Lucky Caller #1

Creative Commons photo credit to Gabriel Passarelli

Laurie made the mistake of calling me before 10 AM today, and I launched into a litany of things that were pissing me off, namely:

1. Fred discovered how to break into his food container.
2. I had to OH THE HORROR do an assignment outside of class.
3. I was awake.

So, um, sorry Laurie! Please do not be afraid to ever call me again.

It wasn’t so bad when I was working — I quickly found that it was not workplace-appropriate to hate the entire world and ESPECIALLY You Who Is Calling Me Prior To 11. Somehow, I shudder to think of it now, I even managed to give bi-weekly presentations on strategic goals and shit to SVPs at 8:30 in the morning. IN THE MORNING. AM. Ante Meridiem (I just looked that up for emphasis).

But now that I’m back in school, I’ve returned to my nocturnal ways. I’m lucky The Boy is also a sleeper, but even he can incur my morning wrath sometimes. One morning last semester, that poor man made the mistake of asking me to shower before him, the heathen, and I was so overwhelmed with irrational anger that I didn’t speak to him the entire way to school. It took me 3/4 of Copyright class until I realized why I was mad and got really, really embarrassed.

Believe it or not, I’m a generational improvement over my father. He’s a retired surgeon, so he was on call a lot. And I’ve heard from many an ER nurse that for any pre-9 AM call, they would hope against hope that my mother would answer, so that she could gently coax him out of sleep before they had to present him with the news that a trip out of bed and into the hospital was in order.

[Please note that this chart is made out of love, and not actually representative of real home life.]

Even to this day, I know any early morning call home is risky. Will I get pleased-to-hear-from-his-eldest Dad or what-sane-person-is-up-this-early Dad?

I wish I knew why, aside from parentage, I had so much difficulty in the morning, and I wish I didn’t. Life would start so much earlier. And less grumpier. And THAT would be better for everyone.

Especially for lucky caller #1.

I Would Like To Thank

(in no particular order):

– My accountant Danny, for saving my student ass from destitution and credit card debt for three years running (e-mail me if you are in LA area and in need of accountant — he rocks!).

– Chowhound for its restaurant recommendations, which 1) saved me by finding a reasonably priced yet chic brunch location that I was not embarrassed to take The Boy’s sister to when I met her for the very first time a couple weekends ago and 2) introduced me to The Very Best Dumplings Ever. Although, small quibble, dumpling-makers of the world: Um, could you invent some that don’t leave me with dragon’s breath burps for 24 hours following consumption? Thanks.

– The Boy, for generally rocking my world every day and also giving me, on a not infrequent basis, the best feeling ever: contentment.

– My friend Tiffany, who took me as her guest to the Netflix bleachers at the IFC Indpendent Spirit Awards, where I primarily took pics of the backs of celebrities’ heads, but got to be in close proximity of:

The one, the only, NPH:

Ryan Gosling. Oh, HELLO. He’s the HOT one in sunglasses too far away to touch. Note the girl to the left in front of me with her DVD copy of The Notebook ready to sign. She was like 17, with braces, and turned into a googly-eyed mess after he signed it and took a picture with her.

Here is another picture of Ryan, just, you know, cuz.

Zach Braff, whose Scrubs facial expressions are now an unconscious tic:

Also, EWWW, this is the top of Dennis Hopper’s head and IS HE DATING (again EWW) Top Design judge Margeret Russell?? She is so mean (although I did have to agree with her that Ryan’s ass should be grass at this point — I’m sorry; he built his client a JAIL CELL covered in psychedelic circles for the last challenge). But I am not crazy, right, that is her in that white dress, right??

So. Wrong.

Luckily, this abomination in couplehood was countered by my two favorite Hollywood couples ever, Maggie & Peter and Heath & Michelle. Sadly, they moved too quickly for my lens.

And to tell you the truth, I felt a little ridiculous assuming the role of a papparazzo by the end of the day: I was exhausted, sunburned, and ready to nip into the Grey Goose sample we received in our gift bags.

Thank goodness for that.

My Milkshake Brings All the Girls to the Yard

Dagny tagged me to name six weird things about myself or habits I’ve got. Which is awesome because so far I’ve revealed absolutely nothing compromising about myself on this blog and need to spice that shiite up.

1. I realized at my party, a serious estrogen-fest, that I have very few male friends. In fact, I have never had any male friends who were not:
– Someone I wanted to get wit’ or who wanted to get wit’ me (I’m sorry, but I am in the middle of watching The White Rapper Show, hallelujah holla back, dog)
– Friends of a boyfriend, therefore off-limits
– Boyfriends of female friends, ditto
– Gay
– My brother

Not to go all Harry on you, and I know there are a lot of girls who manage male confidants just fine thank you, but for me, the sex part always does get in the way. I’m all yours, Freud.

