Christmas season stats

As of November 29:

Gifts bought - 3

Christmas trees acquired - 0

Attempts at acquiring a tree - 1

Halls decked with Christmas lights - 1

Pies baked - 2

Snow flakes fallen - 0

Days of Spring like-temperatures-multiple

Gifts added to wish list - 5

Trips to the mall - 0

Attempts at psyching self up to go to the mall - 2

Outbursts of glee over the ease of Christmas shopping - 1


Stay tuned for further developments, likely to include trips to see the tree in Rockefeller Center, cookie baking, a born-again like realization that online shopping is a gift from the heavens, and drinking way too much eggnog. Christmas!!!

An open letter to Mitch Clem

Mitch,

I am writing you today to let you know that you and I are no longer besties. It's over between us. Finished. Ka-put.

It's not because I didn't try. Oh Mitch, how I tried, checking your website many times and often, looking for updates, comics, little doodles, anything. Last year, when out of NOWHERE you started updating "Nothing Nice To Say" again, I jumped for joy and thought "That Mitch. He's full of surprises. It's cool that his updates come few and far between, he's probably busy. But this makes it all better."

After that spat of creativity ended, "My Stupid Life" held me for a quite a bit, but it became apparent early in the year that that was waning too. Around the summer, I finally tossed up my hands and said "Forget it. He's not coming back."

After checking out your blog today and seeing the origins-of-your-Razorcake-column comic, along with a ne'er fulfilled promise of a forecoming five page "My Stupid Life" comic, I broke down. How can you keep doing this to me? To all of us, who take such joy out of your goofy observations and usually funny paneled rants. It's time I moved on.

When you decide to pick up where you left off with the strip, I will come back, arms akimbo, waiting to embrace the latest socially awkward punchline that you want to dish out. But I will no longer keep you on my VIP list of sites to visit often. Please know this isn't easy, my friend, but life has to go on.

Enjoy your gig with Razorcake. Hopefully we can hang again someday.

-Jenny Experience

sans pants

I find that one of the great things about having your own place is the fact that you can leave things any way you want and they will always be there when you go look for them, and nobody tells you to clean up after yourself. Like, I can leave socks on the coffee table, my purse on the kitchen floor and assorted, half read books on the dining table, the counters and between couch cushions and they won't vanish.

I can also eat two desserts or drink a whole bottle of wine all myself. I can watch "Coming To America" or "The Devil Wears Prada" every weekend without hearing a word otherwise. I can spend my Saturday night strutting around without pants. (I've done that with past roommates and they didn't seem to enjoy it.)

Every once in a while I have that satisfying sensation that I'm taking care of myself, and not living at home anymore, or with roommates, and I really have the freedom to do whatever. Were I more adventurous, I may do something more exciting than watch "Lost in Translation" and walk in front of my open windows in my underwear. But I'm not anymore. I don't know when I'll get back to being like that again. If.

Speaking of "Lost In Translation", I tried watching this movie years ago, while tripping balls on Percocet, following dental surgery. I got maybe 10 minutes into it and shut it off. I couldn't handle it. Now, four years later, I've made a second attempt and this movie is still bizarre as fuck.

I'm back

I think that it's kind of strange how pretty much all of my friends with blogs have abandoned them, even the ones who used to post often. Well, except for Andy, and Graber. They post pretty often, occasionally about the same stuff.

I think I might be motivated to post more frequently if I used Twitter. But I refuse to Twitter, because there is plenty of nonsensical, uninteresting crap floating around the net already. My contributions are not needed.

The summer is officially over, and it was never more evident than the day after Labor Day, when I spent the day in LBI. It was windy and cold and damn near abandoned. Literally. Half the restaurants were closed and shops were shuttering up. The tourists have left. I hate crowds, but I had hoped for sun and a bit more life to be had. The summer definitely passed me by this year. I think it's because I let work get to me too much.

For the fall, I hope to spend more time outside, particularly in Monmouth County, where all the farms are beautiful and filled with changing leaves and pumpkins and they give hay rides. October is my favorite month, I think, and not just because of Halloween. Well, Halloween is a big part of it - I still don't know what to dress up as this year.

Marla Singer? Joan Holloway? A giant banana?

Rita's, Furloughs and other recession anecdotes

RITA'S TOUR 2K9:

In celebration of the first day of spring, all Rita's franchises give away a free small ice to every customer. And our posse saddled up to tour the Ritas of Middlesex county to claim what was rightfully ours-free ice.

We hit four in total: Edison, Middlesex, South Plainfield and Bridgewater. The Edison location had the longest line and we waited about 20 minutes before getting our ices. Some teenager working there handed out samples to the line, but ran out as he came to us and didn't come back. Punk. I got a vanilla chip creme ice, while everyone else got Georgia peach. The vanilla one was OK. Kind of milky.

The Middlesex Ritas had no line at all, but all they had left was Pina Colada. We took it, but I wish I hadn't. It was overly sweet and the pineapple flavor made me sick to my stomach. I ate maybe 3/4 and started wondering if I could continue on with the trip.

At the South Plainfield Ritas, the line was again long, filled with kids and soccer moms. I got a cherry ice at this location. It was a standard cherry ice. I only ate about half of it.

The final stop was Bridgewater, and we got to the line like 10 minutes before closing. Basil finished his previous ice while standing in line for a new one. My final ice was a mint chocolate chip creme ice and it was really good. I again only ate about half. Everyone else got sweet tea flavored ice and said how amazing it was, which quickly changed over to saying that it tasted like sweetened pool water.

