I’m a Jinius

I think you can tell alot about a person by how they shop for food. Afterall, the quest for food is one of our most fundamental behaviors, dating back to pre-historic days when man would step out of his cave, arm himself with stones or whatever the hell they used to protect themselves (I don’t have a subscription to Cave Homme Living) and then pierce a mammoth and cook it on his george foreman grill. These days, human beings may not have to go through such onerous lengths to find food but their predatory instincts still exist.

One can observe such primal behavior at Trader Joes.

Now I’ve given Trader Joes alot of flack in the past but I’m willing to overlook these flaws since we’re in a recession and they sell boxes of peppermint cookies for NINETY NINE CENTS.

But every now and then, I can’t help but go into the store and wonder if society is devolving into some sort of pre-historic supermarket where people battle long lines, crazy customers, and overly gregarious employees for 99 cent jars of spaghetti sauce.

For example:

Last night I saw a woman run furiously around the store like she was a contestant on Double Dare, stacking her cart with everything from dog food to boxes of cereal to jasmine rice, only to later stack each and every single item back on a random shelf. Okay, I get it. Sometimes you realize that you don’t have time to wait in line for food that you just spent 30 minutes running around for. Okay, no, I don’t get it. Who the hell spends all their time looking for all this stuff, only to just throw it in some corner at the last minute? Especially since the store is the size of my bathroom? Do people not realize that when you decide to block everyone’s path to throw items on a shelf that a bunch of other people are trying to get to, it is a bit of an inconvenience??? This is survival of the fittest, not survival of who can waste their time looking for crap they don’t need.

There are also those people who will run from one corner of the store to the area where they give out the free samples. There’s always that one dude who asks, “So what’s in it?” Um, hi genius, there are like twenty signs hanging around the booth telling you that it’s trader jose’s enchiladas. Gee, it must be really hard to be both hungry and illiterate.

And then there are the people who are overly territorial about their place in line. Yes, we all know that you had a long day at work and now all you want to do is get home, eat some frozen pizza, and watch Bridget Jones on TBS. Oh, it’s Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason, Even BETTER.

I stood behind one guy whose body was the shape of a trapezoid and had a cart stacked with six bottles of cranberry juice. JUST CRANBERRY JUICE. Sometimes I like to make little stories in my head about the people in the store and what they plan on doing with the food and the only stories I could come up with were a) this man plans on drinking all six bottles of cranberry juice and then thawing the decapitated heads in his freezer or b) his girlfriend must have some hell of a UTI.

Anyway, so this one chick steps ahead of Cranberry Juice Man because she’s trying to look for something on a shelf and Cranberry Juice Man gets all “You better not be jumping the line, lady.” Woah, Cranberry Juice Man, don’t worry. No one is going to jump the line and get in the way of you and your antioxidants.

While I was waiting in line, I wanted to try a sample (yes, I am one of those aforementioned people who runs across the store for a table spoon of risotto) so I asked the woman behind me if she could watch my place in line and she gave me this look of death as if I had just asked her for her pancreas. Um, yes, excuse me, Miss, when I said “can you hold my spot” what I really meant to say was do you mind if I just go ahead and TAKE THAT PANCREAS OUT OF YOUR BODY?

And then she and her boyfriend talked about the edamame hummus for like thirty minutes. They are probably the kind of people that run home to watch Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason and then update their facebook status to reflect this activity.

But what really perplexes me about Trader Joes is the people who work there.

With their cheerful disposition and their “can I help you look for something”, it’s really enough to make you QUESTION their intentions. It’s all very DISARMING. I don’t trust people who are unfazed by Soviet era lines and people who hoard a bunch of food and then toss it in a corner.

Maybe Trader Joes requires all applicants to go through a lengthy psychological examiniation to see how well they can endure stress, crowds, and people with questionable food preferences.

Sample interview questions:

1. Are you a people person? More specifically, are you a crazy people person?

2. Do you enjoy holding a sign that says “12 items or less” for four hours?

3. Is going to Times Square on New Years Eve to watch the ball drop your idea of an awesome time?

4. Have you ever felt the need to bludgeon someone with a baguette?

Of course, I am only exaggerating. Trader Joes is not that bad. (Pleae don’t ban me from you store! I have no money and I can’t afford Whore Foods!)

It’s just the people who shop there that are the problem.

Also, you can substitute “trader joes” with “facebook” and this post would still make sense.

I am getting my own office! With like…a door…and walls…and…a WINDOW!!!!!!

