Fitzgerald's Wordiness is Rubbing Off on Me

Life Lessons

I have learned many things about myself over the past 31 years of life, but key among them is the fact that I will put almost anything into pasta at least once (I won't be trying apples again though.)

I came to be pondering that fact tonight because lately I have been eating the kind of haphazard meals that result from eating what is left in your fridge. You may be scratching your head and wondering if my upcoming move is really that soon, and no. No, it isn't.

However, the less-than-imminent move has intersected with two other key things: the fact that I have things in my freezer than moved here to this apartment with me almost a year ago and the fact that I have no time to shop while working such crazy hours. The insides of my refrigerators over the years have often amused me with their complete lack of "grown up" contents (and frankly, their resemblance to the stereotypical idea of a bachelor's fridge) (and we won't even go into the story of the time I super glued an internal freezer door back on when it broke off), but this time I really am hitting rock bottom. I have condiments, I have milk for my very necessary morning cups of coffee, I have some plastic cheese slices, and I have some year-old frozen fruit. Even I am not crazy enough to mix those things. Thankfully, twelve hour long days make it easy to justify eating out. A lot.

Up until this evening it also contained a 2-liter bottle of lemonade left over from the PMS hash that was about 1/10th tequila. Since I've been all out of other beverages (I only have about a half bottle of water, so I can't even make Kool-Aid), I've been drinking said lemonade and it has occurred to me that it's an odd way to start a work day. Though to be honest, with the way my schedule has been going lately, mostly what occurs to me is that I wish it had more tequila.

I'm about to be forced to shop, however, as otherwise I am soon going to have to resort to using my travel-sized toothpaste.

Paring it Down

Sometimes if I am in the last quarter of a contract, when things rip or break or stop working, I will cheer myself up by thinking that at least I am spared moving said item. It's more of a comfort if I'm moving overseas, but even an in-country move is a pain in the ass when you have this much stuff (Where did all this freaking stuff come from, anyway? Two years ago I only had two suitcases worth of crap!) For example, just about every pair of underwear I owned recently bit the dust (though my mom kindly replenished my supply for my birthday.) I broke a wine glass (but not THE wine glass, the one that fits a half-bottle in it) and left a pair of pj pants behind in hotel room and lent someone several books that weren't returned (No, apparently still not over that. You could fail to return my siblings or my vibrator and I'd get over it, but don't mess with my books.) (Though what are you doing borrowing my vibrator?)

I also like using up beauty products and food, particularly if I have somehow acquired a fair stash of something. Did you know that Mrs. Dash goes into pretty much anything? 'Cause it does. I finally got down to my last bottle of conditioner - and it's not going anywhere soon - that bottle is big. For a solid year I've been using conditioner that I was given by someone leaving the country - which makes me intensely curious as to how someone ends up with an excess of a year's supply of conditioner. However, no need to look that gift horse in the mouth. I'm also days away from finishing up some facial moisturizer and some lavender-scented body cream. And yes, this is what gets me all hot and bothered during intensives. You wouldn't have the brain power for decent entertainment either if you were teaching small children and tenth graders for eleven freaking hours a day.

Which leads me to the point of this post (I swear to Maude, there is one.) My flip flops died. Not only is the thought of being spared the effort of moving them not a comfort, frankly nothing is. If you are looking at the screen in disbelief, wondering how the fact that a pair of fairly cheap footwear could inspire any sort of post, even one as inane as this one is turning out to be, I should tell you that these were (to the best of my memory) the first flip flops I have ever owned.

I'm sure I've told my "you know you're a daddy's girl if..." story before, however I might as well refresh you. My father told me at some point in my life (and wouldn't it be hilarious if it was just some random, off-hand comment to him that somehow lodged in my memory for all of these years) that flip flops weren't comfortable because of the thingy that goes between your toes. I have to admit that I didn't so much as even try a pair out for myself, I just believed that he was right.

And then I moved to Korea, where flip flops are almost in a shoe category of their own. You can buy wooden ones and $3 ones off the street and ones with high heels and sporty ones and even ones used mainly to deal with the fact that the showers wet the entire bathroom floor and are kept outside the bathroom door so that you and your guests can use them to keep your feet dry when you pee. Around about this time I also discovered the joy of beach holidays. You see, after having grown up with a family cottage with a little beach, by the end of my teenage years I associated sun, sand, and water basically with boredom and the aggravation of living amongst extended family (none of whom ever seem to sleep in or do quiet activities before noon.)

So there I was, in a Nike store with Kim and there were a pair of blue flip flops with good soles and cute flowers on them and they were on sale (yes, yes, I am indeed related to my mother.) I bought them and promptly concluded that my father may know many things, but comfortable shoes is not his area of expertise. They were absolutely the nicest things I had put on my feet. Ever. So comfortable, in fact, that even after they were permanently stained by bat shit in the Philippines, I refused to stop wearing them.

And over the weekend, I'm afraid that the between-the-toes bit broke, and not in a fixable way. As if that all wasn't bad enough, after trying on a ton of flip flops over the weekend I have concluded that the only ones that come close to matching the comfy wonderfulness of that first pair are Crocs flip flops.

Yes, Crocs. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Crisis!

Watching the Big Bang theory is making me feel insufficiently nerdy. I'm getting a nerd complex. I don't have a clue what to do about it, because I didn't much like physics in grade 10, so a PhD in something all brainiac isn't an option. I still read a lot and all, but I've noticed lately that people actually respect my taste in reading and do horrifying things like give recommendations or insist I pick book club novels. I can't recall the last time I read a book about flying dinosaurs or something until I came across a Pern book in a bar, which right there takes away any nerd points I was about to get, just for being in a bar. Then there's the fact that I know longer have any idea what is going on in pop culture, so I can't scorn things liked by too many people, as I was wont to do in the past (can I take a minute and tell you that I feel a little disgruntled every time I realise that the riot grrrls were actually quite popular outside of my sleepy little hometown and not the incredibly underground sign of coolness that I thought they were?) I still hate Dan Brown though. He's a shitty writer and all the book sales in the world are not going to convince me differently.

What's a geeky girl to do? Is there a grown up version of space camp that I can sign myself up for? Can someone lend me a computer game (or have those become cool)?

(It turns out just writing this post has made me feel better because I just spent several minutes contemplating how to punctuate that last sentence there - in particular, where to put the question mark - and that seems to me to have been a very geeky thing to have done.)

Lessons Not Learned

You know how your parents told you that you should do your homework as soon as you got home from school? That it would be better to get it over with and you'd be grateful that you didn't leave it off until the last minute and have to struggle to stay awake while getting it done?

They were bloody right. Once again I can barely keep my eyes open while trying to pick out symbols and motifs and other smart-sounding shite in The Great Gatsby.

Which is, like 1984 and Lord of the Flies, far more interesting to teach as an adult who can see all of the intertextuality and connections to the historical periods the novels were written in and symbolism than it was to read as a teenager, back when I was somewhat suspicious that my English teachers were making all of that stuff up. Besides which, I never much liked being told what to read.