Lunches, Brunches...Dinner's Not So Cool

Sorry for the lack of new shit lately. (That apology is mainly to my dad, who will be horrified by what is to follow.) I have a couple posts I've mostly written - one about my lack of SmartPhone, another about my embarrassing crush on Adam Levine - they're funny, but I can't bring myself to finish them. Because I'm in my June Blahs, I think. I always forget about these.

Two months a year typically kind of suck for me - February and June. February, I'm always prepared for - come on, that month is the WORST - but June always surprises me. I don't know why it's tough. It just is. I'm sure that reads as a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's the truth. Every few years I might have a perfectly nice (aka not soul-crushingly-awful) February and think the curse is lifted, but the next year, WHAM. It's back, stabby with a vengeance. Same deal with June, which is a shame, because at least a quarter of my favorite people have June birthdays. It's a lovely month! I just get bummed out.

When I am bummed out, I sort of hate everything. Topping that list tonight, is dinner. Just fuck off, dinner.

Dinner's a complicated meal for me as it is. Breakfast and I are cool, lunch is practically my boyfriend, but dinner? Lose my number, thanks. Not like I don't eat the exact same salad-with-salmon-burger 95% of the goddamn time, so I'm not at a loss for what or how to eat it. It's just that by the time I get home from work, and walk the dog, and settle down, I feel like I should be through with the responsible part of the day, and now you're telling me I have to fucking FEED MYSELF AGAIN?

(You will note that dinner is not a problem when I am staying with my parents, or Miss D, or any of my boys. I will enthusiastically help prepare the dinner, and I will certainly enjoy the shit out of it. This all ties into my Peter Pan complex. I realize this is a fairly significant obstacle on my path to self-actualization.)

And dinner in the summer? Oh, just shut up. It is HOT. And humid. Can't we just sit outside and drink white wine and watch people walk by and forget this whole 'evening meal' business, which seriously cuts into aforementioned sitting outside time? I'm sure plenty of bugs will crawl into our mouths while we're sleeping. Bam, protein. Rebel against this tyranny of dinner!

Happily, there is one thing I always want to eat in the summer: Watermelon. Watermelon is the greatest! There's this one salad you can make with watermelon and feta and black olives and mint and it is so good, I could eat a pound of it before I remember that I want to strap dinner down and inject it with a massive dose of sodium phenobarbital. Another excellent dish is watermelon-vodka salad. Oh yeah. Here's the recipe:

Watermelon-Vodka Salad:
What You Need:
- Any amount of watermelon you feel like eating
- Any kind of vodka you feel like tasting (the nicer the better. Even though you're just pouring it over melon, spend the extra fifteen bucks and go to at least the middle shelf -- it makes a world of difference. And feel free to experiment with flavors, but cucumber is by FAR the superior choice, if you can find some. The only cucumber options at Pearson's tonight were like, $40 for a 750, though, so I called an audible and went with Absolut Citron. We'll see how it goes. Oh, and if you're like 'what about that new Smirnoff marshmallow kind?' please, please close your browser, and leave us in peace. Maybe jump off something high. Or something less dramatic,whatever, but you people should not be passing your predilections for disgusting alcohol onto future generations.)

What To Do:
- Cut the watermelon into whatever sized chunks you find appetizing. (Bonus points for maximizing surface-area-to-volume ratio!)
- Put the chunks into some kind of container. Tupperware with a lid works best.
- Pour vodka all over the watermelon chunks.
- Shake (or stir, if you're less Bond/don't have Tupperware with a snug lid)
- Put that shit in the fridge for a while.
- Eat it.

Oh my god, isn't your night so much better now? Do you maybe even feel up to going back in the kitchen and assembling a reasonable, wholesome meal for yourself? Yeah? Okay, then. Go make that spinach salad your bitch.

Dinner, we live to spar another day.

(Seriously, Mom and Dad, I ate dinner as I was writing this. And it was totally nutrient-rich and fortifying. Also, watermelon is SUPER good for you.)

Fruitful Discoveries, I Shall Share

Recommended: Bananas.

Not Recommended: Leaving an already extremely ripe banana in your desk over a long weekend.

Not Entirely Unpleasant Side Effect of Above Caution: Subtle banana scent adopted by desk, cubicle and surrounding environs.

A Touch of Grey. Or Blonde. Shit. What Color Is This?

The important facts: I'm 26. I'm a brunette. I'm excessively, inordinately, obnoxiously preoccupied and paranoid about aging. Ok, you're ready to proceed.

Last winter, in the depths of a deep late December funk, I had my hairdresser add some lovely light brown highlights to my hair. Usually, I stay far away from dye of any sort, even in small doses - due to a heinously addictive personality and some really scarring choices in 9th grade - but there was just so much fucking brown everywhere, and it was so cold, and there had been no direct sunlight in like, a week, and I was just depressed as shit, man. I had to do something.