2. On a daily basis, I clean the toilet paper holder of TP dust. It’s a compulsion.

3. I can’t stop watching What About Brian. I have no idea why. IT IS HORRIBLE. I can predict the outcome of 90% of the plot developments, and about 35% of the content of any dialogue. But still, I watch.

4. I have three sets of days of the week underpants, which I store in chronological order in my panty drawer. So there.

5. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, and my sitemeter stats are sure to get interesting again. I’ve got webbed toes. And NO, you idiot from Whitehouse Station, NJ, who wrote me from your corporate! e-mail! account!, I WILL NOT SEND YOU PICTURES.

6. I think I have mentioned my undying love for Coca-Cola before as well, but it bears repeating. I drink Coke most mornings for breakfast, usually paired with a healthy dose of Hershey’s kisses, or, at the moment, Vanilla Wafers. I have been known, after going most of the day without a Coke, to take that first heavenly sip and say aloud, “Ahhhhhh. Sweet, sweet Coca-Cola.” Or, during the months following my first viewing of Old School, “Once it hits your lips, it’s so good!” I know it’s wrong, it rots my teeth, you can clean your tub with it, and apparently its executives are killers. But it is my lifeblood, and my like it’s better than yours, damn right it’s better than yours, I could teach you, but I’d have to charge.

Fashion Tragedy

Two items have been haunting my to-do list for almost a year:
1. Resole all work shoes (about 12 pairs of heels, flats, slingbacks, peep-toed pumps, etc.).
2. Take crap to Goodwill.

In a fit of ambition, last week I put both the Goodwill bags and the bag of shoes to be repaired in my trunk.

Finally, Saturday, I made a pit stop at Goodwill, which I like supporting, and, yay tax write-off!, and. Ugh.

I don’t know how (I was not the only person involved in the fateful drop-off), but somehow EVERY SINGLE PAIR of fancy-ish shoes I own is now being sold, at extremely reasonable prices, to Goodwill patrons across Southern California.

Including — and this is the part I am most sad about — a pair of super cute wedges from 1999 which have finally, JUST NOW become chic again.

Is it wrong that I cried a little when I realized what had happened? I’m trying to comfort myself that at least someone will profit from my 8 years of waiting for wedges to have a comeback. Just as long as they don’t pair them with a REAL fashion tragedy that should never, EVER for the love of Coco Chanel, have been revived, the baby doll dress.

#$%^&*@! stupid Sienna Miller.

Stupid me.

Ramekin Rebel

There are few dishes I’ve mastered.

– Pizza (Trader Joe’s pre-made crust, I heart you)
– Coq au vin
– Cheese straws and parmesean-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon

Other than than, I pretty much fly blind at every meal.

Tonight, I found Epicurious’ Scallops with Mushrooms in White Wine Sauce, which was awesome because it took care of some leftover stale french bread, parsley, sauvignon blanc (with some left to drink of course!) and parmesean from the party.

I started into this recipe like I do most (my fatal flaw as a cook) — without reading it the whole way through. And also without the right equipment (OK, another fatal flaw). Who has eight 2-oz. ramekins, I ask you, WHO?? I’m impressed I own ANY ramekins. I didn’t even know ramekins came in any size aside from the usual 6-oz. size. Again, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE WHO HAVE THESE 2-OZ. RAMEKINS?

Hm. My incensement over these 2-oz. ramekin people — with what I imagine is like 8 kabillion cubic meters of storage space in their kitchens, and also probably some counterspace that isn’t occupied by either a) cat hair or b) drying dishes since those people probably also have a working dishwasher — has made me lose my train of thought.

Which is: yes, I have some fatal flaws, but DUDE, you fancypants ramekin Epicurians could help out in the instructional department. I have A LOT of questions.

For instance, “Cook mushrooms in 2 tablespoons butter.” Does this mean melt the butter first? Does it matter? “Then pour sauce back into pan and simmer, whisking, 1 minute.” Does this mean, pour sauce back into pan and wait until it simmers, then whisk for 1 minute? Or does this mean, pour sauce back into pan and somehow miraculously it should be simmering right away, and if it doesn’t because your stove sucks or maybe you accidentally burned a wooden spoon and had to turn the burner off to stop the acrid smell of scallop-juice infused wood from wafting through your apartment, what do you do then?

Anyway. Sometimes I love Epicurious. Sometimes I want to throw some kind of proletarian revolt.

For now, I’ll just have to be satisfied with a minor revolution: I cooked those scallops in 6-oz. ramekins, and it worked just fine, foodie fascists! Take that!

No Napkins for You!

Saturday night I threw myself a 30th birthday a month late, the first non-dinner party and first party with more than 10 people I’ve ever thrown. Scary!

