High-Class Conversations, Part I

Corazon: I had a BLT on a waffle.

Me: That sounds kind of gross.

Corazon: They used spinach instead of lettuce.

Me: Hmm, that actually sounds better. Plus it had bacon on it; I'll eat anything that has bacon on it.

Jenny: I'd eat pussy if it had bacon on it!

Me: NOTE TO SELF...

Speaking In Tongues

I'm once again trying the Internet dating thing. Actually, it's not half bad. Well, okay, if we're using math, it's exactly half bad.

I've been on two dates with two different guys. I won't bore you with the good date because you don't care about that. You want to hear about the bad date. Bad dates are way more interesting.

To be fair, it was a great location (Descanso Gardens) and he picked it, so bonus points for him. However, he was extraordinarily quiet. Like mime quiet. He also kept eating the plants (no joke) and didn't quite match his online photos that portrayed him as a person with normal hair and average body weight. This is not to say that I'm shallow! Okay, I am shallow. I'd like to date someone with whom I can imagine engaging in the types of sex acts that remain illegal in some Southern states. And this guy looked only vaguely like his photos, and by "vaguely," I mean maybe he ate that guy and showed up posing as him.

Shouldn't there be some sort of harsh criminal penalty for putting up misleading photos on a dating site?

Knocked Up

Last night I had this incredibly realistic dream that I was hugely pregnant and in labor. My belly was so freaking big and the contractions hurt really bad; I'm sure that actually giving birth is much more painful, which is worrisome*. Also I was writhing around alone in my bed without any medical assistance, which sort of sucked.

I was vaguely aggravated about being pregnant in the first place and definitely not thrilled about giving birth, given the pain factor. In this middle of everything, I woke up briefly and then fell back asleep, at which point, thankfully, the baby was already born. Turns out I had a girl and named her Carolina** Rose. Remarkably, or perhaps not, there was no father featured in the dream and my foremost concern was getting back to work. At no point did I even ever see the baby, in fact.

In related news, and in the spirit of always trying to share TMI, my cycle has been really off due to a six week stint on the Pill shortly before leaving for China and during my time there in hopes of pushing back my period until my return to California. It worked up until a couple of days before we left Beijing, but then my body was all fucked up from the hormones. I was about a week late this month and had a lovely two weeks of PMS action without ever hitting the M part of that acronym. Normally that wouldn't be a huge deal, except since I've actually gotten some action lately***, I was stressed out that maybe I wasn't just late but LATE.

I went so far as to take a pregnancy test last night (only one line, whew!) but I was still worried because I'm crazy. Thus my mind conjured the insane dreams last night which once again proved that even in my subconscious, I'm unfit for motherhood.

* Or would be, if I ever intended to get pregnant.

** Pronounced as in Carolina Herrera, not South Carolina.

*** Always use a condom, boys and girls. I do! And yet I'm still terrified of getting pregnant because I'm Catholic and I know God wants to punish me for having pre-marital sex.

I'm Wicked and I'm Lazy

I have had little to no motivation to write lately. I don't know what it is exactly; it's possible that my early-onset spring fever, which has resulted in my throwing away/shredding/giving away about a zillion things in my house, has sapped my energy to the point that I'm unable to think of anything creative to say.

It's also possible that I'm just really fucking lazy.

I've been busy lately, but not with anything particularly salacious. (Okay, maybe a few salacious things, but when someone reads your blog, it's hard to write about them.)

To give you a small hint of my exciting life: I saw "I Love You, Man" (FOR FREE!) and I saw Jonathan Gold moderate a panel on whether food can be authentic. I hate to say it, but the movie screening beat JG hands down. That dude does not know how to facilitate a conversation. Helpful hint: it does not involve you talking the entire time. MODERATING FAIL.

Also despite terrifying layoffs at my workplace, I am still employed. My job is going to change somewhat, which will mean, I suppose, that I need to start working harder and/or waking up before 9:30 a.m. Despite that, I'm still glad that I wasn't fired.

