She's Still Got It

By "it" I definitely do not mean, "The ability to tell a story with wit, charm and elegant turn of phrase." That may be gone forever. I go to writing school now so I'm like, a serious writer. I know my 4.5 person readership has come to depend on a few laughs at my expense every four to nine months, so I'll try to be entertaining. But, I can't guarantee that I won't spin off into weighty tangents about my identity, my subconscious desires or my mother. Because if workshop participation has taught me one thing, it's this: When your story lacks pizazz, throw in a handful of mommy issues. They're like the chocolate chips of writing.

 Actually, the "It" I'm referring to in this entry's title is the "travel jinx." Or, that's what I've called it before. But let's call a spade a spade. My "jinx" is actually a self-diagnosed borderline learning disorder that renders me unable to process the specific values of numbers -- especially times and dates. For instance, when a normal person glances at, "09/20/12," they quickly process it as "September twentieth, in the year twenty-twelve." I, on the other hand (unless I concentrate very hard, use the fingers on both my hands and do a little rap that I learned in elementary school about the order of the months) see that same series of numbers as, "a date probably this year that is not my birthday."

I was starting to think I had outgrown it. I now literally make a living booking other people's travel arrangements. In six months at my new job, I haven't sent anybody to Chicago, TX or reserved any Febuary 4th hotel rooms for guests who were actually visiting on April 2nd. But, as it turns out, the  scheduling precision I execute at work has not extended to my personal life. I'm like the secretary version of those TV matchmakers who can find love for everybody...except themselves! It's just one of many things Patti Stengler and I have in common.

I considered not posting the following stories. Because they're too embarrassing, you ask? Um...are you new? Remember that time I forgot to pack underwear on choir tour? How about that time I wrote a multi-page saga about the time I forgot to pack underwear on choir tour and posted it on the internet? "Too embarrassing" has never stopped me before. Really, I thought about not sharing my most recent displays of scheduling ineptitude because they aren't embarrassing enough. I mean, they display the exceptional level of incompetence you've come to expect from me over the years but, in terms of stakes and drama, they don't even break the top 20.

However, I feel compelled to make the catalog of my numerically induced misadventures up-to-date and comprehensive, whether you want to read about them all or not. Have your expectations been lowered accordingly? If so, by all means, proceed!

Scene One: Travelocity? More like Travelidiot.

"When does your flight leave on Wednesday?

"Oh, some time around six. I just have to double check my ticket to find out the exact time."

This exchange didn't just happen once or twice over my 4th of July vacation. It probably happened around a dozen times. If my life were a movie, this would have been a device we in the writing biz like to call, "foreshadowing." And not even the subtle kind. It would have been hacky, heavy-handed foreshadowing. After the fourth or fifth time it happened, even the densest audience member would start to think, "why do they keep having that same boring conversation over and over again? How come the camera is so close to her face? Those ominous tones in the background are making me feel anxious for some -- Oh, wait! I get it. This is probably going to be important later."

But I didn't hear any ominous tones. I just kept saying, "some time around six." Why wouldn't it be? I had triple checked the ticket. My five day weekend had been surprisingly complicated to plan. I flew from Chicago to Rochester on the same flight as my mother, which she booked separately through work. Then we drove to Sioux Falls for a wedding, then from Sioux Falls to Brainerd. Now, my family was going to drop me off at the Minneapolis airport on their way back to Rochester, but not before the smoked turkey came off the grill at Pam and Mike's at around 2 pm. I figured, since the most travel-heavy part of my trip had gone so smoothly, I was home free.

You, as usual, know better.

When I finally elbowed my sister away from my grandparents' desktop the day before my flight back to Chicago, I discovered that my flight was not, as I had told everyone several times, "some time around six," but rather, "some time around two." Guys, I still don't know what happened. It wasn't like I saw the time and thought, "Oh, yeah. Now I remember. I booked that earlier flight for reasons X, Y and Z that make sense." Through the entire process of booking my ticket -- through selecting my flight, clicking the button that said, "select this flight," entering my payment information, "checking" the details of my flight before confirming my purchase, receiving my e-mail receipt and triple-checking the dates -- that entire time right up until less than 24 hours before my departure, I thought I had booked a 6 pm flight.

I have to chalk it up to my disorder. Where a normal person would have seen 2:15 and thought, "Oh, that's not what I want. I shall click this other button that says 6 pm, which is what I want. Phew. Close one." I saw the list of possible flight times and processed it as, "Whoa, that's a lot of numbers. I guess I could concentrate and figure out what they all mean, but who has time for that? I guess I'll just click in the general vicinity of the time I want while I get hypnotized by the shrinking cartoon belly in that ad in the sidebar. I wonder which 'one weird food' could help me drop 50 pounds. Click click click click."

I realize: having four hours skimmed off the top of my vacation is not a big deal -- especially considering what we all know I am capable of. When my mom said, "It could have been worse," I didn't even have to imagine all the ways it could have been. I just had to remember: I could have accidentally booked my ticket a week later than I meant to (again) or, I could have discovered out that my flight was hours earlier than I thought it was 45 minutes before it was actually scheduled to depart (again). This time, I only faced a slight inconvenience. But, friends, I was devastated. Tears were shed, but I wasn't actually at an airport at the time, so they didn't do any good. I did get some pity from my mom though. She gave me a hug and said, "I feel so sorry that this happened to you."

I said, "Don't. I happened to myself."

As usual, I wasn't crying because I was going to miss anything important. I was crying because I realized, after all the maturing I've done over the past few years, I'm still capable of doing stupid crap like this. I notified my friend Tracey that I would be "unexpectedly" arriving back in Chicago in time for 4th of July fireworks and she graciously offered to pick me up from the airport. When I got into the car she asked, "So what happened?"

"Well, what happened was..." I considered a number of excuses for my early arrival, but I answered with the truth -- what I knew in my heart was the real root of the "travel jinx":

"...I'm an idiot."

 Scene two: No, seriously. I Wanted to go to this one.

This next one isn't really a travel story, but it includes many of the same themes of my usual travel misadventures so I felt like it should be included. If you want, you can think of it as a lengthy entry in my travelogue's appendix.

 "So, do you have any plans for the weekend?"

"Yeah, my friends are having a party on Sunday night."

"Sunday?"

"Yeah. They're students, so they can have parties at weird times."

You know the drill: Same exchange multiple times. Face close-ups. Ominous tones. Foreshadowing.

I RSVP'd to the Facebook invitation to Tracey and Matthew's party with a definitive "yes." That is opposed to the usual "maybe" I send in response to party invites in the hopes that something less people-y will come along first. But my social outings have been pretty spare lately since my two Chicago friends have gone on multiple extended vacations during the summer months.  I had spent the previous weekend alone and I knew the same would be true of the weekend after the party. So, I would go. And I would bring jam.

