"Shadow or not, your year is gonna blow!"
Oh! It’s Groundhog’s Day! Punxsutawney Phil, you are a little fucker. 2012, you better step up your game.
Author Archives: anotherintro
When life imitates art. Or blogs.
After a long night of listening to Liono (https://youlifeisnotsogreat.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/some-people-have-children/ ) playing with bottle caps I woke up early (noon) to get my weekend fix of fried potatoes and hot sauce.
And right outside my doorstep I ran into this guy:
You life is not so NASCAR
I don’t know exactly how to feel about Dale Earnhardt Jr. hanging out in the front of my apartment surrounded by empty cans of Natty Ice.
But, I’m not surprised.
Filed under beer, cats, food, horrifying, Uncategorized
Caught in a bad romance – with myself.
Sometimes a lady just needs to reward herself for a Tuesday well-done. It’s extremely important to romance one’s self, and, at “You Life,” self-romancing is done right.
The first rule of self-congratulations is treat yourself to your favorite dinner. So, after work, I set off to get my absolute favorite Tuesday meal:
Tuesday night: the perfect night for a lemon meringue doughnut and five dollar wine.
The best thing about being an adult is that I can drink my calories and pretend that it is a fancy enjoyment by coupling it with an overpriced doughnut!
However, no matter how hard you work, there is always someone that wants to keep you down, take advantage of your generosity, and shit all over your night of pampering.
George. It was George that wanted to shit all over my night of self-romancing.
What happened was that, in my wine-provoked state of liberality, I gave George a taste of his favorite treat. This mofo LOVES doughnuts. The first picture was of him lovingly tasting the meringue. The second picture was going to be of me enjoying the doughnut; instead, it turned into a candid of George trying to hit me in the face to get the rest of the sweets. And, since I suffered the face battery, he won.
That ended the meal portion of the night. Undeterred, I moved onto other self-spoiling activities, like lighting candles and setting up a hot bath to enjoy.
This is how I have to prepare for a bath:
Put the stopper in.
in case you can’t tell, that is a shot glass
Fill with hot water.
That is a tea kettle filled with hot water since I only get an average of three minutes of hot water, which generally is enough time to fill my tub with less than two inches of mostly tepid water
After a fruitless fifteen minute search for candles to put around the tub, I soaked my work-exhausted limbs in the luke-warm water…
...until Liono jumped into the bathtub shortly after this picture was snapped
That pretty much ended the whole night.
Jesus saves…on the purchase of a new blanket.
There are certain ways that I like to celebrate the end of the work week. My favorite, by far, is drinking Mickey’s grenades with my bearded boyfriend at our favorite bar.
It’s like Mickey’s normal 40oz and St. Patrick’s day had an adorable baby: an adorable, malt liquor, baby.
Then, I like to follow up those grenades with a bottle of white wine, chicken lo mein, and dancing to “Moves like Jagger” in my living room while “That Thing You Do!” plays on the VHS in the background.
It’s boyfriend’s favorite movie, and I love him despite that.
The next morning, I like to get up late and walk to the local 7-ll to get my life’s blood (yellow Gatorade). All of these things are a blissfully normal routine for us, except something strange happened this week that was significantly different.
I had donned my laziest weekend attire and set off for my destination.
a green overcoat with my Power Puff girl pajama pants and flats with flowers on them.
En route I encountered a rowdy group of “Jesus Saves” people. They were nice enough and enthusiastically jolly, so I stopped while they were frantically yelling at me. Had it been angry zealots I would have moved right along, but these people seemed to be a combination of happy and brief. They handed me my pamphlet,
Good question!
and then the amazingly disturbing thing happened. They handed me a blanket…because they thought I was homeless.
An unused blanket that I could make into a tent in which to live.
At first I felt the need to explain: I’m lazy; I live next door to 7-11; I have no reservations about looking like a slob on a Saturday afternoon; I do, in fact, rent a home. But then I thought about how cold my apartment is and how my current blanket is looking a bit rough.
I took the blanket.
So I took the pamphlet and blanket, put my Gatorade in my pocket, and proceeded to Dunkin Donuts where the man behind the counter also thought I was homeless (but in his case he was just frightened; no free salt bagels and coffee there).
As it turns out Jesus did indeed save me a trip to the store and money for a blanket. Thanks Jesus!
Easy mac’in
I find cooking for the workplace to be one of the most difficult tasks of the week: more difficult than getting out of bed or dressing myself. It is even more difficult than showering without a shower curtain.
So how can one create a meal for the work day? Easy! Along with my ability to negotiate loan re-payment plans, I am something of a culinary genius when it comes to crafting the perfect meal for a busy work week.
Here are my tips:
Step 1: Press the snooze button on the alarm five to ten times. Given that the snooze lasts for five minutes, that means you could potentially over-sleep anywhere between 25 minutes to an hour late. You have sacrificed getting up early and making a meal in order to be well rested. Good for you.
Step 2: Get into work.
Step 3: Be overcome with hunger around noon. Stagger to the machines in the lunch room. These machines, which I suspect have become sentient, spin and display a veritable feast of simulated food. If one was hoping to eat a simulation of a beef burrito, then this machine would be the place to go
Step 4: Give machine a ridiculous amount of money.
Step 5: Take meal, in this case Hormel’s instant chili mac’ n’ cheese, and microwave it until it becomes a bubbling volcano of a lunch item.