I just learned the news today but I won’t get too too excited until I actually blog from my new habitat. But hopefully this will actually happen and I will be able to walk around pantsless during my lunch hour.

Much of our daily life is dictated by social norms and conventions, following rules and obligations in order to maintain a modicum of dignity. Like wearing pants. Or not humping people in public. Repressing these urges is not only what distinguishes humans from animals but Freud believed that one’s personality was formed from the conflict between satisfying our natural urges and following these social norms. That is why, every now and then, human beings need an excuse to ignore the ego and superego and completely indulge our id so that we don’t do things like store dead bodies in our freezer.

In the spirit of fulfilling the pleasure principle, my roommate and I threw a little party on Valentines Day. We took two days to make our apartment look like Alice in Wonderland meets middle school dance meets crack. We dangled paper hearts from the ceiling so that we could literally hit people in the head with our love–Carla from Top Chef style.

Pa-dow.

Pa-dow,

We also created a special “sangria” that was spiked with three different alcohols and fruit that we fermented overnight. We wanted to make it strong enough that people got drunk here but waited till they got to their own apartments to throw up. I told her that we should soak the sangria with fruit overnight because I watched this prison documentary that showed how the inmates would ferment fruit to create their own alcohol. Yeah, you know you’re in for a crazy night when you get cocktail ideas from PRISON.

We did all this and went over the top to create an environment where people could feel unbridled. A “safe space” where we could act over the top without judgment or fear. Afterall, these are arduous times for everyone. People are being laid off left and right. There are two wars going on. No one knows what is up with Chris Brown and Rihanna. So if there was ever a need to indulge in our vices then this was it (of course, this does not mean that we should still hit our girlfriends).

So imagine my surprise when the day after the party, the first thing people would say to me was not “thanks for having me” or “great party” but “you were so wasted last night.”

Um, yeah, no shit, I was throwing a party not a book club meeting.

If you were expecting a staid house party with conventional house party conversations about one’s commute to work or one’s new apartment or one’s job, then clearly you don’t know me by now. When I throw a party at my house, invite people that I have known for years as well as my roommate’s friends who are all also crazy, throw in a couple of trannies in the mix, then I’m going to get down girl, go head, get down.

I suppose people found it worthy to be a topic of dinner conversation that I wore a patent leather skirt so short that for a good portion of the evening my skirt was up to my neck and I was giving everyone a view of my glorious bum. Or that I decided to ride my guy friend like he was the Cyclone and it was the closing night of Coney Island.

And I find it a bit funny and hypocritical that people who tend to comment about you are usually the ones who are guilty of far more venal offenses. So what if I displayed my ass in my own home? At least my ass doens’t get so drunk that it ended up in the emergency room. My ass doesn’t get so drunk that it turns mean and agro and has to be chastised the next day. My ass doesn’t get so drunk that I corner you at a party and talk about my ex boyfriend or exgirlfriend for hours. In my personal opinion, these kinds of drunks are the worst–the violent, the agro, and –shudder–the maudlin.

I was talking about this with my roommate and she said that people who tend to judge are the type of people who are so not comfortable with their own selves that they have a problem with other people being able to let go. And that is a sad, sad world that I do not want to partake in. A world where you only do things based on how other people think of you.

A world with pants,

These are the same people who are probably unfulfilled with their lives, their partners, or their jobs. They don’t like to take risks. They don’t like change. They feel okay going to their nine to five jobs and being imprisoned in their little cubicles. They only do things if other people tell them it’s okay. They judge others because they loathe things about themselves. So when they see people acting like it’s Carnevale in their own apartment, they feel uncomfortable. And instead of chronicling the coordinates of my skirt, they should probably take the stick out of their ass and drink more of our prison cocktail.

Look, at the end of the day, I try to abide by two tenets in life.

1. Have as much fun as possible

2. Hurt as few people as possible

I highly doubt that showing my ass and humping people’s legs are damaging. Well, actually, I may have hurt my friend. When I walk down the street, men have a tendency to say: “Don’t hurt nobody with dat.”

Anyway, my roommate’s friend said it best: “If they can’t handle what’s going on, then they should just hang out in midtown.”

You know what they say: go big or go home. And since I was already home, I had no choice but to go big.

Fortunately, there were people who could handle this jelly.

Some people ended up on the floor.

Others ended up with some physical augmentations.

We ended up without pants

Before things went south. Or in this case, north.

So I conclude with this: May we live in a world where we can be comfortable with ourselves without judgment, without fear, and most of all, without pants.

unabashedly yours,

the jinius

Okay I don’t know what kind of nyquil I was smoking but I’ve been thinking about the last rueful post about regret and the whole age of innocence thing and all I can say is:

EFF THE PAST.

