I'm not always fun to be around

I’m sure there’s a certain place between the second and third circles of hell for those of us prone to food lust, and it’s called the two weeks before my first paycheck(s). I now spend thirty-two hours a week making mountains of organic produce and rearranging fresh crusty breads and glass jars of tapenades, and roughly seven hours a week surrounded by tempura king crab with truffled béamaise and big square platters of octopus salad. Incidentally, we actually have a maki called the Dante: hamachi (whitefish), cucumber, mizuna (a Japanese mustard green), and a habanero tobikko relish (very spicy fish eggs).

As I type, I am boiling black beans and rice for the millionth time, and I don’t even have anything to go with it. I have avoided checking the coffee can for fear that I might not have enough to make it to work all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by seven in the morning.

There’s something singularly upsetting about having less than $5 in one’s bank account. Don’t gasp; I do actually have three jobs, and I’ll make rent, and I won’t starve, and I even still have some beers squirreled away. Just the same, peanut butter sandwiches and beans and rice get old real fast.

A sea of purple outside the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago

I went home to Chicago for my sister’s graduation last weekend, which, for the most part, was great—I got the chance to see my aunt and grandma and hang out with the rest of the fam, ate some delicious food (there’s a great place for cannoli and gelato in Lincoln Square, if anybody cares), visited the shiny new Modern Wing at the Art Institute (I have to do a separate post on that later). And oh yes, I had the privilege of witnessing that thrilling rite of passage that is the High School Graduation.

I’m not being a dick, I promise—I’m just saying that it was about as exciting as any high school graduation. I recall not wanting to go to mine, but maybe that was because I had just spent three days in the hospital and wasn’t on speaking terms with most of my friends (the two were unrelated). The salutatorian did his thing, there was Pomp, there was Circumstance, there were crying babies, there was a fairly innocuous little senior prank involving the principal and some colorful stickers. The valedictorian got up to do his personal thing, and then it hit me-

Holy shit. These kids have no fucking idea what’s happening to them. The speeches were all we will remain the close-knit community that makes us strong! and this high school was so special and wonderful to have prepared us to succeed as we face challenges ahead! and we’re going to change the world!

For the first time, such naïveté made me really sad.

I understand that graduation is a very special day for hyperbole and absurdly inflated parental pride and maybe a sort of giddy optimism forced by a fear of what’s ahead. I also understand that I am jaded, and I am a jackass (beat you to it, Dan).

Maybe I’m jealous. Maybe I wish I still felt that way, if I ever did (I can’t recall, but I kind of doubt it). Maybe it’s because I hated high school and made a hash of college, and now that some rich assholes killed our economy, a college graduate can’t even get accepted to be a fucking volunteer, let alone find a job (What's the number of employed recent graduates now? 21%? Holy shit). Maybe it's that I never thought, as I listened to my own shiny-faced classmates' bombastic overtures of misguided optimism, that I would have less than five dollars to my name, eating beans, and excited to wake up at an ungodly hour to work at a grocery store.

I don’t know. As usual, I have no conclusions. I’m just going to eat these beans and read my book until I fall asleep. For now, here is the best part about going home for family functions:

Heineken and homemade guacamole

The Bean Eaters
Gwendolyn Brooks

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

Dispatches from a high-risk lifestyle: volume 1

The fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich is a gateway sandwich. Containing approximately 36 grams of fat, beloved by such men of infamy as Bill Clinton and (of course) Elvis Presley, this sandwich is obviously the first step of many towards either a) the most successful political career possible in the Western World and a couple of blowjobs, or b) rock and roll, hair product, celebrity as a sex symbol, drugs, obesity, and eventual death on a toilet.

And someday, maybe twenty years from now, when I’m awaiting my undignified end on the bathroom floor of a disreputable nightclub, bad heroin coursing through the veins of my horribly bloated body, my vision narrowing, sweat soaking my sequined jumpsuit, I will rue the day I ever touched a frying pan. Until then. . .

