel like I need to explain what I'm doing with my life, like people just assume I'm flailing and floundering unless I tell them what I'm actually up to, which is mostly flailing and floundering. And hopping fences to go swimming. Not that me giving a life update is necessarily awkward. It's just that I always have to give them to people who don't care. This poor girl was just trying to do something normal, like buy some milk, and I verbal vomited all over her. Like she had even wondered what I had been up to in the last two years.

Finally she peeled herself away from me. I check my cell phone like a nervous tick: no new messages. I go home to my house, deserted except for Moof, and turn on Sex and the City reruns, and proceed to eat about half of the food I had just bought. Craving attention, I consider texting people who reliably text me back, but realize how sad that is and talk to the cat instead. Sex and the City goes off, should I watch Teen Mom, or go to bed? I turn on Teen Mom, feeling too lazy to walk upstairs, and then promptly turn it off when the teen couple starts arguing over who will buy their son's first birthday cake.

Speaking of cake, I witnessed a Family Doing A Family Thing while in Krogs: picking out a cake. The bakery was closed, so they were studying the leftover cakes in the cake case, while their teenaged son tries to look nonchalant and pretend like he's too cool to be looking at cakes with his fam but still trying to not look annoyed or embarassed even though he totally is. Meanwhile I'm trying to look cool and nonchalant checking out some fresh bread that I am never going to buy even though I'm really just spying on this Family Doing A Family Thing. It makes me miss my family. How fun it is to have a little brother going into his angsty phase! How I miss hearing him talk on the phone for hours and hours and hours. I miss embarassing him about his girlfriend.

Moral of this story: Always brush your hair before going to Kroger.

Now I'm off to internet-stalk Andy Samberg. Good night.

Baby in the Corner

Today is my first day of new work, and my biggest hope is that people (customers) stop calling me baby (ew.) Maybe the 200 mile move northward will help with this, or maybe people will magically develop manners. The kind of manners where skeezy old men* know it's not a-ok to brush against me, get really close to my face, or tell me how cute I am. It's not appropriate, dudes.

*or anyone.