Since I have no money right now, because I am at that point that happens every few months where all of my bills are due before I get my paycheck, and I may finally find out how my overdraft protection works, but I still need to eat, I did some inventing in the kitchen tonight.

I knew that I had the following: turkey cutlets, various soups, frozen vegetables, taco seasoning. More specifically, I reasoned out that I have cheddar cheese soup (which I bought on sale for a dollar. Holler), frozen peppers (also a dollar. Holler back). What would I make of this? Dinner, of course. It did require buying a bag of chips, though, because I could only think of fashioning this into some sort of dip. I took a trip to CVS and hoped that Halloween candy would be on sale. It was, but more the Mike and Ike's and not so much the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups I wanted. Peanut butter was on sale for 3 for $5 which was a steal! I am officially old or poor, because I get excited about sales and love telling everyone about them. At that price, I can eat one jar tonight which is what I always have to fight the urge to do.

While cooking I took the time to take a picture only because it made me think "We are eating peppers and chips!"





This led to my roommates and I saying "We are eating peppers and chips!" over and over for the next five minutes.

Along the way I decided that I was going to throw in some refried beans, for why nots. Actually what I think I said was "Hey, refried beans, you're gonna join the party."

Recipe:
1 turkey cutlet, cut into small pieces
1 can of Cheddar Cheese soup
1 can refried beans
1 cup (I am lying I don't measure things that aren't premeasured) of frozen pepper strips

I think that was it.

Directions:
Thaw the peppers in the microwave. Cook the turkey cutlet in a bit of olive oil in a saucepan on medium high heat. Once the turkey is cooked on both sides, add the vegetables to cook them a bit. Next, add the cheddar cheese. Add the refried beans and mix them all together. Done and done.

Serve:
I threw the mess that looked like dog food in a bowl, topped it with some plain yogurt (I stole it from my roommate--if you don't have one of these, you will have to buy more food). I drizzled on some enchilada sauce and edged the bowl with baked scoops.


I will get at least one more meal out of this. I am kind of a pig, you could get two. If you are one of those people who has no roommates, you can eat it all right out of the saucepan in one night. No one has to know.

Secrets, secrets, are no fun. Secrets, secrets, hurt someone

Lately, I've taken to checking out job listings on craigslist. The most fun ones to read are the ads for reality TV casting calls. One was for a spot on a hunter/gatherer tribe on an island where you can participate in polyamorous relationships and experience life as humans did back in the day when everything was wild and free. I'd post details here, but I'd like to keep this blog family friendly.

Then I found this one:

“Secrets," the CW's new documentary series, will follow the lives of professional woman ages 22-27 who cannot keep their rage under control.

For more information or to APPLY, check out www.cwsecrets.com.

I checked out the website and it is legit. Unfortunately, I don't actually qualify because I doubt my days spent wearing yesterday's pajamas scouring the internet for new and interesting craigslist posts qualifies as living a secret/double life. You all know that is what I am doing- it's no secret. I did have to think twice about the rage, though. I can call upon rage like it's my superpower. Things I have forgotten about for years, months, weeks, can quickly and easily come to the surface at a moment's notice.

One thing you shouldn't mention to me if you don't want to witness me fly off the handle is Comcast. Don't ask me the best way to return a cable box. I won't tell you how I was told 7 pieces of misinformation and sent through 5 different website links and talked to 8 different people and one online robot, only to find out that to return a piece of equipment would involve driving to Roxbury between the hours of noon and never on a weekday. Since you didn't ask, I wouldn't have to explain how ridiculous it is that if you cancel your Comcast service for no good reason, you can have someone stop by to pick it up (for free), ship it back to your payment center (for free), or drop it off at a local payment center (for free). However, if you have moved out of state last minute to an area where Comcast does not serve, your only option is to return it to your old location's payment center which is two hours away and keeps inconvenient hours. Fortunately, if you avoid mentioning Comcast to me, you will also avoid hearing about how much they suck, how much I hate them, and how even if I move back to an area that ONLY has Comcast as a cable option, I will personally install Dish Network on my apartment's rooftop or sign up for netflix or buy a new computer that would allow me to watch Hulu, instead of dealing with them again. F-ing Comcast.