In other news, I'm moving! I'll be a block away from my office which means I'll walk to work every day but also have even less of an excuse than I currently do for being late, given that I live a mile and a half away from work right now.

Also I am going to China in six weeks!

Oh, Barry!

I had a somewhat, *ahem*, romantical dream about Barack Obama last night. Unfortunately, one minute Barry and I were alone, about to make some real progress on the important and pressing issue of nudity in my bedroom, and the next minute three other people appeared and were all up in our business about what we were doing. Thus, he never got to use his signing pen, if you catch my drift.

And then I woke up! I really need to work harder at learning to lucid dream.

"My Eye Looked Like A Lime"

I love The Story from American Public Media. I'm always transfixed by the narratives that people share on the show and how naturally host Dick Gordon seems to interact with people, asking the very questions that I'm wondering.

Today's show was particularly fascinating to me. I struggle with the notion of forgiveness and what it means to truly let go of anger; during Lent, my thoughts often turn to the words of St. Francis: "[I]t is in pardoning that we are pardoned."

In addition, the medium through which resolution came - Facebook - was interesting. Who knows how we'll be connecting with our past in another ten years?

* NOTE: If you punch me in the face, please do not try to neurally friend me on Mindbook in 2019.

Miss Lonelypants

A friend recently told me about a dating site she's using that she likes. According to her, it's free and filled with attractive people. (I'd tell you the name of the site, but she made me promise under penalty of death that I wouldn't share it and lessen our chances with the available men.)

At any rate, feeling sexually frustrated (my version of lonely), I decided to sign up yesterday. I saw a couple of interesting profiles and had a few emails by the time I came home today. While I was online checking my messages, I was asked to chat by two different guys, one right after the other.

Wow, I'm popular!

Right.

Sure.

I got hung up on both times. TWICE. IN A ROW. By men who initiated contact with me.

Granted, the first one wasn't really a "man", given that he was only 19. Okay, I admit, I shouldn't have agreed to talk to him in the first place! But he was hot and he said he liked older women, and, shamefully, I kind of wanted to make fun of him. (I'm horny AND cruel.) He disconnected on me after I responded to his greeting with "Aren't you a little young for this?" I didn't even get to ask if he was just going after older women so they could buy him booze! Honestly, I think he was lying about his age anyways. He was easily 20.

The second dude was older and kind of cute, but halfway through our conversation he had already made a reference to being nude (uh, gross)...still, I stuck around and tried to ignore the comment. Then he started an anti-Obama rant, blaming the state of the economy on a man who's been president for less than two months.

And yet HE is the one who hung up on ME.

To my credit, whatever that means, I actually tried to have an adult conversation, arguing my political points with reason and facts and only a few insults. After he said Obama didn't know what a bad economy is really like because he's only in his mid-forties, I typed, "Uh, you're 40. Are you telling me you traveled back in time to experience the Depression?" This is the point at which he disconnected.

I wanted to yell, "I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!" but unfortunately, I was sitting alone in my bathrobe at home in front of my laptop. The statement loses a little power that way.

Anyhow, it's obvious that neither of these guys were right for me, but somehow I can't help thinking that if I started saying a little less of what I'm thinking, I might date a little more. *sigh*

Good Bacon, Bad Bacon

I've eaten a lot of bacon in my time. (Especially if you start "my time" about a week ago, since I have a package of bacon in my fridge that I'm afraid is going to go bad before I can finish it. Do you know how hard it is for one person to finish a pound of bacon?)

I won't say I'm a bacon connoisseur - though that would look great on a business card - but I will say I know good bacon from bad bacon.



And Oscar Mayer, your Center Cut Naturally Smoked Bacon with 30% lower fat in the stay-fresh reclosable tray is BAD BACON. It's the skinniest bacon, width-wise, that I've ever eaten. (And everyone knows that with bacon, as with uh, other things, thicker is better.) Speaking of skinny, there's so much less fat on it that when I cook it, it sticks to the pan instead of making a pool of delicious bacon grease.

