11.30.07

as fred bartles and ed jaymes used to say, thank you for your support: it's now been a week since my last cigarette, which is something i haven't been able to say for eleven years (gulp). i'm not going to dwell on the crappy things about having smoked for that long, money-, health-, or otherwise - i hardly have the right - but it is nice that i'm now saving at least $5.10 a day ($6.80 per pack in nyc x .75 pack per day). i'm socking that money away for a trip to iceland (joe says that if i can hold out long enough to afford it, he'll go anywhere i want) and a big-ass tattoo when i get there. that part of the plan isn't especially popular, but c'mon - i'll be about to turn 30 by then. new ink for a new decade, or something. a big-ass tattoo is also the traditional reward (in the microculture that exists only in my head) for getting ridiculously fit, and this whole quitting thing could lead to that as well - i've been to the gym four times (and counting) this week.* exhaustion is a good antidote to the nic-fit jitters, or it has been so far. i hate gyms with an epic passion - they're habitrails for people, if you ask me - but i'm more than vain enough to be deeply afraid of gaining weight as i quit. one solution for two problems, hey hey! i'll be a hamster for that, at least until i'm fit enough for the roller derby.

*i'd gone once this year (cough) before that.

11.27.07

101 in 1001: 026 quit smoking [last cigarette: 11.23.07]
cessation goals are tricky. it seems terribly unfair and/or misleading to be able to say that i've quit smoking when i'm only talking about four days' worth of work (though it's certainly been work) thus far. also, there's nothing in the list item about whether or not the quit has to stick forever (though that's what i meant when i put it on the list). i mean, i could quit mensa and then rejoin in a year when i find myself missing the dogfighting and orgies, and it'd still be accurate to say that i quit today. i think the permanence i had (/have) in mind makes up for the only-four-days part, though, and the prospect of public failure and shame is a very effective relapse deterrent, so: hey internets! i quit smoking!

...for good. just you watch.

11.21.07

those of you who checked in with me about the angst at the beginning of my last post were very kind; this holiday season is progressing peachily, actually, and it seems very unlikely that i will feel like yelling and/or blowing my nose at anyone. i could be jinxing myself by calling '07 the year of little holiday drama, but whatever: do your worst, baby jesus.

what i really want to talk about, though, is the whole orphan thanksgiving thing. i made a vague attempt to put together a virtual table last year (that is, to collect photos of far-flung friends' dishes and patch them together in a photomontage so we could rub virtual elbows), but i wasn't very aggressive about soliciting the food porn and ended up with but a few sexy shots of wabes's cookies and jen's gravy. we are thinking big this year, internets, and i am very serious about pretending to share a table with all of you! behold the orphan thanksgiving photo group (and come on in, or snap pics tomorrow, send them to me, and i'll upload for you)! hell, come on in even if you don't feel like taking pictures of food!

here's a bit of inspiration, also known as the earl grey tea cookies i made last year that were not, contrary to popular opinion, sausages.



you can top that, right? bring it!

11.14.07

hello, internets! i haven't died, but i've killed several long posts about how i turn into sulky mclonelypants around the holidays because i have a weird seasonal Adult Child of Divorce mourning cycle. i know you're dying to hear the whole story of how i threw a bona fide tantrum last year when my dad suggested we hang out with my stepfamily the day before thanksgiving, but i'm afraid you'll have to settle for the summary. if you like conflict, try the superest, one of my new daily reads: it's an ongoing duel between cartoonists (Player 1 draws a character with a power. Player 2 then draws a character whose power cancels the power of that previous character. Repeat.), and it's kookily great. my favorite thus far is the silent film director ("He won't hear your cries for mercy!"), who vanquished the foley brothers ("They pulled off that bank heist with just cellophane and frozen heads of lettuce.").

in addition to feeling sorry for myself, i've also been trying to get to the bottom of why the fact that joe and i are married is so very fascinating and/or shocking to people we meet (as a couple) at our local bar. it's common knowledge that generations x and y* are getting married later, but the median age for first-timers is only up to 25; though i was carded for cigarettes at duane reade two hours ago,** i'm obviously older than that. it's also common knowledge (thank you, darren star) that women in new york city are overwhelmingly single - in manhattan, only 34.8% of women in the 25 to 44 age bracket are hitched - but i think it's clear from the way joe and i act around each other that we've been together for a very long while (we're way past finishing each other's sentences; we spontaneously meow journey songs at the same time***), which typically implies marriage. i suppose we could look like the sort of people who cohabitate happily without The Man's shackles, but that's a relatively small portion of our demographic. so what gives?

the setting is the shocker, obviously: people don't expect to meet married couples in a bar, or to see a woman tag along for her husband's dart matches (for that matter, the girlfriends don't usually come either). but why not? we live in the city and we don't have a car; we can't exactly spend our weekends at ikea or on foliage tours. i'm starting to despise local restaurants and theaters (too expensive and crowded, respectively), so dinner and a movie is (boring and) out. on the other hand, joe and i both love playing darts (as does george, with whom we spend the majority of our free time), our local is a two-minute walk from our apartment, and our pints are dirt cheap. joe and i don't do everything as a unit, but i quite like that we share that. how is wanting to hang out with your partner exotic?

*by the by, i've never really figured out where i fall between the two. it's argued that x cuts off at 1980, but, um, i obviously don't remember watergate. where should the split be?

**and carded everywhere for everything when we were visiting jen last month. why so uptight, chicago?

***i know this is pathetic, i'm just saying.