Now that that hasn't been said, I am wondering if I should apply for that TV show.... if that happens, please be sure to watch me on the CW, Tuesdays, 10/9 Central, 2011.

30 Gremlins in 30 days

I find myself pondering the situation where I started a post before midnight and posted it after midnight, as was the case with my last entry. It's similar to the case of the Mogwai and Gremlin. One wonders, as a character did in the sequel, if they start eating before midnight, but get a piece of food stuck in their teeth, will the friendly, furry, little dinkers turn into their scaly, mischievous, though often entertaining alter egos?

Do I have to write a post on every day? Or will 30 posts in 30 days fulfill the requirement? Here is my answer, see if you can follow the logic. You could turn one mogwai into a gremlin every day for 30 days. Or, you could turn 30 mogwais into 3o gremlins overnight. Either way, you have 30 gremlins to deal with. I know that one gremlin at a time is much easier to deal with than dozens upon dozens. Luckily, in this situation, it just means you'll have to read more at once and you probably won't end up going through your window when they rewire your chairlift.

Croque Monsieur or Croque Madame?.. I can't decide

Lately I have been having trouble with decisions. I am going to blame unemployment. When I had a job, I made decisions regularly and with abandon. I didn't think twice because I knew I was right because I am as awesome as Barney Stinson.

Since I don't have anything to do (except apply for millions of jobs, write a novel, post in this every day, and make things for my etsy website), I spent the better part of this afternoon trying to decide whether to make a croque madame or a croque monsieur for lunch. (For those of you who aren't familiar with french grilled sandwiches, a croque monsieur is grilled ham & cheese, and a croque madame is the same, plus a fried egg on top). To egg, or not to egg, that was the real question. In the end, I left it up to the fates. I started off by assembling the croque monsieur. I figured, if I really wanted the egg, when the time came and the cheese was done melting into oozy goodness, I could easily fry it up for the topping with minimal effort. It was at this stage that I realized that the trouble I have been having is less about the decision and more about making the commitment to one or the other.

One of my favorite ways to avoid commitments is to let the time run out. I am in a constant state of race against the clock. In the case of today's lunch, I started making the croque monsieur. Moments later (after having forgotten about the fact I was even making lunch), it was burning. I simply ran out of time to make the egg portion to turn it into a Madame. Decision made with no commitments: croque monsieur it is.

I apply this very same technique to other aspects of my life. I need to buy a car if I stay in CT. However, if I apply to enough jobs before I buy a car, then maybe I will get a job where I don't need a car before the car is bought. OR, if I get a job where I need a car, I can register it in the state the job is in, instead of first registering it in CT and then registering it elsewhere. But, if the car I want to buy ends up needing to be bought before a job happens, I will just have to buy the car and be done with it. Decision made, true commitment avoided.

As I sit here, a veritable Doogie Howser writing in my computer journal we will call this blog, reflecting on my past and thinking about my future, I realize I've spent the first 27 years of my life leaving things up to the something out there that is greater than me (I can't even commit to a higher power) and hoping that one day all of the stars will align and I will have a job that I like, a home, a boyfriend/husband, maybe a child but definitely a dog, and most importantly, a place where I feel I belong in the world.

As much as I want to stop this feeling that nothing is in my control, in many ways it is easier. If I could call upon the Purple People Eater to solve my problems, I probably would. Instead, I'm just going to continue my non-existent 5 year plan and let things roll the way they roll.

[Yes, there were three Neil Patrick Harris references in this post. And I do realize there wasn't much point to this entry, but I am kind of out of time so I am just going to put it up here anyway.]