Waiting for my Skype date

So, the boyfriend left for London a week ago. He had his first day of work (marketing for some company that owns shit in outer space) today, and I'm anxious as all getup to hear about it. But where is he?

. . .hello?


. . .are you lost in the London Underground somewhere? Probably.


Anyway, here was our fabulously romantic going-away dinner we managed to scarf down while packing. Rather, I did most of the packing. And I also made dinner. What was he doing during this time? Legit question. Sorting out which socks he wanted to take with or something. . .

candlelit spinach pie with Miller High Life (the champagne of beer!) and a gift wrapped in my pillowcase

did you catch that? yes, it's the Union Jack.

Alright. Time to make some coffee and do something with my life.

My first commissioned piece!

Ink (pen and marker) on 8.5" x 11" medium cardstock
$30

Monsieur Maintenance

Finally, the succulent, delicious fruit of our Wis-Kino labors:

I will never be big on the Internets

A couple weeks ago, I worked on a five-day shoot for an independent short horror film as wardrobe supervisor. It was awesome. More on that later.

The next weekend, I did a 48-hour film for the Wis-Kino Spring Kabaret. I made two giant novelty checks. I am told that our finished product will soon be on the tubes, complete with fifteen seconds of bonus footage! Until then, we also got a write-up in the Decider.



Went to Chicago last weekend. Went to the Art Institute, saw some fun Yousuf Karsh portraits. Danielle got her car window smashed while it was parked outside my folks' house, so we stayed another night, giving me the opportunity to finally see The Rose and the Rime at the House Theatre. I liked it. It wasn't as cloying as I thought it would be, plus there was 'snow' and hot dogs were thrown at the audience, and there was lots of performance art-type tree-making.

Haven't done much since. Applying for internships, a lot of sewing. I got Twitter, and I don't know what to do with it. Starting to write a play about Falstaff and Sir Toby Belch going to a bar together, and this is going to be either kind of stupid or very, very silly.

Nothing says 'I love you' like high-fructose corn syrup

I wasn't going to do anything for Valentine's Day except suggest making dinner together or something (the idea of going to a restaurant as a couple and being surrounded by people having intense couple-time is kind of nauseating, especially because my boyfriend and I are kind of secretly like that anyway). But I went to Walgreen's on Friday and was wandering up and down the aisles with my Pepto-Bismol and large Walgreen's brand cola and started looking at the chocolates and edible undies and cardboard Power Rangers valentines. There was one other person in the store, and he was clearly preparing to make some kind of romantic overture, judging by his like ten packages of tea lights and other pink sparkly paraphernalia. He was kind of a dweeby-looking guy, and the idea of him covering some woman's bed in rose petals or whatever gave me pretty intense warm-fuzzies, so I began to consider doing something for my boyfriend.

The problem was that it couldn't be commercial, or expensive, or really anything that wasn't somehow creative. I was thinking about how we could maybe make sushi again, since sushi is kind of one of our "things" and also incredibly delicious. I then wandered into the normal non-seasonal candy aisle and saw a package of Swedish Fish. Light bulb!

The rice is Tic-Tacs, the fish are Swedish, the inside stuff is Starbursts I popped in the microwave for 20 seconds to make them pliable, and the nori (seaweed) is Airheads. I should have used Fruit Roll-Ups instead, because trying to keep it all together inside those Airheads kind of sucked. I was going to make six little makis and three sashimis, but I accidently melted my last Airhead to a plate and I ran out of Starbursts, so I just said fuck it.

The gift was (obviously) well-received because yeah, it was kind of adorable. I also gave him a six-dollar bottle of sake, the purchase of which was kind of an amusing time in itself. One of the liquor store employees tried to talk me out of buying the cheapest one by offering his expertise w/r/t sushi-wine pairings. I politely declined his help, but he was persistent, until I just had to say, "No, seriously, what kind of wine will appropriately complement Tic-Tacs and Starbursts?" Nice guy, though.

Unfortunately, the pictures I took aren't all that great, but you get the idea. Oh, and he actually ate them all, which sounds kind of unappealing. I did get to eat the extra Swedish Fish, though.