So I changed up my hair a little, and it actually worked, I think, for a few weeks. Or maybe it was the vacation to Florida. Either way, I stumbled out of my Seasonal Affective Disorder doldrums, and resumed my life with a 'do full of lighter pieces. In early spring, it started to look a little root-tastic, but since I can't even pledge allegiance to a brand of shampoo for the time it takes to use up one bottle, I didn't really feel like embarking on a lifetime commitment to hair-streaks. I let it grow. And then...well I don't know what really happened, but sometime in May I noticed that the shit all turned blonde. And the other day I discovered all these brand new blonde strands all over my head. They're just growing, totally independent of the highlights. The highlights like, infected my hair or some shit, and now it's like scattering dandelion fluff, the shit is everywhere. I can't explain this. And really, it wouldn't be a problem, except 1) I like my dark hair and 2) I CANNOT TELL IF THESE NEW PIECES ARE BLONDE OR GREY AND IT'S DRIVING ME FUCKING BANANAS.

Seriously. Every day I notice a new piece, and I summarily freak the fuck out, and examine it under seven different lighting conditions. Then I talk to myself in soothing tones for a while, explaining to my freaked out little soul that grey hairs are NOT the end of the world, that people fucking age, and that aging is natural, and that my age and the number of grey hairs on my head have nothing to do with my character and blahblah, fuck it, I believe that, but I'm really not listening to myself right now because I am DISTRACTED by this FUCKING HAIR, WHAT COLOR IS IT??? And then I pull it out. It's gross.

This just happened to me, three minutes ago. I was in the bathroom, cleaning a spot of yogurt off my dress (yogurt stains are THE MOST unladylike of stains, up there with vanilla, rice, and tapioca puddings, mayonnaise, and cream cheese. I don't know why I insist on eating these things at work, the place to which I most frequently wear black) and there it was - a new hair. I separated it from the others, I twisted it around...it was blonde. Pretty sure. But maybe grey. Shit. I don't know. So I pulled it out. And carried it with me back to my office, with the intention of showing to my colleagues and asking their opinion. I know! That's so fucking disgusting! It's completely, totally the sort of obscene request I routinely force upon my friends and family, but at work? So inappropriate. Jesus, I need a new job. I'm getting entirely too comfortable at this one.

Oh, and I threw the hair away. Once it's out of my head it's nearly impossible to tell what color it is. I wish I could somehow remember that before I pull those little bastards out.

Many Happy Returns

I've noticed that people tend to freak out around the New Year. They make all these resolutions at once, ones they know they won't be able to keep longer than Valentine's Day, and then they get all down on themselves, and feel bad because they've gone back to smoking, or skipping the gym, or eating Nutella out of the jar, or giggling maliciously whenever they think of their boss's toddler, because it looks like a baby ManBearPig.

Look - it might be nice to stop some of those things. Maybe you'll live longer or sleep better or get better performance evaluations if you change. Or maybe not.

Maybe, instead of feeling shitty about yourself because you can't ever remember to water your plants or because your carbon footprint is ginormous, or because you'd rather watch Gossip Girl than The MacNeil Lehrer Hour, you could try to accept that a lot of your wackest characteristics, if repressed, will just pop up somewhere else. Maybe that explains Mitt Romney. I don't know. It just seems like we waste all this energy fighting who we are, when who we are might really not be so bad at all.

To help you on your journey, here is a short list of things that may change temporarily, but will always return to what they know they should be:

1. Toast, when left on the counter for long enough without being consumed, will once again become bread. If it is buttered, and then abandoned, it will simply become bread with butter.

2. A Raisinet, if left unattended and unprotected in the bottom of a purse, will eventually return to its original, natural state as a pure, unadorned raisin. (I don't know what happens to the chocoalte, and I would not suggest that you make either part into a snack, but you have to respect the perseverance of the raisin nonetheless.)

3. A show poodle, even after it has been mercilessly shaved and plucked and bow-tied for years, if left the fuck alone, will regrow its lovely curly coat and resume life as a regular dog.

4. A chameleon, with it's tail violently removed, will grow a new tail. Provided Bear Grylls doesn't eat him first.

There are, of course, exceptions. A jug of apple cider, if left unattended in the corner of a basement for the better part of a decade, may evolve into a fermented cocktail of sorts. (Although any pulpy fruit byproduct that can withstand thousands of days alone in some forgotten portion of a subterranean pantry was perhaps never meant to make it to the table as cider in the first place.)

What am I saying? Just this: Be the Raisinet, man.

If by the spring you've foregone the balanced macrobiotic meals and eight glasses of wheat germ infused water a day, and are back to your usual dinners of whiskey and jelly beans, don't be too hard on yourself. At the very least, it probably means you'll never end up strapping the family dog to the roof of your car.