Location, location, location

Due to the recent recession, I have been reluctantly restructured at work. Education was supposed to be solid, and for-profit was supposed to be secure for a while too, because we had a multi-billion dollar organization backing us up. Then, some people in another state made up a random number that 35 other people were supposed to hit, so...student services got cut and people who make nothing either got canned or asked to do twice as much for no more money. No, really, it's cute. Fortunately, I was one of the "lucky" ones who got to take with them part of the job that is a waste of my talent, and pick up the pieces of a job that had just been recently refilled because the last person just couldn't stand the job anymore. We lucky few.

Along with people telling me to smile all the time (I will do my job, but I will smile only when I'm leaving for the night), I also get a brand new fancy location as head cubicle monkey in the cubicle zoo. The three most noticable features of this new location are within 10 feet of me: the copier, the bathroom, and the mailboxes.

Now, the question is, which do I hate being near the most? There are pros and cons to each I suppose.

Copier: Pro- I can make copies without having to travel far. Con- I am the closest person when it's broken.

Bathroom: Pro- Again, proximity- no lengthy walk to the bathroom and I have a tiny bladder. Con- I am ten feet away from where a lot of disgusting people poop. If it were a public bathroom I would be 5 stalls down.

Mailboxes: Pro- You guessed it. How close! Considering I have to put the mail in the mailboxes, it's good I can do it while near my desk. Con- I don't get to get away from my desk even to do the mail.

Copier: Pro- this is kind of where we tap out at Pros. I don't really make copies very often-we have a copy center for bulk orders, which is all I do. The kids are not the smartest-we need lots of tutor request forms. Oh and they don't show up, so we need a lot of timesheets, with carbon copies to keep track of how much effort is wasted. Con- I'm near something I don't really need that much and yet I'm responsible for it.

Bathroom: Pro- I DO use the bathroom. It's not virtually useless like the copier. Con- a lot of people use that bathroom because the nearest one is used by students as well. And they're crawling with disease. Although they do write immature things on the walls that still amuse me. If that happened in our bathroom, everyone would know it was me. Con.

Mailboxes: Pro- It's um, well, there's...and you can't leave out... Con- the only mail I get, gets taken out of an envelope, and forwarded to the chairs. It could have been sorted before mailing. I don't get mail :( Saaaad.

Copier: No wait! I forgot a Pro! The copier is a fax machine as well! Con-I don't use that fax machine, I use the one in the back that people don't mess up.

Bathroom: Pro- I overhear people talking on the phone in "private." It's good for gossip and my favorite hobby...judging. Con- if I can hear phone conversations, think of the symphony I have to hear. Mostly butt-trumpet.

Mailboxes: Con- I have to deal with mail. I did that as an intern. When I was 21. Lame. They used to call me "intern" then. People don't know my name now either, and I've been there for 2 years. In 3 offices. And "What's your name again?" followed by "Great, anyways..." is not as cool as being called "intern." Con.

Copier: Con- even though I don't use it as a fax machine, I still have to remind people that they have to dial 9 to fax something. And then while they continue to have trouble, I hear them talking to themselves about how on the other machine that she uses, she doesn't have to dial 9. I didn't invent having to dial 9. I don't care what the other machine does. I don't care what this machine does. And I didn't call you senile, which you are and you're getting defensive. Oh, and talking to yourself. And by the way, you're welcome.

Bathroom: Con- Other people may not be as paranoid as me, but I don't like the fact that facilities probably thinks there's something wrong with me or that I make poo the size of an anaconda. For 2 years, I have always been near the bathrooms, and as the admin, I have to be the one to tell someone when something that looks like an arm is stuck in the toilet or when it looks like a pool when you take the cover off after the winter, and the cover leaked, and there's a dead squirrel in it. The pool, not the toilet. People don't know who I am. I am probably known as the guy who always breaks the toilets.

Mailboxes: Con- People congregate around the mailboxes. Boring people. And they talk to each other. I'm not in on the conversation, nor would I want to be. So...shut up and go away.

