Doing things!

I’m sorry. I know it’s been a really really long time since I’ve actively updated this business (and I don’t really count my IKEA Bus posts, even though that’s probably why most people haven’t bothered to unsubscribe yet). For a while, I was just taking a breather from writing. I think I ran out of ideas, and out of energy to make new ones. Unpaid blogging, yo, it’s exhausting. For a long time, I didn’t want to write (or do anything) at all. But after I watched all the good shows on Netflix (I’m 3 seasons down on Orange is the New Black), I managed to pull it together for a few scattered creative endeavors.

So today, on what accidentally happens to be the 6th anniversary of this blog (because I’m a dork and I put “blogiversary” on my calendar), I thought it was time to kind of update what what I’ve been up to these days. Sort of a kindergarten style show-and-tell of my last 3 years.

GETTIN PAID.
I originally moved myself over to MaineToday.com (the final death rattle for Broke207) thinking that I could blog for them for money. But I was hitting the peak of my emotional tuckered-ness at that point, and I just could never meet the quota that they wanted me to write. I was so ashamed about falling short that I never billed them for what I did write. Which, is too bad, because I wrote some pretty good stuff for them.

But, this January (amidst the Phoenix vs. Dig meltdown situation), I got surprise recruited to write for the Phoenix (after all their regular staff abandoned ship). I’ve got a monthly column called “The Register” where I sort of write about what I used to write about here. Say what you will about the Phoenix and whether or not you think they’re a-holes, but they let me write what I want and they send me money in the mail every month. It’s nice. And, even though I’ve been writing publicly for years, my dad seems to think that this means I’ve finally “made it.”

MAKING OUT.
I might have also found myself a pretty spectacular boyfriend during my 3 year absence. There are a lot of things about him that are great that I could list, but I don’t want you trying to steal him, so I’ll keep it to myself. What I will say is that we see a pantload of movies together. And after 3 years of hitting the Nickeoldeon at least once a week, we decided that we should write about it (even if nobody else ever reads it). On Movie Makeouts we both write separate reviews of the same movies (he’s smarter and more analytical, and I swear more and make more snarky comments about people’s hair). We also have a plan to watch every single movie ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (all 524 of them), an do a series of one-line reviews for movies so bad that they don’t deserve more. It’s a super new work-in-progress, but where I’ll be focusing most of my writing chi for now. So, if you miss me, you can find me there.

SOME OTHER JUNK.
Then there was all this other wonderful/awful stuff:

I wrote, directed, and produced my first play ever for Portfringe this year. It’s about realizing that you hate someone you used to love (plus there’s a puppet).

I told some embarrassing stories at The Corner (which is an incredible Moth-esque monthly story night in Lewiston that you should go to)- One was about kissing a boy named Virgil, and one was about getting divorced and getting fat.

I had a hysterectomy (exactly as unfortunate as you think), got a fancy new job but had to leave one that I really loved, and found a new apartment that I can afford all by myself. I met this guy. I got a Nancy Drew tattoo. It’s been a weird 3 years, and I’m still trying to figure out why I’m 38 and not impressed with myself yet.18 year old Allie figured she’d be famous by now (or at least have her driver’s license). I’ll keep trying.

i spy- schweddy balls (a tale of woe).

i’m not really an ice cream person. i don’t hate it, it’s usually  just not at the top of my list when it comes to consuming mass quantities of crap food. i would much rather hit the cheez-its, or the cheez doodles, or anything else so processed and atomically  orange that it is forced for legal reasons to spell the word cheese with a Z. either that, or a stick of butter. (yes, a WHOLE STICK). i essentially only eat ice cream on birthdays or scorching summer days where i accidentally end up within a five mile radius of a DQ.

but then a few weeks ago, ben & jerry’s announced a brand new limited edition flavor called schweddy balls. i generally find ben & jerry’s to be a bit too heavy, and to have too much crap in it (too sweet is the kiss of death in my book). but something about rum flavored ice cream with malt balls and rum balls sounded like the most amazing thing i had ever heard of, and i became COMPLETELY OBSESSED with finding and ingesting it post haste.