I spent Saturday running errands in the rain. I got home around 8 pm, stripped off my wet clothes, put on my pajamas, started a load of laundry and put the peaches for the jam for tomorrow's party on the stove. Then, I checked my e-mail.

Message from Tracey: "Sorry, We're leaving town tomorrow so I can't go to that concert with you. See you later tonight, though."

You guys. I don't...I can't even begin to...I mean, what the hell!? This time, I have even less of a grasp on what happened than with my 4th of July flight. I mean, seriously. What did my defective brain do this time? Did it receive the letter "S" from the beginning of "Saturday" and say, "You know what, Eyes? I'ma stop you right there since we're running late for an appointment to find out who got kicked off of The Glee Project last night. We know from the first letter that this party is on one of two days. What say we save some time and just flip a coin -- then disregard the results of said coin toss and go with the less likely option. Sunday it is!" 

I called Tracey immediately.

I could hear general party jollity in the background when she answered the phone. "Hello, Caitlin!"

"Tracey, I thought your party was on Sunday!"

Tracey started laughing. She pretty much didn't stop laughing the whole time we were on the phone. We've known each other since high school, so she was laughing for the same reason I started crying in the above story: This behavior is, and forever will be, cah-lassic Caitlin. She said, "Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh no! Ha ha ha."

"Why did I think your party was on Sunday?"

"I don't know!"

"I don't know either!"

"You can still come if you want. We're going to be here for a while."

"I just put a load of laundry in!"

"Ha ha ha ha!"

Tracey assured me that it was OK, and I explained that I knew it was OK with her. I mean, I know she enjoys my company, but she had plenty of other people at her party. The absence of one guest wasn't going to ruin her night. I was the one who hadn't had any social contact with other human beings for the past 21 days. If I didn't go to this party, I might start answering my cell-phone with: "This is Caitlin, how can I help you, mom?"

I told Tracey, "I mean, I am sorry I won't be at your party. But, mostly I feel sorry for myself."

If I had a nickle.

I hung up the phone and put my head in my hands. I tried to wrap my head around climbing out of my pajamas and applying mascara. I thought about what was at stake. Then, I called Tracey back. This time my voice was laced with steely determination:

"Tracey. I have decided that I am coming to your Party."

Tracey said, "Oh, OK."

"If I don't, I may lose the capacity for human speech. So, I'll head over as soon as I put my laundry in the dryer."

Tracey: "OK, sure."

Clearly, Tracey didn't appreciate the effort I'd need to exert to narrowly avoid another Saturday evening round of, "What happens when I pour THIS in my ice-cream maker?" I looked at the clock: 40 minutes until the washing-machine cycle would be done. Not enough time for the jam I initially planned, but I couldn't show up to this party empty-handed. How was I supposed to make people welcome my presence? Sparkling conversation? We've been over this, people. I have a hard time making small-talk at times when I exercise my charm-muscles regularly. At this point, my small-talk vocabulary had shriveled to, "So, it's supposed to rain tomorrow, huh?" and, "Actually, you need an access code for the fax machine." Food is the only tool of endear-ability I have left. If ever a situation called for Lutheran cookies, this was it. I got to work on my tried-and-true church cookbook recipe. I put the second pan in the oven and ran downstairs to switch my laundry to the dryer. I turned off the lights in the kitchen around 9:45 and wished the cockroaches happy feasting on the floury film coating my kitchen.

When I got to the party at about 10:30 I nearly collapsed into Tracey's arms. "I'm so glad I made it!"

One of the other guests asked, "What happened?"

I didn't hesitate this time. "What happened," I said, "is I'm an idiot."

Friends, in these uncertain times, when it sometimes seems like nothing is constant, I hope you can at least take some comfort in knowing that, whatever happens, I'll never stop having to cry in airports.

Once again, I'm not making any promises about the future of this blog. New entries aren't really practical when school is in session, but I'm hoping to get another one in before class starts for me in October. Also, I'm getting tired of looking at the same middle-school-ey myspace color scheme and tedious layout. But, by now this blog is apparently so old that it is fixed in internet-stone forever and I can't change a darn thing about it. So we'll see. There may be a new url on the horizon. Maybe this time with recipes and pictures of cats! Or maybe I'll stick with my twice-a-year updating schedule and impossibly dense blocks of text that no one has time to read. Because all change is bad. I will let you know!

First, a Brief Serious Note

Dear friends,

 If you are reading this, you probably already know me, so you've probably already heard that my dad died in March. Moreover, you probably deserve long, rambling, heartfelt thanks for the love and support you sent. I read and treasured every word, even if I didn't say that out loud. Hopefully I'll gather enough gumption to send you proper thanks soon, but this doesn't seem like quite the right venue. I don't want to dedicate a lot of time to the subject of mourning here -- Partially because if I started, there would be too much to say and nothing to accomplish; partially because everyone's experience with grief is different and I don't want my feelings to come off sounding like universal truths or advice; mostly, though, because this has never been a place for dwelling in melancholy. But, I also didn't want to jump from one entry to the next pretending nothing happened.

Hanging the mantle of "tribute" on this tiny, antiquated, neglected blog that is mainly a collection of open letters to my friends would strain it more than a little. But, it is a tribute in the sense that my whole self is a tribute now.  I inherited a lot from my dad, including a way with words and a sense of humor. At the risk of a little bit of broad cheesiness, I'll say that I want to honor that legacy now more than ever. I am going to post something new very shortly. When I do, I want you to keep laughing with me -- here, and any other time we get the chance. Not because we're in denial or because it's the only thing we can do if we don't want to start crying. We're not, and it isn't. We should laugh because it's the best possible thing we can do. It may make us feel stronger, and it was one of my dad's very favorite things.

Love,
Caitlin

The Simple Joys of Minnesotahood

You've probably been wondering what I'm up to these days. And by "wondering," I mean that when you see a cupcake decorated to look like a hamburger, you say to yourself, "Hey! A food that looks like another food! Caitlin loved those. Huh. Caitlin."

My internet silence is the product of about 50 percent laziness and 50 percent purposeful secrecy. I like imagining that, when you wonder about me on occasion, you entertain the thought that maybe I'm marooned on a jungle island with a bunch of strangers who resemble out of work actors from the 90's. (There's a frustrating lack of story resolve and a smoke monster that maybe eats people but, on the bright side, we've figured out the perfect amount of sand and stubble needed stay on the right side of the fine line between sexy-dirty and smelly-dirty.)

