Latest Guns N’ Roses album “Chinese Democracy”, when cued up correctly, is eerily in synch with classic holiday film “It’s a Wonderul Life”. Intentional?
Damn you, misleading hippie gardening websites! Everything you have told me is the opposite of what is going on in my Guest Room Garden! (You too can make a Guest Room Garden! Just follow these three easy steps:
1) Take a rarely-used bedroom in your two-bedroom apartment
2) Fill the window with plants that will die if left outdoors in the winter cold
3) Lack friends who might ever possibly stay in that guest room. Watch as the foliage gradually overpowers the room and makes it feel like a creepy-ass jungle.
See-it’s easy!)
“Planting mint will keep flies away from your house and garden,” says one damn hippie gardening website. Thanks for the tip-but actually, it’s my mint plants that are crawling with little fruity-looking flies. What now, website? Any other helpful advice for me? I just spent half an hour sitting in front of my mint plant killing flies as I spotted them like some sort of crazy gardening sniper. There has to be a better way.
“An organic method of getting rid of aphids? Plant basil,” advises another damn hippie gardening website. Fine and dandy, except it’s my basil that’s crawling with aphids. Should I plant other basil next to it, and maybe THAT basil will be ok to eat? Is that really the best thing I can do here?
Also, aphids are gross. They look like little green sesame seeds. They are ruining bagels for me. And they don’t ever move! Any bug that just sits there like a Zen master and takes it as you brush it off your plant is playing mind games that are too sophisticated for me to be able to handle at this point in time. Passive resistance is only ok when I’m the one employing it.
Several websites have recommended introducing Ladybugs into my garden to eat the aphids, but I’m not sure I want to interfere with my guest room’s delicate ecosystem. I don’t think you could call what I’ve been doing today ‘gardening’, since I spent most of my time sitting on the edge of a bed. Still, I managed to work myself up into something of a frenzy this afternoon trying to deal with the ailments my various plants have come down with. What is not that bothersome when your plant is on a porch, becomes more of a problem once it’s indoors.
I keep going through a weekly cycle of going out for a couple of drinks on Friday night, then waking up sick on Saturday, and slowly regaining my strength through the weekend and during the week—just in time for a couple of drinks to ruin my good health again the next Friday.
But when they’re a couple of free drinks at an after-hours office function, how can I refuse? How can I say “no thanks” to a plastic tumbler filled with chardonnay? To an outdoor DJ spinning AC/DC in 30-degree weather while my bravest coworkers and I dance around a flaming space heater?
I like office holiday parties. They’re merry, and everyone dresses to the nines, and underneath it all lurks the possibility that you might say or do something that will jeopardize your career—the likelihood of which is increased by the presence of a Karaoke machine. Fortunately, Brian knew it was time for us to go last night when I began to seriously consider pressuring my coworker into singing Def Leppard with me. Possibly my reputation at work could survive an inebriated performance of “Pour Some Sugar on Me”, but this is not something I am willing to risk…until my third tumbler of chardonnay. This is why it is advisable to bring a date to your office holiday party. They are there to navigate you away from a discussion of politics with your company president. To distract you so that you don’t notice when the DJ starts playing “The Macarena”. Finally, it is their job to steer you toward the car when you begin teetering on your ill-advised stilettos and stuffing your face with shrimp cocktail and Swedish meatballs like you’re storing up for the coming winter.
I suppose this post is a tribute to the Office Holiday Party Date. Boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, friend or roommate, or maybe someone who just is there because they lost a bet; thank you for shepherding us through the treacherous, glittery, intoxicating waters of our Holiday Parties. This week, let’s all do something nice for our Holiday Party escorts. Take them out to dinner with the some of the money you are still bringing in each week thanks to them. They’ve earned it.
When I am at work and I am having one of those days, I sometimes calm down by picturing myself at home at the end of the day, relaxing with a chilled glass of wine. Is this a warning sign? Or an excellent stress-management technique? Or maybe both?
The other weekend I took a quiz called ‘Are You an Alcoholic’ on About.com. I don’t think I am an alcoholic. Honestly, I took the quiz out of morbid curiosity mingled with self-righteousness. I took the quiz because I am fairly certain I am NOT an alcoholic. I figured it would be like one of those soft-ball quizzes they have in Seventeen Magazine entitled ‘Does He Like You?’ where the questions are extremely obvious. (“You sit next to him in class and he: A) passes notes with you B) Ignores you C) Punches you in the throat”). However, THIS quiz didn’t pull any punches. My results told me I probably have a drinking problem. Apparently that’s the verdict if you answered ‘Yes’ to three questions.