except that they weren’t fucking around when they said limited edition. apparently only dispatched to 30% of their stores, and not available on the “flavor locator“, it became the motherfucking holy grail of ice cream. i checked every supermarket and convenience store in town. NOTHING. i put out an APB on twitter. lots of complaining about how nobody else can find it either, and an unhelpful rumor about it being spotted in bangor. essentially, NOTHING.

weeks passed, and with my new obsession came an unquenchable thirst for ice cream. every time i would to into a store and be disappointed, i would sooth my disappointment with a pint of something else:

weekend pickthrough- lazy beyond comprehension edition.

so today the boyfriend and i celebrated the opening weekend of the dunstan school buffet with a hearty breakfast of nachos and home made donuts (and a promise to our intestines never to do it again). i brought my sunday paper along to pass the time in between plates, and came across something quite curious midway through my CVS flier- a product so ludicrous, i was stopped in my tracks.

EASY FEET!?

with the catchy tag line: “no more bending to clean your feet!”, easy feet easily qualifies as the laziest product that i have ever seen.

every year, americans invent more and more useless contraptions that allow us to do less and less. at first it seemed harmless. so what if we wanted to “set it and forget it” every now and again… it was cool. at least we were still bending down to clean our own feet. right?

are we really so fat/lazy/immobile that we can’t even bend at the waist anymore?

it reminds me all too much of the chair/toilet/feeding stations from the idiocracy world (which is a MUST SEE if you haven’t seen it).  and i worry that instead of retraining ourselves to exercise and eat normal sized portions (we weren’t always one of the fattest nations in the world), we’re just going to keep inventing devices that make it possible for us to stay obese.

i don’t know. i’m speechless. am i overreacting? is easy feet a clever invention or the eventual downfall of our civilization?

well, if easy feet isn’t our downfall, celine dion might be.

this looks totally unappetizing, yet i still really want to eat it.

the most shocking news story to hit this state in years: SOMETIMES PEOPLE LIE ON THE INTERNET.

i signed up for this IMMEDIATELY after reading this article.

an eerie amount of l. ron hubbard descends upon the librarything early reviewers list.

if you didn’t realize that my burlesque name (candy sprinkles) was an homage to this chick, you’ve been missing out.

so, you’re boning sephen dorff. (yeah, i’m obsessed with the hairpin alright)

local girl elisa doucette gets takes down the candie’s foundation. (oh, and if you were following her on twitter– you could have seen the resulting verbal boxing match where she took down bristol palin).

dust off your paypal account…WARY MEYERS HAS THERE OWN SHOP!

say NO to the dress: why paying the rent should be a bigger priority than feeling like a princess.

anybody who follows me on twitter knows that i’ve been watching A LOT Of say yes to the dress (there are 78 episodes on netflix instant!). the thing is, it’s a TERRIBLE show. like the worst possible people that you can imagine whining, and crying, and hissy fitting all over the store until some poor frazzled family member agrees to spend $11,000 on a skin tight cacophony of beads, lace, tulle, crystals and bad taste (don’t even get me started on the whore-bride trend…). this dress will invariably made by a woman named pnina tornai. this woman must be stopped. but again, that’s a conversation for another day…

i can’t seem to stop myself from watching the show, but with each subsequent viewing, i become more and more furious.

as you will learn shortly, there are actually only 2 kinds of brides that shop at kleinfeld. they are both equally revolting. 

weekend pickthrough- fatty resurrection edition.

what, i didn’t even manage to pull out the weekend pickthrough during the actual weekend? even after i promised that i would try harder? yeah, on the surface, it looks right now like i suck pretty hard (and it’s true, i probably do). BUT, what i did do this weekend instead of writing the pickthrough was to resurrect an old corpse i had lying around the house (just in time for halloween)- my old diet blog being bess marvin.  since i am again attempting to take off the 30 divorce (and subsequent lazy-ass cheese whore) pounds, it seemed like a good idea to resuscitate ole bess, as it is a proven fact that people who write down what they eat lose more weight. now, i won’t be boring you with the details of my daily meals (unless i happen to eat something really extraordinary), but imagine how many pounds i can lose talking about blowing the crotch out of my spanx!

i can’t promise you that i will lose any weight, but i can promise you this:

1. grisly and detailed recountings of my frequent dietary failures.