Seriously.

First of all, Daniel Day Lewis’s character is–how should I put this euphemistically– a pussy. If he is the type of person that will be dictated by propriety and social conventions and doesn’t have the capacity to see beyond himself then he deserves to live a life of regret (Um, I think we’re still talking about the movie here). And If we are all to believe that we only have one chance or one perfect person or that life was so much better in the past then we might as well just kill ourselves now. You shouldn’t be anchored by your past, you should try to uplift yourself from it. And yeah, stuff happens. Crappy stuff. But you know what I always say:

What doesn’t kill you only makes you wish that it had because something worse will kill you later.

You can quote me on that.

Oh, wow, for an upbeat post there sure are alot of references about death. Here’s a photo of Russell Crow and cute kids to make up for it!

AWWWWW…MY…OVARIES…

I woke up this morning and felt like it was a whole new world. Literally, my sinuses are finally starting to clear and life just seems so much better when you can smell!

And I checked my email and got the nicest email from a friend who told me that one of my posts made her almost pee in her pants. And you know what, that really brought a smile to my face. That is all I ask for in life. I just want to have the ability to reach out across the screen and make people lose control of their bladders and relieve themselves in public. If I can do that on a daily basis then I will have lived a decent life.

In the spirit of positivity, my roommate and I are throwing a lil cocktail party this weekend and when we throw parties we get down and dirty. Literally. Last night we were making decorations from scratch and our floor was covered in construction and tissue paper.

My roommate and her friends all went to Parsons and are the type of people that are always very fashionable and stylish and can get away with wearing things like ONESIES and they date boys in bands and they make mac n cheese from SCRATCH and bring you leftovers and to top it off they are all insanely NICE.

Obviously I hate them

Oh, and they are really good with crafts!

Here is Josh making peonies from tissue paper. He used to do the installations at the Anthropologie stores so he was just crafting away last night like the leader of the craft mafia.

Look at all these peonies!

Paper hearts.

Thes are the chain people that I made. Don’t they make you want to sing We Are The World? (If our world were made of red paper people?)

We also assembled our playlist. The good thing about having a party at your place is that a) You don’t have to wear pants. Um, yeah, we all know my aversion for pants and I don’t plan on wearing any on Saturday. B) You can just stumble in your bed at the end of the night, sans pants and c) You can control the music.

So, yes, I will be dancing pantsless in my own apartment all night long.

Hope you have a happy friday the 13th, valentines, presidents day, long weekend. Have some smoochies for me.

Last night’s Top Chef episode was probably the best one so far. It was basically a food nerd’s fantasy with Lydia Bastianich, Wylie Dufresne, and Jacques Pepin.

Oh, Jacques Pepin, how I love thee. Let me count the ways!

One of my favorite shows to watch when I’m sick or blue is Jacques Pepin’s show on PBS. He just has such a jolly, gentle disposition and the metronomic sounds of his knife just lull me to a meditative state and all the woes of the world are forgotten.

Um, yeah…

So back to Top Chef.

Some highlights:

Carla mentions that she used to be a model. Um, maybe an EYES model?

Hosea mentions for the gazillionth time that Stefan is the man to beat. Yes, he is the man to beat. This is, afterall, a competition. You have to beat people. If obviousness were a category in Top Chef then Hosea would NOT be Top Obvious.

So Wylie Dufresne and his sideburns judge the quickfire. He is known for his restaurant WD-50 and being a cutting edge chef in molecular gastronomy. That is another way of saying “I just paid 50 dollars for dinner and I am still hungry so I will go back home and make cup o noodles.”

So the cheftestants have to make some sort of breakfast food with egg. Carla wins the quickfire for making green eggs and ham.  Hosea is at the bottom for trying to make sushi out of egg or something. I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy avoiding the television screen.

In the elimination challenge, the cheftestants have to create a last supper request from chef luminaries like Marcus Samuelson, Lydia Bastianich, Jacques Pepin, and the James Beard Lady. They all request simple dishes like roast chicken and potatoes or salmon and spinach or squab and peas. Geez, when they said Last Supper I guess they were literally referring to food that people ate in biblical times. My last supper would not be something they served in the Old Testament. Or is it the New Testament? I don’t know, I don’t have a subscription to the bible. My last supper would be home made tagliatelle with wild boar ragu, a side of steak, a side of mac n cheese, a side of blueberry cobbler (double points for antioxidants) and a side of frites. I mean, this is the last supper, right? It has to last me into the after life.