To communicate directly with any of you, I would have to reveal the not-very-Matthew-Foxy truth: That I am unemployed and living with my parents. I was accepted to the creative nonfiction writing grad program at Northwestern in Chicago, but I'm trying to find a job on campus before I enroll so as not to increase the amount of debt I'm already in. I've also been doing a lot of baking, reading* , and compulsive thrift store shopping. It would be a nice opportunity to relax -- if I wasn't so deeply concerned that this may be what my life will be like for the next five to 30 years.

I am enjoying being back in the Midwest though. I started really missing it around the time the third Baltimore native called me "nice" like it was, well, a four-letter-word. A ten-year-old girl I used to work with in Baltimore once asked me,

"Miss Caitlin, why you so nice all the time?"

I laughed. "Well, because it's just nice to be nice to people."

She raised her eyebrows at me. "Nuh uh. Some people? You just gotta be mean with 'em."

Lots of big city folk would agree with her philosophy. But Nice is my first language. When my father answers a call from a telemarketer, he sounds like he's politely refusing baked goods after a big dinner:

"Hello?...Fine, how are you?...Oh, no thanks. We're very happy with the service we have now...You have a nice evening too. Bye now."

To sinewy, Jegging-clad East Coasters that probably sounds like the talk of a spineless pushover. For me, it's Wild-Rice soup for the soul.

I haven't been able to slip back into the Minnesota swing of things completely effortlessly though. In my last entry, many months ago, I discussed my exposure to alternative lifestyles and my efforts to adjust. Well, once I got home, I had to adjust back. Sometimes, wandering the Streets of Rochester, I still forget that I'm not on the East coast anymore.

In Baltimore I took long walks because it was often best way to get places. In Rochester, I walk because there are only so many episodes of Vampire Diaries I can watch before all the shiny hair and creamy complexions give me a headache and I have to rest my eyes on some well-lit unattractive people.

One day, while I was dodging cars on my way to the Rochester Mall, a rusty Toyota slowed to a crawl alongside me. I was used to dealing with this sort of thing in Baltimore. When I was on foot there, I had to be prepared for horn honks, creepy eye brow raises and "hey baby's" yelled from the open windows of slow rolling vehicles. This is known as getting "Hollered at." So, in Rochester, when this beefy young driver with tattoos up and down his arms rolled down his window, I thought I knew what was going to happen next. In anticipation, I attempted a move I'd seen Baltimore women do. It's like a combined smirk and eye roll that says, "I am acknowledging you just enough to let you know that I am better than you, and you are pathetic." I should have known better than to attempt an advanced maneuver.

"Excuse me ma'am," he asked, "Are you lost? Would you like a ride somewhere?"

I had forgotten that I was back in a place where the only reason anyone would be walking across two medians and a car-wash parking lot is either because they've locked their keys inside of their car and they're going to pick up a spare, or because they're a crazy person. The fact that I refused his polite offer, combined with what must have looked like a grotesque eye spasm, probably convinced him that he didn't really want me in his passenger seat anyway.

People do get hollered at in Minnesota on occasion, but here, even the men who harass women on the street are more polite. A while back, I went to visit a friend in the big "Sin Cities" (AKA Minneapolis- St. Paul). It's a pretty sophisticated place compared to the rest of the state. They have whole stores that sell just one thing like makeup, spices, or Northface jackets.

As we were strolling along one of the ultra-hip shopping streets, a van full of slouchy-hatted college-aged guys slowed down beside us. We steeled ourselves.

"Excuse me ladies," they said, "Are you on your way to the food co-op?"

We...hadn't steeled ourselves for "co-op." We said, "Huh?"

They smiled, "Are you going to the organic food store up here? If you are, we'll meet you there."

We were not, in fact, going to the organic food store and we told them so. But we did sincerely wish them luck.

While we're on the subject of organic food, I have to say: The few awkward Baltimore flashbacks I've had on the mean streets of Minnesota are nothing compared to the cultural re-adjusting I've had to do in the kitchen of my own home.

See, In Baltimore, I worked hard to make creative, tasty food within the parameters of our many dietary restrictions and a budget so tight that pre-shredded cheese was a special-occasions-only item. My housemates rewarded my efforts by treating me like a culinary goddess among mortals. They’d gush over the food I made with words like, "orgasmic." Men and women proposed marriage to me on a daily basis.

Here in Minnesota, words like "orgasmic" aren’t allowed. Or, they are, but you have to go behind a curtain in the back corner of the video store to see them. Minnesotans don't generally gush. When my family likes a meal, the warmest compliment I get is, "Good supper Caitlin. Very tasty." That's cool. Their praise is understated, but sincere. It’s just that, a lot of the time, my meals don't even make it to "very tasty." I’m learning the hard way that LVC food doesn't translate very well to the Heartland.

I have a vegan friend who talks about not being able to tell the difference between food being regular good and "vegan good." That is, when your diet is very limited, you get used to eating a lot of below-average food because that's what you have to do to stay alive. So, when anything above-average crosses your palate, the taste-bud synapses in your brain get excited and confused. You imagine your tofu stew gilded with Michelin stars. It probably is pretty good, but you don't realize that it wouldn't taste as good to people who don't eat plain oatmeal for lunch on three out of five weekdays.

I realize now that some of the food I was eating was really only "Volunteer Corps good." My skewed perception of food reality led to a lot of questionable meal choices like, say, eating raw-cabbage and hot-sauce slaw for four meals in 48 hours. Or, beginning a passionate love affair with Kale -- the fervor of which is both irrational and alarming.

My parents are usually game to try whatever I want to make. Though, my mom can't completely hide her skepticism. We have had the following conversation a number of times:

I'll say, "So I was thinking about making this delicious Carrot and Orange soup for dinner on Tuesday."

Then my mom says, "Oh, Carrots and oranges? That sounds...interesting."

I – as a native speaker of the deeply nuanced language of “nice,” – recognize "interesting" as a red-flag word. Sometimes it means, “Something new I’d like to try.” More often it means, "Weird and gross"

So, I'll say, "Mom, if that doesn't sound good to you I can make something else."

My mom: "No, no. Make the carrot and orange thing. I'm sure it will be delicious."

Me: "Are you sure?"

My Mom: "Yes. Of course."

Then, after I've served the dish, I'll ask what everyone thinks. And my mom says, "I like it. I was skeptical when you were telling me about it earlier, but it's actually pretty good."

Me: facepalm.

I do appreciate that she makes an effort to be supportive. My siblings, on the other hand, extend me no such courtesy. They are both food traditionalists. Usually, the biggest compliment I get from my 19-year-old brither is, "It's not as gross as it looks."

