Very Bland Food Mood

Ingredients

• 1 hella cheap friend date with lots of cheese
• 1 tired yet worth-it self date with lots of laughs
• 1 delicious multi-employee date with lots of carbs
• 1 proud fellow college graduate group date with lots of piano titling
• 1 folksy show date with a lotta blood and harmony
• 1 Saturday night Facetime date with a +44 number

Instructions

Hi. Welcome to Boredom. Those ingredients all sound lovely-- very anti-Recipes for Disaster-- but let it be known that: There are 2 dates with yourself above. There are 0 dates that are actual dates. There are 9 episodes of Freaks and Geeks and 1 entire season of Garfunkle and Oats that you watched surrounding those dates (OK, in the last 2 days) and that's barely alright. And these were some of the most exciting things that happened to you in the past two weeks. But guess what your +44 London friend told you via Facetime today, as you both spent your Saturdays lounging in sweatshirts? 

"You need the boring times so you can really notice when the exciting stuff happens."

Right, right right! Cool, so it's like, what would that list above look like if your life weren't so boring? Probably something like:

• Using your 40% employee discount at the new restaurant in your restaurant group with your buddy who you saw twice already this week
• Buying a ticket for a 10:30pm UCB improv show online before your work shift to force yourself to go after work, even though you had horrible stomach cramps and were alone
• Finally getting a few of your fellow hosts to agree on a date and time to get your restaurant's burger, plus some tasty but let's be honest really buttery extras sent from the kitchen, and stuffing your face into a coma right before your afternoon improv class
• Volunteering to help out at this year's Northwestern Acting & Musical Theatre Showcase, even though it meant you had to take the closing shift at work, and switch an audition time, leaving you with one-a-dem 14 hour days
• Paying $15 at the door instead of the $10 online that you'd planned on paying to see your friend's show, thanks to poor planning, though the $4 cup of wine (yes, cup) was a great addition to enjoying this new folk rock musical loose adaptation of Antigone... which very well could've been bad, but was thankfully really frickin' awesome
• Talking with one of your best friends who you never get to see because she's at school in London for the next year and a half, but sometimes she interrupts your day with surprise Facetimes and sometimes you can answer and this is one of those times

Ughk. Those sound so bland, some horrible. I mean, they did actually happen to me and are true, but when you put them that way... they don't seem exciting at all. Some even seem mildly unpleasant-- like most of my recipe ingredients! If I'm in this flat, daily humdrum drudge, I guess it's better to look at the even remotely positive occurrences as exciting and awesome, which, apparently to me, translates to various hot dates. I don't know why. That's how I typed them.

You deleted Hinge, Anna, you are happier now, don't go back.

Aw, come on now-- did we really need to bring back Bitchy Emma Stone? She used that GIF last week!

Ohp, nope, now she's crying. It's OK, nooo no it's OK, Emma: Adele's "Someone Like You" doesn't really make everyone cry. It's simply an SNL sketch's worldview that your character has agreed to. Listen, dear: Once you agree to a truly boring life, very little can make you cry like that. Plus, every teeny little, seemingly usual activity will rock your world like a party hurricane, and the only tears you'll be crying are tears of joy for all the fun you're having! I mean, let's get real here: You have delicious ice cream in your hands and in your belly. You're spooning Turkey Hill by the spatula-ful and honestly missing your mouth. Could you ask for a better time?!

(Potentially yes, and that would be the time you spend discovering the dark comedy mecca that is "Freaks and Geeks", good sweet Lord on high where has this been all my life. Everyone-- everyone-- was on this show. I am and will be pained now and for every minute of my life that this show was canceled after 1 season. The acting is superb, the writing is courageous, the depiction of Michigan is spot on depressing.)

Anyways, I'm so glad Emma can always help me out in dissecting the minutiae of life.

You may feel bummed that nothing very exciting is going on in your life, but, at the end of the day, look how many hot dates you had up there. That's a lot of cheese, laughter, decadent Michelin-Star-rated carbs, constant piano accompaniment to bright young talent, a damn fine show, and London all wrapped in a bow just for you. Theoretical Boredom Fake Dates rock!

Oh, shut up, Emma.