2. i will continue to catalog every time that nancy drew took a cheap shot at bess marvin’s weight (that bitch!).

3. i will kick this shit off with a giveaway. ok, it’s a little bit lame- but it is free candy, a big boxy t-shirt, and a diet journal to write about how ashamed you are for eating all your candy in one sitting.  but if you want the goods, you do have to go over to being bess marvin and leave me a comment about the food that throws you off the diet wagon with both hands. or, if you’re some smug bitch who has a healthy relationship with food, you can write about that too.

if you made it this far and have actually noticed that i didn’t technically have anything to pick through this week, i apologize. maybe you could just toddle over to youtube and watch this a few times. it should pretty much make you forget your irritation, and just about anything else you have on your mind. 35 million people can’t be wrong.

weekend pickthrough- greetings from moose mountain edition.

vacation is awesome! well, except for the part where i’m horribly bloated from starchy diner food and my neck hurts because my motor lodge pillows are too firm. but hey, i’m far away in a beautiful place (moosehead!) with nothing to do but sleep, snack, read trashy novels, horribly fail at NYT crosswords, and spend 5 hours straight catching up on this season of project runway. bliss. anyway, my wireless connection is spotty at best, and i’ll possibly be doing some vacationy stuff like riding on boats, hiking up mountains, and getting terrible sunburns, so i’ll be in and out this week. however, i will not forget you! i have every intention of posting on my regular schedule, although i’m sure the content will be tainted with my carb drunkenness, regular drunkenness, sun stroke, sea sickness, and the kind of apathy for work that can only come with 5 hours in bed with a danielle steel novel. just sayin, i warned you.

p.s. yes, there is a store here where you can get blowup sex dolls AND regional jams & jellies. incongruity FTW!

overheard in the office was one of the very few things that kept me from stabbing everyone at my last horrible office job. now, we can eavesdrop on our whole city. nice work overheard in portland!

another charming entry into the maine blog scene! if this chick can make buying toilet paper interesting, we’re bound to be in for pretty decent ride. although i could teach her a few things about getting her TP double extra cheap (work those coupons!).

just in case you didn’t hear me bragging about it constantly this week… the portland phoenix knows who i am! i didn’t make the best blogs list, but they are aware of my existence. next stop, world domination.

the single most seizure inducing web design (if you can call it that) that ever existed. although frankly, i think that the waving santa gif really brings it all together. maybe i need one? (via @mdesjardins)

this makes me so angry!

it starts in filenes basement, and then it spreads to your soul.

why can’t my crazy gramma have a fuck buddy?

buffy AND battlestar alums? the syfy channel knows what i like.

getting wasted.

for me, busy pretty much always equals lazy. i tend only to the most pressing items on my checklist, and everything else just falls away into the land of half-assed-ness (a woefully untidy land filled with frozen pizzas and unpaid bills). as most of you already know, this last week was fucking nutsuo for me. well, one of the big things that i’ve been copping out on is grocery shopping. i haven’t even been glancing at the deals, and i vaguely remember something called a “grocery list”, but i couldn’t tell you what it is or why people use them (maybe i should google it?). anyway, whenever i go to the grocery store sans planning, things fall apart in a huge way. i somehow managed to get all the way to the checkout line before i realized that i had not thrown any dinner food in the cart.  i had however grabbed a weirdly disproportionate amount of cheese.