When my sister was home for Christmas break, she valiantly kept her mouth shut throughout the bulk of my holiday cooking experiments. But when I suggested making cranberry eggnog cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast, she snapped.

"Caitlin, you always start out with good food, but then you make it weird. ‘Oh hi. I’m Caitlin. You want some chocolate crinkles? I made them by mixing up some delicious cookies…then I put gross mint in them! How about some ginger cookies? They were too tasty and not-weird at first so I added some chili powder.’ Leave your damn cranberries out of my cinnamon rolls!"

(That last part may have been implied, but it was implied strongly.)

When I mentioned the marriage proposals I’d received thanks to my cooking skills, Abby looked doubtful.

My mom said, "Caitlin, I guess you're like the prophets -- they never had respect in their own homes."

Rather than give up on trying to shove quinoa and kale down my siblings' throats, I've decided to start calling myself Food Moses.

And yet, though my culinary point of view has been expanded, there will always be a special place in my heart for good old fashioned Midwestern cuisine. Where else do people have the balls to call a dish that includes both Cool-Whip and candy bars a "salad"?

Despite having to make a few minor re-adjustments, I meant it when I said it was good to be back. I love this place where women wear embroidered sweatshirts without a trace of irony. Where a girl can grow up to be a Dairy Princess -- and she can also grow up to be the professional hired to sculpt the Dairy Princess's likeness out of butter. Where hugs must be earned. During my time away, I’ve been exposed to a lot of new things. Some have stuck and others haven’t. I’m sure I’ll continue to explore new places. But, Minnesota will always be home.

This is about the time of year where I regularly pledge to do regular updates here. At this point, I'm guessing you know better than to believe that. I almost know better than to believe myself.

But not quite.

Talk to you again soon! Furreal this time. Kisses!


*In this case, I am utilizing the less common definition of "reading" which is: Watching daytime marathons of Millionaire Matchmaker.

A Minnesotan's Guide to Alternative living, Vol. 1

Oh my gosh you guys. You have no idea how glad I am to see you right now. You wouldn't know it since I only tend to post blog entries about once every two to nine months, but I've been involuntarily off grid for the past couple of weeks.

It all started when my boss decided to clean out her office. You know that scene in Mary Poppins where she keeps pulling coat racks and umbrellas and, like golden retrievers out of her tote bag? I was reminded of that scene when I arrived at work the Monday following my boss's cleaning spree. I had so many questions to which the answer could only be, shrug..."magic?"For example: "where did that stack of two-by-fours in the kitchen come from?" Or, "why is there a broken desk I have never seen before in the middle of the lawn?" For the most part, I applauded my boss's efforts to turn her office into a viable workspace. However, I was less thrilled with her cleaning-fever induced decision scrap the ancient desktop computer in her office that linked my upstairs computer to the internet.

At home, we had internet but I had recently broken my third computer power cord. So, I had been using an old one that shot sparks whenever it moved. Yeah, yeah, I know: "Blah blah fire-hazard, blah blah high risk of electrocution blah." But what was I supposed to do? Go to the library to illegally stream episodes of Holland's Next Top Model? Please.

One fateful Saturday morning though, I was out of luck for real. If this was a cheesy sitcom, now would be that part where we would side-swipe to a little montage about how I instantly went through the five stages of grief over the death of my cord and subsequent loss of access to the internet. It'd be cute and you'd chuckle. But, I'm to lazy to look up what the five stages of grief are, so I'll just tell you that I shook the limp little cord a lot, hoping it would spark back to life and cried, "Why? WHYYYYY??? OH GOD NO!" like I was Meryl Streep and the Academy was watching. Eventually, I accepted my lot and ordered a super sketchy five dollar replacement cord that was probably made out of lead paint chips and squirrel fur.

Then, there was nothing to do but wait for it to arrive. Well, that and, like, read books with pages and talk to people's faces using my face, but I won't bore you with that. I will say, though, that my Luddite-ian experience got me thinking about alternative lifestyle choices in general. I have often blogged about the universal growing pains of becoming an adult -- learning how to clean bathrooms...learning how to feed ourselves...learning to make sure we pack underwear when we go on choir tours (What? I know you guys totally all have super sweet "no-underwear-vacation" stories in your back pockets. I'm just the only one brave enough to share mine). But, I realize that I haven't said much about the life choices I've made that aren't exactly "mainstream."

That's partially because I don't really consider myself an "alternative" gal. I come from a place where the closest we get to buying into new-wave trends is offering gluten-free and whole-wheat wafer options at communion on Sundays. Hell, I still feel a little overwhelmed when people try to hug me during "share the peace" at East Coast church services. And yet, here I am in Baltimore ("Oh. Baltimore. So, on a scale of 'Hairspray' to 'The Wire," exactly how murdery is the block where you live?"-- most middle aged people, on Baltimore) I work as a professional volunteer, with housemates who do things like meditate and abstain from eating animal products and have dreadlocks. I suppose, though I may still feel pretty ordinary, my baseline for what exactly is "normal" has become a little skewed. Some non-Minnesota weird has definitely rubbed off on me.

Beforehand, LVC tried very hard to convince me that their program would expose me to all different kinds of people. They asked phone interview questions that sounded like set-ups for racist Jokes ("You're living in a house with one Lutheran, one Bhuddhist, one Wiccan who believes that every rock has a spirit and a name, and one person who centers herself through martial Arts..."). But I thought, "nice try, LVC. I've read your statistics. Four out of Five of your members members are white Lutheran girls taking a "year off" after being awarded liberal arts degrees somewhere in the Midwest. LVC is about as diverse as a Barenakid Ladies concert." I envisioned me and my future housemates swapping jell-o salad recipes and sharing our favorite parts of Luther's small catechism for spirituality nights. In reality, my experience was more like Real World: The Intentional Simplicity season. I was the token Minnesota Lutheran living with a free spirited Californian, a German Catholic, an East Coast vegan, and a girl who centered herself spiritually through hunting wild game. Suffice it to say, we challenged (and inspired) each other way beyond fighting over who's mom had the best tater-tot hot-dish recipe.

Together, we learned a lot about intentional and sustainable living. Thanks to them and to my new, even more diverse group of housemates this year, I've developed some new habits. But, I don't want to give you the impression that, the next time you see me, I'll be sporting a neck tattoo of the recycling arrows and asking you to call me "Blue Urban Sky." I've changed in my own cautious Minnesota way.

