This week, we have a few guest chefs who were kind enough to share their favorite kickers:
- 82 degrees Fahrenheit, AKA the average monthly high for the month of September in Atlanta, AKA your first full month of classes in grad school, AKA torture (?)
- 24 hours of driving in 4 days + 8 hours in 2 days
+ 1 car tow to a remote location 10 miles away + 1 additional car tow by "those people"(the people who don't like their jobs) - 24 hours spent on a bus between DC and NYC in 2 months
- 1 BLT: "Big Love Triangle" (I must say, never in my life have I ever heard this acronym, nor did I understand it the first 5 times I read it)-- actually, it is more of a tridecagon. A Big Love Tridecagon. Can't really get much worse than that, shape wise.
If you think I wouldn't put this result for "tridecagon" up,
you're kidding yourself.
I don't think anything can beat a BLTrid., as far as deliciousness goes, but a Fruit Universalad does need at least a few more colorful ingredients to make it pop.
- Generous tastings of goose, quince, and pure raw milk (not all at once)
Quince: yellow apple-pear - 1 day of babysitting spent comparing the Into the Woods and Into the Woods, Jr. soundtracks
[Conversation during 'I Know Things Now':
Me: Wait, wait, wait-- why did they take out, like, 16 bars in the most interesting part of the song? Child: Maybe there was something inappropriate in it. Me: No. Well, maybe... Child: Maybe it was-- Me: There can't be anything inappropriate in it. Let's check. (watch on Youtube, with the child watching the lyrics on the screen) Child: Nope. Thank goodness.]
- 30 min. of an after-school religious education session overheard, in which the young teacher attempted to calm the girls so deeply concerned with the idea that priests can't get married, followed by a great nod to young adult literature:
Conversation explaining how there are 4 books in the Gospel, brought to you by the driest, sassiest Bible teacher ever:
Teach: It's kind of like how there are 3 books in The Hunger Games. You guys have read The Hunger Games, right?
Girl 1: YES! I LOVE THOSE BOOKS!
Girl 2: (quietly) My mom won't let me read them.
Girl 1: THEY ARE THE BEST! WHY WON'T SHE LET YOU?!
Teach: It's OK. I can understand why your mom wouldn't want you reading them yet.
Girl 1: BUT THEY'RE SO GOOD.
Teach: It's not that good. Don't worry, it's not like they are the pinnacle of literature.
Girl 1: What?! It so is really impressive literature!
Teach: Compared to other classics? No.
Girl 1: Yes it is!
Teach: Well, one day you'll actually read a classic. And you'll see that it's not. - 1 narcolepsy memoir attempted to be read by a person with narcolepsy, but only on a steadily moving quiet train
- 5,602 busses (give or take, most likely give) in New York City's MTA system. On one of which your wallet was left. Dropped. Stolen. Does it really matter? (yes.)
- #$*&@ minutes spent on phone with banks, DMVs, and credit report companies
- *&@!# hours spent fretting about your identity, and not in the cool way
- 9 months of extra valid time that Northwestern accidentally added to your student ID card that you were using to still get student discounts, now GONE!!
Instructions
People everywhere have weird things happen to them. Everyone's life has the possibility for a memoir. Some may sell better than others, but...
I got a new walk from my PT last week. So it makes my butt muscles hurt. Who cares! I'm standing tall, using unfamiliar muscles, and I feel like I'm walking in someone else's shoes. Since gaining my new posture, I got to spend 2 days on a farm in the Berkshires. I officially started hosting at a legit Upper West Side organic mom restaurant. I made some new, non-Northwestern friends. And I finally sat in the audience by myself at my first theatrical production at an NYC private school, which what small-town girl can say is not their #1 goal post-graduation.
As much as it's important to fully live in your city, your neighborhood, your skin, you should always continue to push the boundaries of your experience-- and a big way to do that is by taking a step outside of yourself. Perhaps in someone else's shoes. There might be a lot of things that you know, but... come on. I mean, do you really trust yourself that much? Maybe your life is naturally tridecagon-shaped and mutli-layered, many-sided, able to shine in whatever hemisphere's light you can imagine. If so, forgive me. However, most of us beings can't expect ourselves to know everything. Totes fine. That's what FRIENDS are for. And fellow employees. And kids you babysit. And people you visit on farms. And doctors you dislike, ridiculous MTA employees, friends' parents, kind bankers, bosses with beards, reservations for parties of 15, and people who steal your wallet. The world is out there for you to--
Wait. No. I'm sorry. I can't include the individual who stole my wallet. Whoever you are, out there with my precious license, CVS rewards card, and Forever 21 gift card? I hope you have made every attempt to mail that thing to me, and, in that case, I applaud you for your efforts. If instead you are a mean person whose actions are completely unbelievable to me and everyone I've mentioned this to, then SMITE. UPON. YOU. *Once again, though, if you have my wallet and are trying to get it to me, thank you more than all other things on this earth.*
[OK, karma really is a bit-- if you have my wallet and are the type that would normally be smited upon, it's still OK! Really! Just go ahead and forgive yourself-- I'll forgive you, too-- and package that baby up to send to the address on my ID. Google me. You'll easily find my email. I am sending positive thoughts your way in hopes that you'll have a change of heart. You can change. I believe in you. More than I believe in my ability to keep my purse shut, obviously.]
-- the world is out there for you to fill. Someone in my Playwriting Sequence last year once likened listening to the world around you as being a sponge: you soak up all the information, the overhead conversations, the visions of couples looking over their entire text message histories, & the snippets of Spanish caught from every passerby on your street, and you allow them to become a part of you. Be a sponge. Absorb as much of the weird stuff around you (and from your friends not around you) as possible, because hey. Wouldn't you rather be plush and spry than hard and shrivel-y? And even when you wring yourself out every now and then, using what you've learned to help your writing, social interactions, art, teaching, whatever, you'll still be a healthier sponge than if you had not gotten wet in the first place.
As for the foreign ingredients up at the top: I understand that these may be hard to find if you're living in a city like New York or Chicago. First of all, it's primarily frickin' freezing up here, so good luck with that 83-degree weather. Second of all. Car?
Thank you very much to my friends for submitting their ingredients, as well as my 4 best girlfriends from Ohio for having a 5-way Google Hangout to update each other on the different states (literally) of our current lives. It was interesting, eye-opening, and comforting all at once to hear about everything exploding and aligning with you all. We may have all just graduated college, but there are so many factors that go into making your first year out what it is. New York, Chicago, Missouri, Atlanta, DC, Columbus. Service work, taking an extra year for another major, moving away from home for the first time, grad school, working for your dad, getting a salary & paid vacations, traveling the US, staying at home, having 3 jobs, living by yourself, living with nuns. Though my friends from high school, college, and now New York are all doing different things-- some vastly different, some just at different restaurants down the street-- we're all in the same place. Which is new. We're all babies. And we make up the Fruit Universalad that I hope is as delicious as a real BLT. (The one with the bacon.)
Next week, more on that narcolepsy memoir. If you're someone who likes homework/research/procrastinating on the interwideworldofwebs, check out the author's awesome webpage: Julie Flygare.