W.
T.
F.

NO BACON GREASE! That's never happened to me with other bacon. It's making me sad.

It's Like The Fifth Element

@ Jenn's Birthday Fiesta

Jenn: It's Quatro Leche Cake.

Fran: Whoa! I've never heard of that!

Me: The fourth milk is from Salma Hayek.

(For the record, that was the best effing cake I've ever had. I totally wouldn't be surprised if my comment was spot-on.)

The Accidental Episcopalian

Admittedly, I don’t go to church very often. I’m Catholic, but I’m one of those Catholics...you know, the big holiday Catholics. The ones who take up your parking space at Christmas and Easter, who cry during confession because of guilt and shame from not going to Mass for months on end (and who forget we prefer the term “reconciliation” over “confession”.)

But Ash Wednesday is a good reason to go to church, and so I drove down to South Pasadena to hit up Holy Family for some forehead ash. Or at least that was my intention. Driving down Fremont, I saw the front door of the church, open and welcoming. I made a turn onto the side street and went around the block to enter from Monterey.

The church looked different somehow, but it had been (*ahem* over) a year since I last set foot inside so I ignored the lack of familiarity. I was surprised by the singing congregation when I walked in, since it was supposed to be ashes only, not a full Mass, according to the Holy Family schedule on the website. But I slid into a pew, knelt for a quick prayer, and joined in.

A cute young priest read the Gospel and I noticed that the people around me didn’t exactly say "Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ" when he announced the reading. I chalked it up to them being irregular attendees like me. Then I noticed the supposed priest was wearing a wedding ring, which I attributed to him being a deacon because it was just ashes, not a full Mass. (Note how I rationalize everything. Because I am the crazy.)

Then a woman in purple vestments got up to speak. She did a lovely sermon on Lent and I thought, “Wow, a woman! This is a really liberal church! I don’t remember it being so progressive. I’ll have to come back again soon.” There was a lot of singing, much of which was somewhat mournful and almost all of which I didn’t understand except when they said “Jesus” or “Lord”.

I got my ashes and when I sat down, I (finally) noticed a purple sash that had been in my line of sight the entire service that read, quite clearly, “St. James , South Pasadena 1904”. I turned my head and saw a picture of Mary, who's quite obviously our thing (and by our, I mean Catholics). I felt reassured, but still a bit unnerved. Then I looked down at the collection envelopes in the pew and noticed they said “St. James” followed by the words “Episcopalian Church”.

Panicked thoughts: OH NOES! I AM IN THE WRONG PLACE AND AM GOING TO HELL!

It seemed rude to run out of there screaming, so I sat quietly, contemplating the fact that if I died that night, I would have spent my last hours in a heathen haven. I apologized to God and wondered how quickly I could set up a confession...er, reconciliation session. I also noted that Anglican churches have an interesting and unintelligible interpretation of music.

An observation about Episcopalians, from an anthropological perspective: they’re not conformists. At one point during the service, half the people knelt down and I followed suit, only to look around and find that the other half of the attendees remained stubbornly standing. “Uh, what?” thought I. We Catholics don’t do that at Mass. We’re big on homogeneity.

Also, I’m pretty sure they don’t believe in transubstantiation. I didn’t take communion (or whatever they call it) just in case. And embarrassingly, to show you how deeply ingrained the patriarchy of the Church has wormed its way into my head: when the female pastor(ess?) took the host and started breaking it up, I was like, “Oh no she DIDN'T. A woman’s touching all over my Body of Christ! I CAN’T EAT THAT.” Yes, I have been brainwashed to believe only men can touch the consecrated host. *sigh*

At any rate, it was a very nice service but I still feel guilty and shameful about going to the wrong church. Also I got lost trying to leave and felt very freaked out and had to shout “This isn't my church please help me where is the exit!”

Lord, forgive me! (Also any Episcopalians I may have offended. You seem like a very nice people.)