I feel like there's a lot of stuff on the internet written by super impassioned millenial hippies trying to convert people to their dumpster-diving, humanure-using ways (please, if you don't already know what "humanure" is, don't look it up. Trust me. It will only upset you). There is also a lot stuff from apathetic anti-idealists who like to break up the monotony of editing software manuals by posting aloof-yet-scathing vlog entries about how stupid impassioned millennial hippies are. There isn't a whole lot written from people at my point in the journey, which is somewhere between the two extremes, leaning towards the former. To be fair, that's probably because essays about how "meh, alright" things are don't tend to make for very compelling reading. Or, it could be because no one's ever thought to write those essays before. I might be a visionary who is about usher the whole internet away from the "hot or not" model and into a new era of the "pretty good or don't much care for it" model.

Either way, I'm going to go ahead and start giving you my conservative perspectives on the alternative habits I've been exposed to, whether you want to hear them or not. (See? I am one step ahead of you, apathetic anti-idealists. I preemptively don't care that you don't care. We are now swirling in a vortex of apathy.)

This week: Restricted diets

On the very first day of LVC orientation, my new housemates and I made small talk with safe questions like, "where are you from?" and what "kind of food do you like to eat?" I think I might have asked whether anyone was vegetarian. Across the table, I saw my new housemate Morgan grow suddenly quiet.

After a moment she burst, "guys, I have to tell you something."

I didn't have time get past "transgender" and "convicted larcenist" on my mental list of secrets Morgan might divulge because, without missing a beat, Alison asked, "are you a vegan?"

"Yes!" Morgan cried, "yes, I'm a vegan."

My housemates all nodded acceptingly. I did too, but inside I was thinking, "crap. Now how am I going to make these people like me." Because we all know that my friend-making tool kit is stocked with about thirty recipes for cupcakes, laughing disproportionately hard at jokes that are only moderately funny...and not much else.

Where I come from, vegans are in the same exotic category as cabs you don't have to call 24 hours in advance, Belgian nannies and "fusion" restaurants where you sit on the floor and eat without utensils. That is to say, I assumed they existed because I'd heard about them on TV, but I didn't think I'd ever end up getting personal with any of them. Growing up, I only ever had one vegetarian friend. She was also a Unitarian and had five cats -- so she was an outlier. Or, as I called her at the time, "my weird friend". (Potato, potahto.) I'd only even seen one real live vegan. She sang with me in choir. All I remember about her was that she had a blue streak in her hair which, in Minnesota, gave her a quirky/edginess rating of like a seven-and-a-half. (Converted into East Coast units, that's about the equivalent of having a-symmetrical bangs and French Bulldog named Charlotte Bronte.)

I didn't know much about the real logistics of Veganism. My housemates didn't either, so it's a good thing we were willing students with a patient teacher. We prodded Morgan with all our stupid questions, including but not limited to: "Almond butter doesn't have, like actual butter in it, does it?" "So you're vegan...but you can eat shrimp, right?" and, "Is it true that drinking too much soy milk will make dudes grow boobs?" (The answers to questions a, b, and c, by the way, are: "no," "no for the third time" and, "sigh. no" in that order.)

We also poured through Morgan's vegan cookbooks. I initially approached them with caution since, as a rule, I don't trust words that contain inappropriate Zs (See: "skillz," and "lolz."). They usually flag a reality-dodge. When they show up in the supermarket they're trying to say, "this product has a touch of whimzy." But, what they're really saying is, "if we use an actual food-related word to describe this stuff, we'll get sued by the FDA" (See: vegan/Kraft Company favorite "cheez.") Eventually though, I let my guard down enough to try a recipe for brownie banana pudding cake out of Vegan with a Vengence. After that there was no turning back.

In our studies, we quickly learned a few important lessons. First, we learned that there are many "normal" things vegans can eat besides lettuce. Many of our favorite soups, pastas, stir fry's and salads from home were already vegan or almost vegan to begin with. Second, we learned that some non-normal vegan foods are very tasty. Sure, there are some things I've tasted on my tour of the Garden of Vegan that I haven't quite been able to stomach. For instance, Tempeh still tastes like fermented birdseed to me. And seitan kinda has a chickeny texture...If, you know, chicken had a texture less like meat and more like a half-dried up glue stick. But, chili-glazed tofu is legitimately delicious. And Cashew cheez is actually pretty good. I've even come around to dusting my popcorn with a substance that looks like flaked fish food and is suspiciously vaguely called "nutritional yeast" (or, if you're my housemate Alison, "magic vegan dust").

All in all, living in community with a vegan turned out to be educational, rewarding, and a lot easier than I thought it would be. And that's good because, as it turns out, last year was just a warm up. When my new housemate Ryan told me he didn't eat gluten, I didn't blink an eye. I was feeling pretty cocky after last year's vegantation. (that's "vegan orientation."...What, are those non-threateningly alternative looking ladies on the cover of How it all Vegan the only ones who can use vegan non-words?) Soon though, he also stopped eating dairy, along with another housemate. Most recently Ryan has gone off soy as well. At this point, I feel like I'm in some sort of cooking video game where I have to level up every time things start to get too easy.

It's cool, though. I love to cook for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest is that I like to make people happy. (Fine, or "like me." Again! Potato, potahto! Get off my back!) On any given day people with major dietary restrictions are crossing their fingers that they can find something to eat that won't make them sick. So, it's especially gratifying to make things for just for them that are edible AND delicious. I'm willing to keep learning.

Also, once I figure out how to make lasagna free of the eight most common allergens, I'll be able to run for president.

Stay tuned for Vol. 2 soon! I thought about going on to the next subject in this entry, but I've been testing your patience with the length of these posts for a while. Hopefully the next one will be prompt and brief!

Terror After Dark

Well everybody, the smoke on the birthday candles has cleared. Instead of indignantly yelling, "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY" when someone asks me why I'm drinking rum punch and eating pizza rolls while watching an American Idol-athon on a weeknight, I must simply sigh, "it's my life."

I feel like the same sort of thing happens to me every year. I wake up on the morning of February third and realize, "Holy crap. I'm a twenty-something. I'm the same age as the people they make sitcoms about. I should be living in an unrealistically expensive looking loft in Manhattan -- across the hall from my unrealistically good-looking and witty pals. I should have a job as a chef, fashion buyer or soap-opera star. I should be sweetly yet assertively eye-flirting with handsome men who buy me pom-tinis in trendy nightclubs. Instead, I spent a whole day last week reading internet plot summaries for horror movies I was too scared to see. Then, I couldn't sleep because even the summaries were too scary so I watched three bootlegged episodes of Fraggle Rock in a row. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE???"