Fabio cuts his finger and says something about chopping off his broken finger.Or whatever.

The judges all sit on a long table reminiscent of the last supper and the lighting is reminiscent of a dream sequence on a soap opera.

Okay, please, for the love of God, can someone hire a dictation coach for Padma? As a former theater student, it gives me deep, deep pain to listen to her not speak. She talks like she has no teeth. Okay, that was mean. I guess I was just jealous that she was sitting next to my boyfriend, Jacques Pepin!

The judges like Fabio’s roast chicken.

Wylie says Fabio’s salad looks like airplane salad. Um, at least his food looks like food.

Everyone likes Carlas peas.

Hosea makes shrimp scampi because I guess some people want their last supper to be like dinner at Red Lobster.

Tom tells us that old chefs prefer their squab on the overcooked side while younger chefs like their squab on the rarer side. Uh oh this is setting up to be more controversial than east coast and west coast rap. Also, who are they cooking all this squab for?

No one likes Stefan’s overcooked salmon.

Leah goes home for runny bernaise sauce and now she can cheat on her boyfriend with someone else.

Okay, we all agree that Heath Ledger’s passing was very tragic and that he was a versatile actor who brought real depth and grit to all of his characters.But is it really necessary and appropriate to bestow all these accolades and Oscar nominations posthumously? Wouldn’t these honors be more well suited for someone when they are actually present to appreciate them? Shouldn’t this be a reminder of the transience of life and that we should not fail to recognize people’s talents and gifts while they are alive and still with us?

If this is what it takes to get some appreciation in this town then I will just continue my nyquil and wine cocktails!

Of course, I am just kidding.

And by “kidding”, I mean Heath Ledger is giving Hollywood the bird.

Friday

I rented Into the Wild. It should have been called “This is what happens to white men with too much money and not enough problems.” I  could not watch more than an hour of it. I don’t really seem to have much tolerance for movies these days. Or movies that quote Thoreau at length.

Saturday

Went to Newark in the morning. I like that I start off my weekend on a good, positive note. It’s like the mental equivalent of an arduous workout at the gym. Minus the smelly sweat socks. Well, maybe not.

On Saturday evening, my roommate and I saw our friend’s band play at Mercury Lounge. Gee, talk about skinny hipster boys. This one guy’s body was the width of my thigh. I really don’t know if I could ever date a man the width of my thigh. I feel like he would get lost in my bed somewhere, crushed by my thigh.

After the concert, my roommate decided to stay at Mercury but I was really craving tacos so I went to Snack Dragon, sat at the counter, and ate my fish taco while looking perplexingly at the serpentine line outside of No Malice. I was relishing the chipotle relish when these three douchey guys came in and kept asking “What’s good here?” My response: The tacos.

Then I left and on my walk home I decided that I was still hungry.

So I stepped into Taco San Loco.

Oh, dear readers, there is nothing more depressing than waiting for a chicken guaco loco at  San Loco at one in the morning. All I could think of was Dear Lord, why hast thou forsaken me???

Sunday

Went for a run on the East River to make up for the two tacos before bed. Then met up with Sarah and Sara T. for brunch at Tartine in the West Village. We were the only ones to bring booze to a BYO. Ummm, what is wrong with the rest of you people?

Then came home and had a mini Daniel Day Lewis marathon with Last of the Mohicans and Age of Innocence.

Oh, to be a lock on Daniel Day Lewis’s hair.

When normal people receive facebook friend requests, they accept them and continue with their day. When I receive a facebook friend request from someone I’ve dated, I shriek and run out of the room.

I have yet to click on the link that commences facebook friendship. I’m not sure if I’m prepared for the feed of updates, photos, and worse–relationships status changes. There is something about having access to a person’s daily activities that only amplifies their absence in your life.

I know, I know, it’s just Facebook. But sometimes it is the trivial stuff that brings the most profound pain and sadness.

Like papercuts.

It does not help that I watched the Age of Innocence last night. There have been alot of Age of Innocence references these days, so I wanted to revisit it on a Sunday night with a glass of red wine.

What a mistake.

HUGE MISTAKE.

I remember seeing the movie in highschool and not being all that moved but it is amazing how much more the movie resonates with you when you are no longer sixteen but TWENTY NINE.

The movie (and the book) proposes the question: Do you go with something safe and conventional or do you take a risk and go with what you think will make you happy?

The movie also carries the undercurrent of regret and nostalgia. Is it better to retain the memories of someone than to actually see them again?  Is it better to regret the mistakes of your youth than to revisit them again in the future?