Step 6: While mystery lunch meat with macaroni (no cheese to be found) is microwaving, go to other vending machine.
Step 7: Get Fritos®
Step 8: Take “food” back to desk. Open bag of Fritos® dump them on top of the chili.
Step 9: Eat with a spoon, like a shovel piling empty calories and sadness into your mouth.
Step 10: Give up on yourself.
Style is as style doesn’t get off the couch
One rule to fashion is creating a specific style that expresses what you are feeling. Creative dressing can help to define who you are at a particular moment. The outfit should creatively identify you and express all of those internal emotions that often don’t have a voice. Fashion is so wonderful.
At “You Life,” style is highly valued. All throughout 2011, I chose a uniform that defined where I was in my life at that moment:
Bed. I was in bed for most of 2011
The uniform was pajama pants, my green Bob Ross sweatshirt, and a cat by my side.
What I was expressing was misfortune, laziness, poorness, and laziness.
It is a new year with a new apartment, which inevitably means that new styles have entered into the ‘You Life,’ world. You can be sure that I will update you on it.
A peak into the life
I thought it might be interesting to get sneak peeks into the actual world of ‘You Life.’
The first installment is “what is in my refrigerator?” Here’s a look:
the breakfast of champions
It is stocked with all of the essentials: an empty metal thermos, the cheapest tall boy I could find, the dredges of a diet coke, and a box of cotton candy fudge.
And, in case I run out of room in my bite-sized apartment, I can always use my fridge for storage.
Going Green
I have always been a big fan of Max from Where the Wild Things Are. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that, as an adult, I would live out one of the scenes from that book. It was always my assumption, however, that it would be the wild rumpus part that’s filled with dancing or, perhaps, the dinner scene that’s filled with cake.
It comes as a complete surprise to me that it should be the sleeping part of the book (wherein all the monsters dog pile for warmth) that I am currently emulating.
And it is this scenario provides the first installment of “going green tips.”
Becoming an environmentally conscious person is a tough decision to make. It means no more rampant littering and reusing the crap you would rather just toss onto the side of a road. But it becomes significantly easier, if you don’t use fossil fuels or heating oil or if you don’t have money to pay for them. If you do have the money, but refuse to use fossil fuels, then you are an environmentally friendly person; if you lack the funds, then you are a de facto environmental activist.
The lack of No. 2 heating oil for my current apartment complex means that I have gone green. I am sure that the apartment complex is heated, but my apartment is not. Why? Oil is mad expensive. Also, contacting my landlord is confusing. Additionally, I find the provider for the oil to be difficult on the phone. Most of all, I’m lazy.
For a brief period of time my job was allotting workers an individual space heater for their desk. Since I am industrious I stole mine.
Oh space heater, how I love you
…until I plugged you in at home only to find out you’re broken
In order to get any warmth from it you literally had to hug it to your body
So I have found an alternate route to heating the apartment. I gather Liono and George and force them to cuddle with me. It is like a combination of Mowgli gathering with the wolves in The Jungle Book and Max slumbering with the wild things.
George hates me, but he hates the cold more
Liono is like a living space heater
and, like Max before me, I find that if we all pile on the bed there is enough heat generated so my eyebrows don’t develop ice crystals during my slumber.
There ya go, environment. Thank me later.
Filed under cats, going green
Cooking and clarifications.
Like most bloggers I have a Zen for cooking and the finer things. Becoming a foodie was one of my aspirations when I turned twenty-three. As it turns out, there are certain things that a foodie needs: mainly food and kitchen appliances. So, when I search through my kitchen cupboard now at the age of twenty-seven, I discover that it has become a graveyard for old cartons of food: the wrappers of Twinkies and ancient boxes of Tastykake’s Kandy Kakes.
The moral of this story is that I don’t have much in the way of food or kitchen appliances. But never fear! You can make delicious tasty treats without the aid of fancy kitchen appliances. A person doesn’t need a dehydrator, iron skillet, blender, or even forks to make a wonderful meal.
That brings us to the picture on my header.
Those up there are the most delicious mashed potatoes that the East Coast has to offer. And what’s the best part? I didn’t use a masher. Why? I don’t have one because I believe it is a frivolous waste of money in these trying economic times. Instead, I spent masher money on a delicious craft beer in the style of George Washington’s porter. Then, I used the bottle to mash the potatoes. GW would have been so proud to see my industrious spirit in the face of adversity, just like during the Revolution. (You will see in the background that my friend was making his own mashed potatoes using a potato masher. He chose those because he is a British loyalist that only appreciates colonialism and hatred).
How to make an ashtray
Here is a really quick craft project that will only take a few moments to create. I call it “how to make an ashtray.”
Step 1: Go to the store. I like to go to a deli that is close to my apartment, the proximity is key seeing as how I don’t own a car, don’t have a license, and don’t know how to drive.
Step 2: Purchase a forty. I like Colt 45, but Mickey’s is especially dear to me. Also, Hurricane is good.
Step 3: Go home and drink the forty.
Step 4: Get cigarettes. I am smoking Pall Mall Lights because I used to smoke Parliament Lights and Pall Mall Lights are like Parliaments for poor people.
Step 5: Light cigarette. I used a barbecue lighter because I don’t know where my actual lighters or matches went. You can also use the stove or toaster.
Step 6: Flick ash into empty forty.
Congratulations! You just made your very own ashtray!
You life is not so great 