So what do I do. Do design a life plan? Do I research grad schools? Revise my reading list? Vow to exercise more? No, of course not. I come crawling back here to my beloved, spurned Unnecessary Anxieties. At this point I feel like a negligent movie-dad. Every year or so I Stumble back to the wife and kids after a particularly rough night of, say, smarmily betting on underground cockfights. I have my hat in my hand and I declare that this time it will be different. This time I'll stay for good and we'll all go get ice-cream in the morning! In my heart I really do believe it, but I can never keep my promise. I have a roguish wanderlust in my soul that cannot be contained for long. (Or maybe just a lazy-ish American-Idol-lust. This could be where the metaphor breaks down...) Anyway. I know I've talked about "weekly updates" before and it's been a "load of crap." This time, I'm not making any lofty promises. I'll do my best, but I'm not asking you to believe that it's going to last this time. I'm just saying we might as well ride this wave of post-birthday-glow blogging guilt for as long as it lasts.

Now that that's out of the way, do you guys want to hear a horror story?

It's a psychological thriller that -- I'll warn you right now -- has a pretty unsatisfying ending. But! the first part is full of tension and fear and the heart-thumping threat of apple-seed-sized nighttime invaders.

It all began a few months ago. I don't really remember what the weather was like but, for the sake of the genre, lets say it was idyllic. Shortly after I arrived at work, I noticed three small itchy bumps on the inside of my elbow. Without thinking, I asked my co-worker, "huh. What do you think bit me here?"

She raised her eyebrows "When did you notice the bites?"

"Just this morning."

If we had been in a movie, this would have been the part where the ominous violins in the soundtrack would have swelled to a screechy halt.

Betsy said, "Bedbugs?"

Dun dun DUUUUUN!!!!!!

At that point, I should have gripped the edge of the table, leaned forward -- intense Jack Bauer interrogation style -- and growled, "I'm sorry, I must not have heard you properly. Did you say bedbugs?"

Then, Betsy would have gotten the message and been all, "did I say bedbugs? I meant...Fredbugs. That's what they call mosquitoes in...Australia? Or something. Those bites are definitely the work of Fredbugs."

Then I would have leaned back and forgotten the incident within a matter of hours. But no. The seed had been planted.

I spent the rest of the day examining all the potential "bug bites" on my arms and legs. At that point, all I knew was that bedbugs bite people at night, and I remembered our LVC city coordinator mentioning that bedbug bites tended to show up in rows. I needed more information. My internet searches started innocently enough. I just wanted to find out what bedbugs looked like and how to identify their nests. I figured would be immediately assuaged and the whole matter would be put to rest. But you've met me. You know where this was headed.

The websites I visited gave me little conclusive information. Sure, they showed pictures of bugs and bites and listed signs to look for, but they also all said that the bites look different on everyone and, though there are some common signs, they aren't present in every case. They also said that it might take a trained professional hours to confirm the presence of bedbugs. Now, if it worked properly, my brain would have taken this information and put it through a mental mill of rationality and come up with something reasonable like, "I don't seem to see most of the common signs of bedbugs. I probably don't have them, but I'll wait a few nights and them call an exterminator if I keep getting bites." Instead, my brain put this information through a mental mill of paranoid CRAZY and spit out a red alert that went something like, "If you have any sort of bug bites or itchiness, it could be bedbugs. Actually, it's probably bedbugs. They leave no trace, they just invade your home and your nightmares without warning. Call an army of exterminators NOW. They probably won't be able to help but IT'S YOUR ONLY HOPE!" My brain is the Fox News of brains.

And this is all from reading un-exaggerated facts from respectable sources. As it turns out, those sites were just gateway pages to the hard stuff: forums and testimonials. Once I became completely and irrevocably convinced that I had bedbugs, I figured I'd better read some stories from others who had dealt with them before. Once again, I expected to find encouraging stories from people who had fought difficult battles against the critters, but ultimately emerged victorious. I am an idiot. If the internet could have talked to me after I delved into this murky abyss, it would have been like, "Dude. What did you expect? I convince adolescent girls that they can get pregnant by holding hands with boys when their hair is wet."

I found no comfort. Rather, I found something like what country songs would be if Wes Craven wrote country songs. I read dozens of stories from people who broke up with their boyfriends, gotten fired from their jobs, lost all their friends and abandoned all their earthly belongings, including their homes and the clothes on their backs. Sometimes twice. All because of bloodsucking bugs.

Now, if you know me well, you may have already guessed that all this "research" was interspersed with a series of phone calls to my mother. They escalated in panic-scale like recordings on a doctor's found tape recorder in a zombie movie, where the first recording is like, "There's a patient on the fourth floor who keeps trying to eat the doctor's brains. Interesting." Then, recording five is like, "AAAGH ZOMBIES!!!!! *gruesome chomping death sounds*"

Likewise, my first call went, "Mom? I think I might have bedbugs. I'm kind of upset about it but, worst case-scenario, LVC will pay for an exterminator and they'll take care of it."

Fast forward to call six: "MOM I HAVE BEDBUGS AND I'M NEVER GONNA SEE YOU AGAIN!!! *hysterical sobs, a la Van Der Beek* I'll send you a postcard when I've selected the park bench that will serve as my new home."

Other than these calls to my mother, I kept my fears to myself for a few days. Eventually though, I knew I was going to have to have a professional exterminator perform an inspection. To do that, I was going to have to tell my housemates that I suspected bedbugs / that all of their lives were permanently ruined. I approached them one Saturday morning and took a deep breath: "Um guys? There's something I need to tell you. I didn't want to scare you, but it's been bothering me for a while and, um, I just really need to get it off my chest...I've noticed some mysterious nighttime bug bites and I think it may be...um....bedbugs. And this is why I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to make your faces do that." Granted, their faces were probably doing "that" due to the fact that my cryptic windup had convinced them that I was about to tell them I was pregnant. But I didn't understand that at the time. At the time, I just hung my head.

Now, this is where it gets anti-climactic. That tends to happen in my stories when I get to the part where I reveal whatever X-Files have been gestating inside of my head to real people. Real people don't try to convince me that I'm going to have to relocate to Mongolia nearly as often as the internet does. I called my city coordinator who sent an exterminator to do a free inspection. When the exterminator came, I would have felt a sillier if he hadn't been on the phone with another hysterical client who was begging him to preemptively bedbug-proof her home. With my room, he was quick but thorough and firmly declared it bedbug free. It took me a few weeks to stop checking my sheets for bedbug poop every morning, but I got there.

Now for the epilogue: A few weeks ago I had a meeting at work with a Baltimore City government employee who does presentations on a number of public-health related topics, including bedbugs. He brought a vile with him that contained a few dead bedbugs for me to see. I was surprised at how tiny they were. Whenever I see them marching across newspaper articles and TV news segments, they're blown up to look like they're the size of hamsters. No wonder bedbug hysteria is sweeping the nation. Yes, there is something innately scary about parasites that live where you sleep and feed on you under the cover of darkness. But, these news outlets certainly aren't NOT feeding into that fear by making bedbugs look like they're big enough to give a Shi-Tzu a black eye.

