Time: The present (9:00 pm, Tuesday evening)
Setting: Where else? The living room.
Characters: yours truly and my trusty Fahrer-ha sidekick.
Stuffing my face with some lovely dark chocolate covered cherries (thanks Moz, Niki), I was overwhelmed by the sweet/tart combination.
Me: I thought this cherry mix was supposed to have like..almonds in it, or something. I really need some nuts to like..break it up!
Erin: BWAHAHA. That's what she said!
I love bacon. Bacon bacon bacon. I love bacon on everything. In everything. Bacon by itself. Bacon with breakfast, swimming in syrup. Bacon in salads, defiling their purity. Bacon on a sandwich, delicately woven into a perfect bacony meaty patty. Bacon is a gift to humans, a salty, fatty delicious gift, and no one should ever refuse such a gift.
Lately, however, I’ve had to grapple with the idea of giving up meat. It’s that whole we’re-destroying-the-world-and-there-is-something-we-can-do-about-it thing. Read any article that’s serious about helping the environment and you’ll find that decreasing the amount of meat you eat has a more positive impact on the earth than recycling plastics and driving hybrids combined. And ya know, it’s good for your body and stuff too.
FROWN. But what about baaaaaaaacon? I’m the girl who on a recent trip to Vegas, where buffets rule, wanted nothing more than to stand in front of a giant catering tray filled with the fatty meaty strips. It’s all I could talk about. I can’t give up bacon. “Just say no” to bacon? HA! The mere idea of it is difficult to resist, and we’re not even talking rejecting it when the smell is wafting ever so enticingly from a nearby griddle. I mean, what chance do I really have?
Still, bacon-obsessed and forced to consider betraying my true love for reasons greater than I, an inner conflict rages over the thought of forsaking this porky delight. I feel guilty that I don’t even want to do it (sorry Mother Earth). And then that guilt mixes with the always present guilt of eating bacon at all (you know that’s why it’s so good). And the result is just one big guilty bacon mess that only makes me want to eat it all the more!
Sigh. What's a girl to do? Distraught that I may have to put an end to my bacon indulgences, I contemplated my problem on the train the other day, where it occurred to me that perhaps I shall bargain with the environment (Monty Hall was my child nickname).
“Earth,” I said, “I’ll (one day) give you beef, chicken, and all other pork products, but in return, you must give me bacon. A compromise, you see. Give up everything but bacon. How does that sound?”
And with that, the universe answered my question.
“BACoN,” it said.
“BACoN” here, “BACoN” there. It appeared written in light blue graffiti on the wall of two buildings I pass everyday. That’s right. Someone was speaking to me! Tagging walls with pork product pleasantries.
“Yes, Megan, of course you can keep eating bacon!”
So with that little wink from the gods, I begin my journey. Less chicken. Less beef. And enough bacon to keep my ass plump and porky.
Ask my friends and they'll tell you that I have been toying with the idea of prostitution for awhile now. Faced with the ugly truth that I can't support my ramen and whiskey fueled lifestyle with legitimate paychecks any longer, the time came to look to my other assets. Which I did, only to discover I have alarmingly few (thank you, liberal arts education). And then one day, pondering my personal economic crisis and wandering the dirty streets of Humboldt Park for my own filthy reasons, I noticed two hookers, sipping as sexily as one can on 7/11 slurpees, get picked up by a striking man in a white Cadillac. Hello, meal ticket. I might not look the part, but show me a Frederick's of Hollywood, a pair of Candies slingbacks and somewhere to stash my self-respect and Catholic upbringing, and you'd have a passing whore working the corners of Logan Square. You're welcome, gentlemen; world.
I proposed the career change to my urban family. First they laughed. Then they paused. Then they began listing the cons to my spectacular idea: disease, murder, drugs, arrests, vile pimps (like that handsome fucker up there), a whole slew of mental abuse issues, botched back alley abortions, blah blah blah. But there remained the tremendous pro of tax free dollars and not having to know how to make a goddamn spreadsheet in Excel to move up in the world. What eventually broke me was the surfacing of memories from one weird night in which I was mistaken for a legitimate hooker no less than three times, and actually found myself praying to whatever God was punishing me to spare me from what seemed to be my certain abduction, rape, and death by dismembering. No joke.
After that, the whole sex thing fell by the wayside. But what remained was the problem of my bank account and my laziness. I still wanted to make a quick buck. I reevaluated. Certainly there was a way to whore yourself to the world without actually putting a P in a V. After a triumphant weekend of lending shoulders to cry on, posing as a sounding board, and helping with all sorts of friendly issues, it became clear that my greatest contribution to the human race would be to act as its friend. It's best friend even, if it was willing to pay that much. Here's one satisfied friend's testimonial: "I've had a lack of best friends in my life, and I enjoy talking to Erin so much because she has the ability to fill all of the roles that were always seperated into different people....she's like the one-stop shopping of friends." -Jake M., friend
Couldn't have said it better myself. You too, Reader, can be as lucky as that fine gentleman. For a nominal fee, I will allow you to rent out my friendly skills. Need a shoulder to lean on? A date to a high school reunion? Want to go see a movie, but too afraid to go alone? Have an extra ticket to the ball game? Afraid of looking like a loser on a Saturday night? Dying to try a new restaurant? Just want to spend a nice evening building a fort out of couch cushions in your living room and telling ghost stories?
