S-P-U, spew
WHEN WILL YOU CRACK
During the summer I started to hate my job, slightly—not for any legitimate-grievance reason but because I had some serious-ass restlessness and wanted to be doing just about anything else. The restlessness led to some crazy ideas. I wanted to go back to school, I wanted a different job, I wanted to quit working entirely and focus on making my house and life lovely, I wanted to get that high-paying, high-status position where you drink margaritas on a lovely deck and taste-test guacamole. (Does anyone know if those people are hiring?)
Now Chicago is starting to feel autumn-ish and I have done a worker-bee one-eighty. Maybe the school season* makes me feel all businesslike, who knows. I am volunteering for projects and committees and getting kind of crazy about ticking off the to-do list and occasionally having fleeting but truly obnoxious thoughts like, “I am a publishing executive!” Don’t worry, right after I fleetingly-but-obnoxiously think things like that I (a) give myself the smackdown for being such a douche; (b) marvel at how one can still have “wow, I’m a grownup” moments at 40 years old; and (c) give silent thanks that I am not in any sort of truly exalted position, as I do not have the wardrobe for it.
*School season almost everywhere but Chicago. By the time you read this the strike may be over, but damn it sucks to have your fourth-grader go to school for one week, get all excited, and then boom. Nora has been requesting a 6 am wake-up time (“so I don’t get used to sleeping late”) and math worksheets every day. Poor little nerd. Power to the people and all, but let’s get this thing settled. Won’t someone think of the nerds?
FLASH THAT BADGE
It is a long story about how I learned this, but some police departments have a “Special Problems Unit.” I desperately love that name. I want to call the SPU with an ordinary problem and get yelled at. THAT AIN’T SPECIAL, LADY.
INAPPROPRIATE OUTBURSTS
1. The hair-salon person calls to remind me of my appointment. I say, “Yup, I’ll be there.” Then I impulsively add, “And I’ll bring my hair!”
2. I see a wet, neurologically damaged pigeon near a Wabash parking garage. It startles me by staggering directly into my path, and by being so icky and scrumbly-looking, so I blurt out, “What’s WRONG with you?” I could not stop myself. Compassion for all our fellow creatures, except if they are really gross.
SPEAKING OF REALLY GROSS
I like me some processed American cheese sometimes—for a grilled cheese sandwich, or to melt on a gardenburger. Sometimes I get it from the deli, but sometimes I just buy the brick. (I do draw the line at the “individually wrapped” shit. Where are you taking your cheese that it needs to be so very packaged?) The last processed-cheese brick I bought was a store brand, and it had this recipe on the wrapper, which I cut out and saved just so I could have multiple WTF moments per day. I may actually press this recipe into a scrapbook. A scrapbook titled HOLY SHIT WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE. Are you ready?
Party Cheese Stackers
Active time: 30 minutes
Total time: several hours
Amount: 24 cheese stackers
Ingredients:
1 8-oz package cream cheese, softened
½ cup cooked and crumbled bacon
¼ cup ranch dressing
12 slices deli-style American cheese
Directions:
1. In large bowl, mix first 3 ingredients until well combined.
2. Place 2 slices of cheese side by side on a 12×12-inch piece of foil; spread with the cream cheese mixture.
3. Continue layering, ending with cheese slices; seal foil. Refrigerate several hours.
4. Cut in half lengthwise, then into ¼-inch squares. Serve with crackers.
Serve with your MIND BLOWN, more likely. They have to be fucking with us, right? This is a troll recipe. This is some copywriter for the processed-cheese packaging having a laugh. You cannot expect me to believe that fat mixed with fat mixed with pork and spread on top of fat is a real thing.
You know, I get real sick of the food police and the alarmist articles about obesity. I get real sick of HA HA FATTY FAT FAT AMERICA. I get real sick of sanctimonious documentaries about fresh local unprocessed blah blah (even if part of me agrees—but do they have to be so smug and awful?) And then I see things like this. Wow.
DRUGS
I have that Nelly song stuck in my head—the one where he invites me to smoke an L with him in the back of his Mercedes. Quick question though, Nell—what’s an L? The only marijuana word I can think of that starts with L is the ‘60s term “lid,” which is both laughably quaint and sort of implausible, because I believe a lid is an amount you buy, not an amount you smoke. (Although I’m not a famous rapper, so maybe the amount I buy is the amount you smoke.) I may be un-hip to the weed slang and missing something terribly obvious. Please clue me in, internet.
BETTER THAN DRUGS
During our block party I was allowed to pet my neighbor’s chickens. She held one and I PETTED it. It felt NICE. I will never convince LT that we have room in the tiny yard for chickens, and to be honest I am not sure I would want all the work of chickens unless I could outsource some of it (chicken nanny?), but there must be some sort of chicken-share I can join where I get to see chickens several times a week. Or the neighbors need to let me come over and cuddle chickens as much as I need to.
—mimi smartypants bawk bawk bawk bawk squawk.