Don't worry guys. I've learned my lesson about sensationalist media this time. No more internet "research" for me. Well, no more after I read this one thing on Yahoo News about Cat Flu.

What?

Adult Life-Skills 201: Landlord Communications

Hey Liberal Arts institutions of America? I want to talk to you about something. Kenyon, I know you're real smug about the fact that, last year, 39% of your incoming freshmen were in the top 5 % of their graduating high school classes. Your student body is very book-smart, I will give you that. But outside of academia? You and I both know that all kids living away from home for the first time are street-dumbasses. What your admissions web-page doesn't say is that probably about 25% of your incoming freshmen will try to clean their underwear with fabric softener for at least a semester and a half before someone tells them it's not soap.

I'm not saying we should ditch the whole liberal arts system. It was my honor and privilege to be educated in analysis, composition and discourse by some of the greatest English literature instructors in the country. It's just... I'm not going to unclog my shower drain by deconstructing Jane Austin's utilization of the pen as a phallic symbol at it.

Now I know I've lamented my unpreparedness for the adult world before. I mean, let's face it. Most of the time this blog is the lamentiest lament-fest that ever lamented the lament-ernet. I'd like to change that though. Maybe that's why I haven't updated this blog for so long. It may have looked like I was neglecting creative endeavors in favor of binging on Youtube clips of baby animals crawiling in and out of various dishwares, but maybe I was really pondering ways to make this blog a more constructive and positive space. Or, maybe I'm full of crap and you should just enjoy this rare moment of my being a "problem solver" -- as my mother would say -- while it lasts before I go back to ranking all the moles on my body from least to most likely to be cancerous. You pick. Either way, world, I'm about to blow your mind with my present problem solving skillz.

Here's my proposal: How about, in addition to Fine Arts, Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences, students also have to satisfy requirements in practical survival in the real world? Here are some sample course titles that you can have for free:“57 surfaces you didn't know you had to also clean”, “ Mold: it’s not just for food” and “Writing e-mails with real words only”. I know you're skeptical, but yes -- those ideas really are free! And, you know what? To show you that I'm serious about making this work for all of us, I'll even provide you with a whole sample blog-ture! (For you stuffy academic types, that's like a lecture, only on my blog. So it's still educational but, like, waaay hipper. And I know all about hip. Just ask my pal...um...Jay-Z. Edward Cullen? Miley Cyrus. hip things.)

Anyway! Without further adieu:

Lesson one: Landlord communications.

First, I know, I know. Most college courses are taught by people who have dedicated their entire adult lives to studying the topics they teach. Professors utilize their knowledge of statistics, case studies and the pulse of scholarly opinion to educate their students. And you know, good for them. I'm sure their "lifetimes of study" make for lectures that are total snooze fests. I mean...total information fests. But, what I offer is even better. I'm going to educate you with mistakes that I mySELF have JUST made! I'm 'bout to get REAL with you guys. Let me tell you what I've BEEN through! Case studies may have the "facts" on their side, but what about rawness? I eat case studies for breakfast.

Ahem. What? Anyway. Class, let me introduce you to our topic of study: The ever-mercurial American Landlord. (cue dimmed lights and slide show with pictures of generically slimy looking middle aged white men lazily copied and pasted from Google images -- Like this one!)

(fun fact: 98.2 percent of all landlords have creepy mustaches. Other fun fact: 100 percent of all mustaches are creepy.)

He owns your house, but he's not supposed to live in it with you. He's responsible for repairing your leaky pipes, but he will not scrub the pink ring your lavender-nectar goat-milk bath bomb left caked onto the tub. He'll probably come around to check on the unit you're renting every once in a while, and he has an emergency key to your house, but he is not your RA. If you dissolve into tears in his bean-bag chair over how your roommate got Ramen juice on your comforter AGAIN, he will not be helpful. He may call the police, actually. He'll be upset you if you do any permanent damage to his property, but he won't write you up if he finds jell-o shots in your fridge. It's all very nuanced and confusing, I know. So, unsurprisingly, it's pretty easy for landlord and tenant to misunderstand one another.

For example: My landlord's name is Steve Jones. Usually, I try to avoid using people's full names on this blog so as to protect their privacy (or so they don't find out I've been badmouthing them behind their backs when they Google themselves. One of the two. I forget which...) But, I figure I can make an exception in this case because Steve's name is so generic it sounds like he's a fictional person in a hypothetical scenario. My housemates and I met him shortly after we moved into our new house this year, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. Then, mice chewed holes through the walls, the shower turned lukewarm in the dead of winter, and pretty much the whole house started leaking. So, we contacted Steve Jones. Texting is his preferred mode of communication so we texted him things like, "Our whole house is leaking. Please fix it," and he texted things back like, "Will do! As soon as it stops raining. For 90 days. Or more." As the weeks went by, our relationship grew more gnarled with distrust and loathing with each pointed text message. Here is a rough re-counting of one exchange that sticks out in my memory:

Simunye House: Steve, Our garbage disposal is broken again and the sink has stopped draining. Please let us know when you can fix it.

Steve Jones: Won't be able to come until the weekend because of work. Last two times Garbage disposal stopped, there were things that weren't supposed to be there. First a screw, then a twist-tie. When we come to fix it, Someone should be there so we can show you how to fix it yourself next time.

Clearly, these are text messages sent between two parties who are doing a poor job of understanding one another. I can tell you that when we read this message and others like it, my housemates and I assumed that Steve Jones was a cheap, apathetic jerk who didn't care about our living conditions. Obviously, Steve Jones made some assumptions about us as well. So, let's do a little exercise to try to understand Steve's motivation for sending this message. Let's take a look a dinner table conversation at my house community through Steve's eyes:

*Alison: Hey, could you pass the fruit salad?

Angry at Steve for No Reason One: Sure, here you go.

Alison: Thanks for the salad, Angry at Steve for No Reason One. Hey! There's a screw in this salad!

Extra dumb one: Oh, Whoops! That must have fallen in when I got the drill mixed up with the hand mixer again! I guess I'll just shove it down the garbage disposal.

Whiny one: OK

Alison: Yes, do that.

Angry One: Sounds like a good plan. You Guys, I've been thinking. Obviously, it's cool to throw food, hardware, used sponges and plastic with recycling numbers one through eight down the garbage disposal like we've been doing, but here's my question: How can we break it quickly? I'm so excited to make our lame-lord to drive ALL the way down here for essentially no reason other than that I love inconveniencing him.