First of all, what kind of quiz is that? Every answer on a quiz is not supposed to be ‘No’! About.com! Isn’t that kind of obvious? Mix it up a little here. Not only that, but I don’t think all of the questions on this quiz were equally serious. Take one of the questions I answered ‘Yes’ to:
‘Do you drink to escape from worries or trouble?’ Can anyone reading this say ‘No’ to this question? Anyone I would get along with, anyway? What other reasons are there to drink, except maybe in celebration—and don’t celebrations, like weddings, or company Christmas parties, make most people kind of miserable deep down anyway, which they then drink to escape? Ok, fine…I may have other problems.
Furthermore, if someone says ‘Yes’ to the ‘escape from worries’ question, would you be more or less alarmed if they also said yes to THIS question:
‘Does your drinking make you careless of your family’s welfare?’ WHAT. Ok, a ‘Yes’ to this question should be worth at least 5 points more than a ‘Yes’ to the previous question. Having a drink after a long day at work or a bad breakup is not on the same level as endangering your family’s welfare (unless you are drinking at a family reunion, which is highly advisable).
All right, here’s another question I said yes to: ‘Do you drink alone?’ Again, is that always so bad? Particularly since this question is not very specific and could therefore reasonably encompass many different kinds of solitary drinking. I mean, there’s “It’s Saturday night and The Wedding Date is on Lifetime and me and this bottle of wine are going to watch Debra Messing be unconvincingly dowdy together until I turn in at 11pm” alone-drinking. Then there’s drinking alone in the bathroom at work, or in your parked car underneath the turnpike. About.com, can you please be more specific here? When should I really worry?
I don’t remember the other question I said yes to; the one that pushed me over the edge into problem-drinking territory. It was probably something similarly ambiguous and open-ended, such as, ‘Do you drink because you are shy around other people?’ or ‘Do you drink to raise your self-esteem?’ No, I drink because I feel too hydrated.
That’s what I get for being honest. I guess when it comes down to it, are there really any legitimately good, healthy reasons to drink? Does a quiz like this automatically set you up to fail? One thing is for sure; from now on I’m sticking to quizzes that help me discover my fashion IQ and tell me which kind of Spirit Animal I am most like. If any of those quizzes tell me I have a drinking problem, I’ll listen.
Spring 1998: Molly is participating in a student-exchange program, and she is spending three weeks in Narita, Japan with a host family. On her first night in Japan, she finds herself in the bathroom trying to figure out how to flush the toilet. It is an intimidating-looking instrument, with a control panel filled with buttons and flashing lights; all of the labels are in Japanese. Uncertainly, Molly presses a couple of buttons on the control panel and hopes for the best. Suddenly, a tiny white rod appears, extending from the underside of the rim on the back of the toilet bowl. Molly leans in to investigate this device. A jet of water shoots out of a spigot in the rod and hits her point-blank in the face. Spluttering, she cups her hand over the stream and frantically presses more buttons until it stops and the tube retracts.
After drying her face, Molly happens to notice that on the side of the toilet is a normal metal handle for manual flushing.
Winter, 2008: Molly is scraping the ice off of her car windshield on a chilly morning in North Carolina. Realizing that a spray of windshield-wiper fluid might make the job a little easier, she opens the driver’s side door of the car and, still standing beside the car, pushes the lever behind the steering wheel which releases a jet of said fluid, which hits her point blank in the face. Fortunately, Molly is wearing glasses at the time, the lenses of which are now extremely water-resistant.
I can’t wait to see what I manage to spray myself in the face with in 2018. What scares me is that the liquids in question appear to be growing increasingly more toxic with each event. This does not look promising. I should probably invest in Face Insurance. After all, my looks are all I have!
I like that one of the search terms someone used to find this blog was the phrase “molly health risks”.
Brian, was that you? Are you weighing your cost-benefits? Please stop now. You don’t want to do that.
The last few nights I have woken up in the middle of the night to a horribly itchy, swollen throat. I mean, SO ITCHY. It starts from the back of my palate and goes down to my tonsils.. In order to scratch it I tend to make a horribly raspy, guttural noise that sounds like a zombie choking on a finger bone. I do this regularly. In the middle of the night. Right next to Brian. Who happens to be (or happened to be) sleeping at the time. This is not really fair to him.
I am trying to figure out what tends to cause (and exacerbate) this condition. I think it might be the dog, but there’s no way to really change that variable, since it would be the equivalent of getting rid of your kid. I could vacuum more often, but who wants to do that? I’ve tried changing the sheets more often (since the dog is on them all day while we are at work, as his form of protest), but it doesn’t seem to help. Last night we had the air purifier on, and my throat was itchier than ever from about 3:50am til around 4:30.
I got up and gargled warm salt water, and it seemed to get worse. I drank cold water, and that seemed to help a tiny bit. When I woke up this morning though, I felt pretty much fine.
Night Throat-Itch, whyyyyyyy?
I Heard Tell 