We all congratulated ourselves for actually sticking to our guns and seeing this plan through, but we didn't count on how sick we'd feel afterward. We all were on a sugar high after the first ice, but by the time we got back to Highland Park, we were all in a sluggish coma. Next year we're going to stagger the locations, one every two hours or so. Next year's free ice day also falls on a Saturday, I believe, so we can start way earlier than 8 p.m.

Before you start saying we took advantage of a good thing, keep in mind all Rita's are franchise owned so we're not taking more than our fair share from each location. Also, every location budgeted out a certain amount of ice to be given free, so we didn't cut into their weekly reserve: At the first location, the kid in front of us got the last of the passion fruit, which we were going to order. At the fourth location, I got the last of the mint chocolate chip. Also, we're in a recession and I got my furlough paycheck yesterday. I'm going to be looking for promotional food giveaways more often!

Other upcoming free food days of note include:
Free slurpee day at 7/11: July 11
(Dunkin Donuts, Burger King and Wendy's all have annual free promotion days too, but I'm not seeing them advertised yet.)

Also: The Reverend also blogged the Rita's adventure. Read all about it here.

Furlough, Day 2

I'm trying to plan my furlough days, so I keep myself as entertained as possible this week, while spending the least amount of money possible.



Yesterday, Lewis and I woke up and had brunch with his parents, followed by a walk around Highland Park. In the toy store, I was struck with the idea to go to IKEA to look at picture frames and root around the discount room so off we went. And in what I consider to be an attempt at circumventing a day of shopping, Lewis suggested we go to the next Turnpike exit and take the Path into NYC. So we did that.



It was starting to rain as we got out of the 23rd st. station, but it was nice and warm, so it didn't bother us. We walked to Fish's Eddy on Broadway and 19th, where I was overcome with joy at handling hundreds of glass and porcelain housewares. I walked outta there with a salt cellar in the shape of a duck, and a serving platter in the shape of a piece of green notebook paper, marked down to $6 from $24. See?



The little blue cow is a gift for Lewis's mother, because she likes blue glass.

After Fish's Eddy, we continued downtown and stumbled upon a Pinkberry, where we both indulged in cups of frozen goodness. I had mine with shaved white chocolate, which adds a snappy crunch. I love the texture of crispy food.

Today, I cleaned. I finally finished getting all of my stuff properly put away, wheareas a lot of it was just thrown in closets to get it out of the way. I finally set up my bookshelf, took all my shoes out of their boxes (and discovered a cute pair that I haven't worn in two years. Love when that happens.) vaccumed, put up a new shower curtain, scrubbed the kitchen, and threw out a ton of shit that should never had made it here in the first place. I have a rule-If I bring new things in here, some of the old things have to go. This may be boring to whoever is reading, but I love throwing things away. It's a small thrill to have that space back again so I can cram it full of newer, shinier things.

Tommorow, I go to Middletown for the day, and Wednesday, I am going to Costco with Rebecca (I think). Friday should entail another movie marathon at Casa de Gapin con Leela, because it's Friday the 13th!

So, if anyone wants to hang out this week, give a holla. I am around and looking for adventures.

Ker-smash

It's very warm out today. I hope this means that spring is sooner than we think and I can start leaving my apartment windows all night without freezing. I've had enough fo winter. Fo' realz. There was too much snow, and in an urban area like Highland Park/Edison/New Brunswick, snow doesn't look pretty. It gets black and grey and fills up the roads and ices over my car and generally makes everyone miserable. Snowfall is prettier in Monmouth County, but only on days that it isn't getting in the way of work.

Tommorow, I will have had my Honday Civic for one year. Yesterday, while returning from a lunch run (at Wawa, of all places), I was t-boned by an SUV that went through a yield at the end of a jughandle and either see me or tried to beat me.

I have the gnarliest, ugliest, bruise ever on the underside of my left arm from my shoulder to my elbow, where she impacted the driver side of my car, but I am not seriously hurt. But from a distance, it looks like I got my arm slashed open. It's huge, disgusting and itches. Yuck.

The funny thing was, when she hit me, I yelled a lot and then as soon as I got out of the car, all my anger vanished and a calm came over me and I wasn't mad at all.

But, after multiple insurance company calls from three different people, two recorded statements, endless questions asking me to go over what happened again and again, having to get the car towed to a body shop, dealing with police and a general feeling of exhaustion since last night, what bothers me the most is that fact that this woman didn't even attempt to say "I'm sorry''

When I finally got the car over to the side of the road, she gave me a look of complete horror and stopped her car. She got out and stared at the damage to her SUV with her hand to her mouth. I asked her three times if she was OK. She look up at me in shock and then climbed into her car and stayed there. The cops issued her a summons and recognized the fact that I was completely blameless.

I had a big self-pity tirade typed out but I won't post it, because it's useless. I am not hurt. I am driving a big, gaudy bright blue car now with awful speakers, but it's better than driving nothing. My furlough begins in a week, but Watchmen comes out on the sixth. So, I can't be anything less than OK right now.

What I'm feeling a lot of right now is the creeping realization that I need to find something else. I need a new job, particularly after this happened while I was at work for a job that I don't like anymore, picking up lunch from a place I didn't want to go to.

I am hoping to channel this energy into a new spat of job searching, and hope to find something that makes me feel good to do, rather than just puts money in my hands. I don't know what that is, but I've put off finding it for the past year, and I need to get myself back to a good place because where I am now is not healthy, mentally, creatively and physically. I'm ready to go back to my life.