Dumb One: Heh. Lame-lord. Good one. We could try a twisty tie.

Angry one: Excellent idea.

Whiny one: ...Sigh.

Alison: What is it, whiny one?

Whiny One: Oh nothing. It's just that, lately, I've been having to take showers about two-and-a-half degrees lower than I like. And I mean, whatever. It's not a big deal...It's just that it's not exactly the way I want to start my day, you know?

Alison: No, no. I completely understand. In a world where so much is out of your control, you deserve to have showers your way. Have you tried waiting for the water to warm up for 30 seconds or so before you get in the shower?

Whiny one: Who do you think I am? Paris Hilton, woman of leisure? You think I have time to wait 30 seconds to get in the shower just because our pipes are "old"? I have, like, a job you know.

Angry one: Just text Steve. Who cares if he can fix it or not. I hope he's in a meeting right now and forgot to turn his phone off.

Alison: Oh, way ahead of you. I started composing a text message to Steve the minute you said, "sigh".

AND SCENE

Now, class, what have we learned from this exercise? If you think I am working up to a tidy resolution with this lecture, or some sort of abstract, sweeping "life lesson," you are sorely mistaken. What do you think this is, real school? I'm just here to talk to you straight about the real world, and the best piece of advice for you I can squeeze out of my experience is: don't communicate with your landlords through text messages. When you're working with a 160-character limit, a lot gets lost between the lines. A while back, Steve Jones came to visit us, and we had a pretty positive exchange. Face to face, we remember that Steve Jones doesn't spend all of his time stroking his white fluffy cat with his bionic claw arm while ignoring our text messages. And he can see for himself that we don't spend all of our time making out with Robert Pattinson posters while we inhale nail-polish remover fumes.

Class dismissed!

So, what did you think, Liberal Arts Colleges? It's OK if you can't let me know right away. I know an academic shift like the one I'm proposing would be a big step, so you're going to need to discuss it at length with your faculties and boards of trustees. You're going to have to work pretty hard to convince that one extra uptight old-lady trustee with the tweed skirtsuit and the pearls and the super-severe french roll in her hair and the poodle she carries around in her Berkin Bag who keeps talking about how this just isn't the way things are done here. (That's how boards of trustees work, right? I'm basing all my knowledge of the subject on the movie Tommy Boy, and the scenes with the stuffy grandparents in re-runs of Gilmore Girls so I'm just guessing here.) Anyway, the point is, I'm willing to wait as long as it takes. If you need me, I'll be right here every week (...to six months) with more free ideas you can use (maybe). We'll be in touch!

*I figure Steve Jones doesn't know anyone's name in my house except for Alison, who was tasked at orientation with being the liaison between our house and our landlord. To him, the rest of us are probably just an indistinguishable mess of mostly girls.

Kids, go ahead and try this at home...

Hey all. As you can probably tell by my severely delayed blog entry this week, I'm starting to run a little low on blog ideas. You guys. Creativity is super hard. How do you think Faulkner did it, Book after book? Maybe his creative process didn't involve eating pizza rolls and watching episodes of Australia's Next Top Model on YouTube for hours on end.

Anyway, because nothing funny or interesting has happened to me in the last few weeks, I'm going to regale you all with a classic tale from days gone by. It's another one of those stories that I know you've probably all heard before, but I really feel it merits the dignity of being committed to writing here, in this most noble and prestigious of archives.

So now, ladies and gentleman, I present to you the "would you rather" story.

The scene was a long, late car ride back from one of my brother's away hockey games. My mom was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and my sister Abby was in the back with Miranda, her best friend since elementary school. Whenever they get together, they have a habit of reminiscing loudly about their colorful schoolyard days: A simpler time filled with wall-ball and bowl haircuts. (If you ever have the pleasure of sharing an elevator with the two of them, ask to hear about the time Abby got a 'fix-it plan' for putting Benjamin Shoecard's backpack outside. You won't be sorry.) Tonight though, everyone was tired, and we'd left anecdotal bliss several miles behind us.

Abby decided to fend off boredom by engaging us in a few rounds of "would you rather," that favorite parlor game of indecisive middle-schoolers and fratty philosophy/"co-ed studies" -- heh heh. Dude. Get it? -- majors everywhere. Abby kicked things off with a number of fairly traditional juxtapositions including but not limited to, "would you rather lose both your legs or your right arm," and "would you rather eat your own toenail clippings every day for the rest of your life, or have a giant toenail growing out of your forehead like the visor of a baseball cap?" When our tired brains started grinding and smoking, Abby explained to us that it's best to shout out your gut reaction before your head has a chance to tie itself in knots. After a few minutes, Miranda thought she had gotten the hang of it and decided to try one of her own.

"OK," Miranda said, "Would you rather have a giant unibrow..."

"Wait." Abby interrupted, "can you shave the unibrow?"

Miranda thought for a minute. "Yes," she said, "but it grows back really fast in the same day."

"Got it. Go ahead."

Miranda started over, "OK. Would you rather have a giant unibrow, or..."

we all leaned forward in anticipation.

"...or be a wolf boy?"

I'm gonna let that sink in for a minute: Or be a wolf boy. Here are some pictures to help you visualize the choice presented to you:

Unibrow...
...Aaaand wolf boy:


"Unibrow!" My sister shouted. Then, "Wait. What? Who would pick wolf boy?"

We laughed about it then, but listen: I think Miranda has really stumbled on to something here. Kids, if regular would-you-rather questions are making your flimsy brains feel like spaghetti milkshakes -- if they cause you to have warped nightmares about middle school multiple choice tests and your housemates all wake up, night after night, to the sound of you mumbling, "A: Cheese...No, B: toilet bowl! No! I meant cheese! Aw man, this SO wasn't in the study guide..."-- Maybe you'd like to try the lighter, gentler Mirandafied version of the game. I've got a few prompts to get you started. I'll wait here while you get a pen so you can write these down.

Ready? Here goes:

Would you rather have a hangnail OR...chop all your toes off?

Would you rather eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich OR... eat leaded paint chips?

Would you rather watch "Finding Nemo" OR... watch a bunny get eaten by a boa constrictor?

Would you rather ride a bicycle OR... set fire to your eyelashes?

Would you rather share a pudding cup with the cast member of "Saved By the Bell" of your choice OR... lick the under-side of a cow?

Really, the sky is the limit. Feel free to kick back and be as uncreative and lazy as you want. This new low-cal version of would-you-rather is like the car-game equivalent of taking a nap in a hammock. Which, by the way, I would rather do than eat my own bedsheets.