My Evite title was, “Hi! I’m 30!” This was also the first Evite I have ever sent out, and oh, Technology you are my boyfriend again! It was so fun to see my RSVP list evolve, and more importantly, to see how much the interim period between first view and reply varied. I do not judge the non-immediate-repliers, obviously, given my own shady Evite past. Incidentally, the “guy in another section whose birthday party I just attended” from that old post is actually The Boy! Weird! He has forgiven me my stalking.

Anyway! So, I threw a party. And I made:

– Thanksgiving favorites: cheese straws and goat cheese-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon
– Artichoke olive dip {freaking HEAVENLY) and spinach dip (definitely DO double the spinach), stolen from Gloria
– Well Fed’s carmelized onion dip
–Chocolate & Zucchini’s tomato and feta dip, which wasn’t a super crowd favorite but I loved it and leftovers are great as pasta sauce
– Chocolate & Zucchini’s White Bean and Nut Butter dip, although I couldn’t find sesame butter so I replaced it w/ extra peanut butter, still YUMMY
– Chive and pine nut dip
– White sangria, only plus 1/4 cup 99 apples for 99% more fun!

What I did NOT supply?

NAPKINS. I realized at about 6:30 this morning that my poor guests had been left with nothing to wipe their cheese-straw-y hands on. Goodness only knows how they made do. I hope no one is cursing me today for greasy jeans.

By some miracle, I think that was my only major faux-pas. And I had too much fun, although at one point I was so overwhelmed at having so many people I knew in one room that I fought the urge to take a nap. Or move to Spain.

But I got lots of booty!

Including those shiny purple flats from Neeta and her man, which I actually switched into as soon as I opened them. They matched my eye shadow, believe it or not.

And lots of booze:

Including some homemade bourbon from Gwen, AWESOME!

And Gloria made me these great little magnets, inspired by Not Martha.

I had wanted to do them for Christmas presents this year, but couldn’t find the large magnets when Laurie and I went to Michael’s and I almost accidentally bought some Holiday Fruit coordinates. Now I see they are super cute in mini form!

So, in sum:
Hi! I’m 30! You bring me booze, you bring me presents. I give you no napkins.
xoxo
Jen

And?

It seems like everyone I know is an And. Laurie is a kick-ass writer and a blogger And, apparently, an Advanced Basic Knitter. Gloria is a student, a girl about town, And a chef.

When I was younger, I didn’t need to be an And. I was just A Nerd. Really, I had no And options. The only thing aside from a 4.47 I had going for me was a massive collection of Esprit t-shirts and I was kind of nice.

It’s only once I started working I needed more, but then I think I focused entirely on being the And of either Single Girl or Girlfriend, depending on the season.

1L year, I returned to my And-less state by necessity.

And now, a 3L, sometimes I don’t even feel like I’ve got the pre-And descriptor of student. Sure, I’ll attend some classes and apparently write three 30-page papers in the next 12 weeks, but half the time I feel like I’m on vacation.

This leaves me ill-at-ease. And also unable to write anything for this-here blog sometimes. There are a lot of things I enjoy peripherally — running a few times a week, tennis once a week, cooking, reading, beginning embroidery, too much TV watching — but all my Ands are still in their nascent stages. I don’t feel qualified, at the moment, to comment on much of anything.

On the other hand, despite my discomfort with it, vacation rocks! I love that I’m watching too many movies, that I’m exercising muscles I haven’t worked in years, and that classes seem like pesky impediments to my real life.

And really, I should be grateful. I just signed up for bar review courses, which will probably be hell. And everyone knows a first-year associates life isn’t even close to 9-to-5.

All the same, most days, I’ll go to write something here, maybe about my sad attempt at wok-ing, and I’ll stop because: And?

Booger-Eaters Have No Right To Philosophize at My Table

Seriously. Today I watched a 1L pick his nose and eat it THREE TIMES. IN THE LAW LIBRARY. Which is, you know, IN PUBLIC.

I was in awe, truly. I mean, when I do something inappropriate, say, readjust the undies to avoid a little VPL, I do it SURREPTITIOUSLY. With an eye to who might be able to see.

I was in awe. Also, I wanted to take a shower.

Then, his cronies joined him at my library table, and suddenly started to loudly debate the merits of naziism and fascism!

At first, I tried to ignore them. When you’re in law school, you’re almost immune to the shock of people who, for example, think poor people suck.

But it continued. I could hear them even over The Shins’ new “Wincing the Night Away.” My adoption of the iPod, many incredulous looks and not subtle shakes of the head couldn’t stop them.

And that’s when I decided. I could take no more.

“Um, if you can’t SHUT UP ENTIRELY, then you could AT LEAST WHISPER.”

In retrospect, I was too kind.