Perforation Problems

Here's how wine works for me: 1 glass of wine: Maybe some excessive smiling, but for the most part I'm good. 2 glasses of wine: Inarguably tipsy, but still coherent and functional. 3 glasses of wine: Happy drunk. 3.5 glasses of wine: Happy but verging on nauseous drunk. 4 glasses of wine: Nauseous drunk. 5 glasses of wine: Went too far. I went just a little bit too far last night. We were testing out Chuck and Caroline's new gaming table, with its fancy blue felt and built-in drink holders. Caroline had picked up Eli's BBQ for dinner, and I had two hot dogs that were covered in bbq sauce, "pork crispers," and coleslaw—coleslaw that wasn't supposed to be on the hot dogs but that I, surprisingly, was actually fine with. (I maybe even enjoyed it. What a world!) Chuck and Caroline's apartment has evolved into the quintessential hipster city loft—exposed brick, hanging Edison bulbs, turntable & records, trendy art prints, framed picture of mo...

I think in an alternate life I could have maybe been a foodie. Take away my childhood pickiness—okay, the pickiness that lasted until I was like 30—and I think I would have gravitated towards cooking and trying new things. I'm not trying to be a commercial for Blue Apron, but it seriously has changed my life. It's exposed me to not just the meal that's the final product, but the ingredients—and made them familiar. Familiarity leads to a willingness to try things.  It's forced me to try foods and spices I normally wouldn't. When you pay that much money, you can't let it go to waste.  It's made us healthier. We're actually eating vegetables regularly.  Cooking the Blue Apron meals makes me more inclined to cook other meals, too. I actually added vegetables to my morning scrambled eggs. Wtf? Who am I?  So I have a newfound interest in cooking. It really shouldn't be surprising since I love food so much, but the pickiness has always stood in the ...

Michael picks up a catalogue from the stack of mail on the kitchen counter and starts laughing. He turns to show it to me. "I know," I grumble, stepping back to avoid the popping oil from the chicken I'm sauteeing maybe a little too overzealously. It's the fourth or fifth piece of mail we've gotten from Chevy since I bought my car in October. That would be fine, except they're all addressed to Michael, DESPITE the fact that it's MY car, MY name is the first on the lease, and I'M the one paying for it with MY money. Micheal finds it hilarious because he knows it gets my feminist goat (where did that expression come from??) Such a small thing to get irritated about, but seriously. It's like the time I posted a picture from one of our vacations, and a (male) friend commented, "Damn. Making me wish I had married Michael." Excuse me. We go on vacations because of my salary. Not that Michael couldn't manage to go on vacations on his...

Write 7 minutes about yourself from your pet’s perspective (from 10 Writing Warm-Up Exercises ) Morning sun, comfy couch. Stretching, rolling on my back.  Footsteps down the hall—no need to get up yet. Wait for breakfast.  Water running, in that room I avoid. Bad room, don't trust it. If you get caught in there, then wet water in your fur, trapped behind glass, can't get out, water dripping, suds all over, no good, no good. Avoid.  But no worries right now. Can't make me go in there. Safe out here. Almost breakfast time.  She comes out, my person. Makes noises I ignore, but I see her walking towards my dish, so I stretch one more time, ease off the couch. Wag my tail to encourage her to keep this up. Positive reinforcement.  She's singing the morning song, the breakfast song. I sit and throw up my paw because she always makes me do that. Don't know why, but it gets me food, so I'll do it.  Food in my bowl! But first she squishes m...

When I was a baby, my mom used to hand me slices of Kraft American cheese to snack on in my high chair. Maybe that was the start of my love affair with cheese, a foundational piece (along with chicken nuggets) of my diet well through my twenties. Okay, let's not lie. Cheese is still a foundational piece of my diet, despite my newly-found acceptance of vegetables. I love cheese. Cheese fries, cheese dogs, Cheez-its, quesadillas, queso, nachos, cheese pizza, cheddar goldfish crackers, grilled cheese, mac n' cheese. Now that I'm slightly fancier, maybe I've upgraded a bit to cheese plates, camembert & apple sandwiches, four cheese ravioli, sausage and ricotta flatbread, etc, etc, but really if it's got cheese on it, I'll probably like it. There's no denying that cheese makes just about anything better. That doesn't mean all cheeses are equal—there can be bad cheese. Once my brother and I stopped at a gas station on the way to the lake because we ree...

I woke up motivated to be better. I do this every once in awhile—it usually results in me doing some push ups and deciding I'll just refrain from eating. The push ups peter out eventually and the starvation lasts about 4 hours, but the motivation is there, even if it's brief. Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, having spent the evening counting polybags and card sleeves and chipboard for Olive & Clyde's taxes, I decided I'd write a blog post today. I can't meet with Sarah because I have to be in Cincy for Losant's STEM girls workshop this weekend, but I'm determined to manage my own writing. The sensation the last couple months of needing to move forward keeps growing—I'm restless. One of the things I need to focus on is idea generation. I wrote a short story this week—just something silly, but I had an idea, I fleshed it out into a plot outline, and then I just wrote it. I need more practice at that so it becomes easier. None of this comi...

Calvin Fletcher's Coffee Company has a sort of run down, church basement, hipster DIY appeal—black sharpie letters on cardboard signs tell you where to put your dirty dishes, local art covers the walls (this week it's overly green landscapes—trees and lily pads and fields done in a bright, art-school-student style), bookshelves with gold stenciled triangles break the room into sitting nooks, advertisements for yoga and poetry readings and the League of Latte competition cover the sides of the counter, a magic marker sign details the drink of the moment (some white chocolate raspberry concoction with cinnamon-infused milk that sounds heavenly). The baristas, no matter who's working, immediately convey kindness and friendliness, and look exactly like you'd expect baristas in Indy's Fountain Square area to look: skinny jeans, flannel, cardigans, green hair, clothes either really too tight or really too loose for convention. It's easy to romanticize them as the kind...