Have I got a deal for you.
So, Cape Cod, y'all.
I left Friday morning and the plane ride Made. Me. Nuts. Let me break it down for you.
The first person-to-person encounter I witnessed was some bitchy lady not wanting to put her computer bag under her seat to make room in the super-over-crowded plane for another woman's too-big-for-under-the-seat carry-on. I guess she just...didn't feel like it? Way to be a team player. Awesome. I spent my first ten minutes on the plane glaring holes into the back of her little pinhead. Then, before we even got off the ground, I laid my head against the window and fell asleep. Until we landed in Detroit for my layover. Turns out that nap would really come in handy because the second leg of the trip was when it all went to shit. Bitchy computer bag lady was just my warm-up.
I shuffled my two enormously heavy bags (I'm a nice wife and carried Zack's suits for him so he wouldn't have to check a bag...off to Minneapolis from Cape Cod, remember?) down the narrow aisle of the plane and finally - sweet Jesus, FINALLY - got to my seat, which was by the window. An elderly Filipino couple were already seated in the aisle and middle seats next to mine. The man got up to let me by, but the woman, oh she looked up at me all smug and said "You go over" and gestured over her lap. Uhhhh..?
"I don't actually think that will work. I won't fit there."
Gestures again to the impossibly narrow space between her knees and the seat, "You go over."
"Ma'am, I'm really not going to fit. I think you're going to have to get up to let me pass."
And thankfully, she did.
Now cut to the surround-sound wailing of two babies at either end of the plane. And the mom with her two school-aged children giggling behind me and KICKING MY SEAT. Incessant with the kicking and the TALKING REALLY LOUD OVER THE PLANE ENGINE. Oh my glorious, glorious iPod. That tiny little box of wonder saved me from life in prison on murder charges because had I not been able to tune those fuckers out I might have had to fling myself over the seat and strangle them in rage. But the iPod was my happy place.
And then...then...
Oh my holy Lord. I can't even properly describe to you what was definitely the most offensive and horrifying fart I have ever had the displeasure of smelling. I mean, this was an epic, clinging fart that undulated throughout the cabin in waves. I'm pretty sure that I smelled like a fart until my next shower. And no amount of turning my head or shifting my position helped lessen its stink. It finally began to die down as we landed in Providence (oh, the irony of landing in Providence was not lost on me, friends). So of course once we are at the gate and the plane's engines are off (so it's getting all hot in the cabin because we're smashed in like sardines and everyone's trying to will their way off the plane by moving toward the door before it's actually opened) the horrible fart returns because my life isn't bad enough in this moment.
And then I blew up the plane.
But what really happened was that I shuffled off the plane in much the same manner as I had shuffled on (now cursing Zack and his FUCKING NEED FOR THREE SUITS BECAUSE WHO REALLY NEEDS THREE SUITS OH MY GOD) and I waited for Zack's plane to arrive, 40 minutes after my own. And when it did I relayed to him my FUCKING story about the FUCKING people on my FUCKING plane, complete with extensive hand flailing and yelling for dramatic effect.
And he was all cute and sympathetic and appropriately outraged at my suffering and it made me slightly less mad about carrying his heavy-ass suits.
And thus we began our weekend.
My week is thus far rather craptastic (with the exception of my Banana Nut Cheerios discovery, mind you).
1) I currently have HIVES on my NECK. They itch, and I have no allergy medicine with which to annihilate them. Boo to me.
2) I spent the majority of my morning with no internet. NO INTERNET, I tell you. Which left me staring into space and trying desperately to talk to busy passers-by without success. Sometimes it's cool being me; today is not one of those days. I've also had no coffee.
3) I am searching the world for a spring sweater that doesn't cost a small fortune. I need it for THIS SATURDAY for the wedding I'm attending in CAPE COD. I know I will probably be the least-rich person there, but I don't particularly want to LOOK LIKE IT. Wah.
4) I am BFF with the CAPS LOCK KEY.
And, worst of all:
5) My husband is LEAVING FOR 10 WEEKS. He's got himself a spiffy job in Minneapolis for the summer (whoo-hoo summer associateship!) but that means he'll be there and I'm staying here in Chicago. By myself. Without Zack. And I am very bummed. So bummed, in fact, that using the caps lock key doesn't even make me feel better.
6) As a result of #5 I am EATING MY BODY WEIGHT in terrible-for-me food and CRYING about EVERYTHING. I just can't seem to help myself. NOM NOM NOM.
Sometimes you've just gotta vent about the suckitude of your life. And then you feel better. RIGHT?
Time: 3:00p.m.
Setting: living room, Sunday afternoon. Everyone has finally crawled out of bed to cure their hangovers with a Chinese food extravaganza.
Characters: Megan, Erin, the Irishman, and Jake.
The Irishman eats his dumpling, when all of the sudden, the perfect little greasy meatball jumps right out of its doughy cocoon and into a puddle of dumpling juice.
Me: Aww, baby! You lost your meat!
Erin: BWAHAHAHAHA
The Irishman and Jake remain completely oblivious.
I had an IM conversation with fellow blogger, Megan, today that went a little something (or exactly) like this:
me: I am DYYYYING