So Newland Archer (played by Daniel Day Lewis in the movie) must choose between staying with his unimaginative and unprovocative wife and pursuing a new life with her cousin, the Countess Olenska. Newland ultimately decides to stay with his wife May (played by Winona Ryder) after learning that she is pregnant with his child. While Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) leaves for Europe.

About 20 years pass and Newland’s wife passes away and he is now 57 years old. He goes on a trip to France with his son when his son mentions that he has made an appointment to visit an old relative–the Countess Olenska.

Newland insists that his son meet with the Countess without him. The movie ends with a shot of Newland waiting outside the Countess’s home, wistfully looking up at her window, and then walking away.

It is one of those endings that is both brilliant and cruel. Here Newland has a second chance. He is finally free from social imperatives and has an opportunity to be with the woman he truly loves. But he doesn’t. Instead,  Newland chooses to preserve his memories of her rather than seeing her again after all these years. She exists in the abstract. A representation of his youth and happiness. It is kinda like the ending in Shakespeare in Love when Will says, “You will never age for me, nor fade, nor die.”

Gee, Facebook seems much more prosaic compared to Wharton and Shakespeare. The only poetry on Facebook is “accept” or “ignore”.

I suppose the true question is whether we choose to accept that this person still exists or we choose to ignore them and treat them as a ghost, as another relic in an archive of regrets, another burden to carry. Or perhaps, like Newland, we choose to compartamentalize these feelings and view our memories as a segment in our life that had its beginning and its end.

Or we choose to blog about it.

It is so much easier to talk to the world wide web than it is to one person.

Oy.

A group of us gather once a month for game night. We designate a host, pick up some junk food and booze, and then we get down and dirty with our inner child.

So we head to Brooklyn for game night. Can I just interject here–yes, it is really hard trying to interrupt yourself–but the F train is just the worst train ever. It should be called the WTF TRAIN.

At one point I am stuck underground for fifteen minutes and I am literally and metaphorically and metaphysically imploding. I attempt to maintain a placid expression but the longer I wait the more I can feel my inner child having a mental breakdown. This is the point when I perform an interior monologue:

Okay, so we haven’t moved in fifteen minutes. I’m sure there’s just another train ahead. Just standard procedure. Good thing I didn’t go to the bathroom before I got on. Gee, what’s wrong with me. I should know better. Alright. Aaaaany second now. I’m sure we’ll start moving soon. Just stay calm. I am cool as a cucumber. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? Haven’t you noticed that we have been STUCK for fifteen minutes? Don’t you people care that we are UNDERGROUND? Don’t you all have places to go? Why are you so CALM? And COLLECTED? HELLO???You, sir, how can you just SIT THERE as if nothing is happening? BECAUSE NOTHING IS HAPPENING. Okay, breathe. Calm down. It’s going to be okay. We’ll move soon. Everything will be fine. Just calm. I’m calm. Okay, relax, just breathe. Inhale. Exhaaaaale. OH MY GOD I CAN’T BREATHE. I’M SUFFOCATING. THERE ISN’T ENOUGH OXYGEN. I’M GOING TO DIE. I’M DYING. I AM DYING IN A SUBWAY AND I’VE NEVER BEEN TO ITALY. OH MY GOD WHY AREN’T WE MOVING?!?! HELP ME.! OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO KILL MYSELF!!!!!

And then the train moves.

So on our first game night, we played trivial pursuit and ate pizza. On our second night, we played Celebrity and ate pizza. On our third night, we played Cranium WOW and ordered Peruvian chicken from Coco Roco. That’s Spanish for… Coco Roco.

In the first challenge, you have to draw something while closing your eyes and your partner has to guess what it is.

Channeling his inner Helen Keller.

Meredith rolls

Please note the fine doodle on the left

And then we stop playing because we are confounded by the byzantine rules.

Confounded.

Rachel: Why didn’t you read the rest of the rules?
Dana: I was too busy emailing tips to D-listed
Meredith: I hope no one notices the statue of the Virgin Mary in the background.

So then we clear the board game for the real event of the evening.

CHICKEN.

While eating, we embark on a very appropriate dinner conversation about farts.

Dana downloads a fart application on her i-phone and we spend the next thirty minutes listening to the different configurations of gas.

There’s the Short but Sweet.

The U-turn

The Long Escape

And then we contemplate the situations in which it is appropriate and inappropriate to fart.

We conclude: “In clubs, you can fart with impunity.”

You always learn something new at game night.