Copier: Con- People do not know how to use a copy machine. What happened to this? I don't know. What do I press to make it go back? I dunno? Clear? How do I do this? It's not working! You have to put it in the top right! It's jammed! Oh no! I didn't tell you to put it in the paper tray. And it's probably a stupid script you wrote. Pro- I know a LOT about copiers now, from when it has given me trouble. I can get a paper jam out of any part. I can figure out what the problem is 90 percent of the time. No one knows this about me. Who's the pro?

Bathroom: Pro- I get to give judgmental looks to people as they walk into the bathroom, for doing something that we all, by necessity, must do. On the way out, I get to look at them as if to say "That was too long to be number 1." Con- if I do use that bathroom, and someone is waiting for me at my desk, I essentially burst onto the scene and the awkwardness is reversed.

Mailboxes: Con- Do you know where my teacher's mailbox is? What's his or her name? I dunno. What does he or she teach? I dunno. Is it he or she? I dunno. Really?

Copier: Pro- Since I don't know anything about fixing the copier (wink!), the mailroom has to fix it. Their number is on the wall behind the copier. Con-who do you think has to make that call?

Bathroom: Pro- There is also the game I pretend to play with certain people, that I am tallying and keeping track of everyone's bathroom transactions.

Mailboxes: Con- There are very close mailboxes to my desk. As in my elbow could hit them. So people feel the need to strike up a conversation while they write on interoffice envelopes. Um, hi, I don't care. At least with the copier, when I ignore people, they might think I can't hear over the noise.

Copier: Pro- I have a dream of being overly helpful when the copier is giving people trouble. In this dream, I also pretend I'm in a wheelchair. As I try to back out of my cubicle, and say "Just a minute" and crash into the back wall, and then say "I'm coming!" and knock over my lamp, and reassure them "Be right there!" and run over a tack, they will feel stupid. I mean- isn't making someone stop what they're doing because you don't know how to use a machine that he does, even though you have been working since he was a small child, just as bad as making someone in a wheelchair rush to help, with something so stupid? The answer is...no, but I want to make people feel awkward and wheelchairs of good for that.

The clear winner at losing here is: Mailboxes. Sure, the toilet runs, and there's a frequent smell, and the other day, either a staff or faculty member didn't flush after leaving a nutty, gray-brown dook, and sure the copier is loud, and always breaking down, and the paper needs to be filled, and no one knows how to use it. But the mailboxes force me to talk to people. And help. And pretend to care.

The lesson is, that the people around me are worse than noise and poop.

That's what she said

"It's a little prick on my tongue" and "then it gets bigger in my mouth." Padima, Top Chef Las Vegas

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, Spooky Scary

Boys becoming men, men becoming wolves.

Every year, the day or two after Halloween, I come up with an excellent Halloween idea and then forget about it by the time it comes around again. This past October 31st, I was proud of myself for coming up with my dinosaur costume early (which was adorable if I must say so myself). But, I woke up this morning with an idea for the perfect Halloween party. A werewolf bar mitzvah. I'm not going to expand upon the details, but think about it. Next year, hopefully I will have a home that is not located in suburban CT and will host this lovely party. You are all invited. Yes, you. All 4 of our followers who read this blog.

That said, I love Halloween. I love dressing up in ridiculous costumes and watching multiple Lady Gagas have dance offs around stripper poles. I love waking up a hot mess the day after wearing a dinosaur hoodie on a friend's couch, not knowing how I am going to get home to CT. Ah, memories.

But, with Halloween's end comes the start of the inevitable NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). For the past 2 years, I have signed up and failed miserably. I sort of expect to fail. But, not this year. This year, I don't have a job that sucks out my soul and creativity. I have a total of 3 friends located within 10 miles of me which means minimal distractions. I am living with my parents and having regular flashbacks to the year 1999. My novel may end up being a coming of age story of a 27 year old aspiring writer trapped in suburban CT, but it will exist and it will hit the 50,000 word mark by Nov 30. That said, I will also participate in this blog post writing challenge.... I mean, why not add more writing onto my to-do list this month? I have a world of time on my hands.

Don't worry, I'll remember all of you when I am famous.