every week, i clean out my fridge when i put my new food in, and i’ve noticed over the last few weeks of freestyle grocery shopping, that i’ve been throwing a lot away. basically, not planning ahead, not sticking to my budget, and not being more aggressive about my couponing= refrigerator disaster! DISASTERRRRRRR! we’re talking expired food in sealed containers- never to be touched by human hands (wasteful!), or 1/8 consumed and then swiftly forgotten, only to grow a topography of mold so vast that would impress the national institute of health (wasteful AND unsanitary!). let’s just say that in this household, i make a lot of jokes about how i’m growing a new boyfriend in old containers of sour cream.

but it made me think. there are so many things that i repeatedly buy, and repeatedly waste. the prices may be low, or they may be wrapped up in good intentions for my health, but i’ve decided that in the interest of the health of my bank account, i’m placing the following 8 items on the no-buy list:

1. baby carrots: whenever i’m trying to lose weight, i always buy a bag of baby carrots. they seem convenient, healthy, easy to prepare, and otherwise perfect in every way… except for one thing. I AM NEVER IN THE MOOD TO EAT BABY CARROTS. NEVER!!! thus, they are sentenced to get slimy in their protective sack while they languish in my crisper drawer. there’s probably a purgatory somewhere full of baby carrots that i’ve inadvertently killed.

2. greek yogurt: firstly, shit is expensive. at roughly $4.99 for the big tub, i have somehow yet to learn my lesson that even though i enjoy it sometimes, i don’t enjoy it enough to be harboring 17.6 ounces in my fridge every week. why am i plagued with such horrible food denial? it’s been 32 years of waking up and not wanting to eat fresh fruit and greek yogurt for breakfast (which is what i assume skinny people eat- i’m more of the eggs, cheese, and heavily buttered toast school). why would this week be any different?

3. anything “southwest” style: i really need to put together a little southwest style donation box for the food pantry. my cupboards are choked with soup and rice mixes and god knows what else… cheap isn’t really that cheap when i hate the product, and  it’s taking up valuable cabinet real estate.

4. any vegetable that i don’t have definite plans for: hell hath no fury like impulse produce. unless it belongs to a specific meal, i need to learn to back the shit away from the zucchini just because it “looks good”. instead, i need to remember that it will look much less good when it’s forgotten and turning into brown goo in the back of my fridge (behind the food that i actually do eat, mostly cheese).

5. hummus: i buy this to go with the baby carrots. clearly, it does not make them any more enticing to me, it just gives me another product to throw away.

6. fruit out of season: sometimes i’ll really be craving grapefruit or pomegranate at the wrong time of year, but i’ll buy it anyway even though it’s super expensive, a little shriveled, and has probably spent at least a week on a boat being shipped in from some tropical island. what i’m really craving is FRESH fruit, but my tiny dinosaur brain doesn’t understand that. those pathetically dried up examples of fruithood are never going to look/be appetizing enough to make it into my mouth. my house is merely a pit stop on the road to wasted fruit hell.

7. lip gloss: i have a drawer full of lip gloss (no joke, it’s like a fucking arlington national cemetery for discarded lipcolor in there), yet i still wear the same one every single day. seriously, when did i get so stupid?

8. underpants: in one of the true hallmarks of extreme laziness (if there was an olympics of laziness, i think i could win. although, i bet everyone would be too lazy to show up to the competition.), i have occasionally (i mean often) been known buy new underwear rather than do laundry. this isn’t exactly a grocery item (although i have on an emergency basis bought some extremely ill fitting hanes her ways at the grocery store), but it is ridiculous, and i should really still knock it off.

writing this list has filled me with great shame. please tell me i’m not alone! maybe it would help if i slapped brightly colored price tags on all of my food, so that when i’m reaching for something more desirable (like butter or cheese- 2 things that never get wasted in my house), i know how much money i’m wasting in neglected produce? ooh, or better yet, i can draw sad faces on all my healthy food, and give them little speech bubbles that say things that make me feel guilty for not eating them…

dialing out.

see that telephone over there? that’s the telephone i’m going to use to phone in this post. yeah, it’s summertime, and i’ve had all varieties of excuses for not posting as often as i once did back in the golden age of me having a lot of free time… anyway, the big burlesque amateur night (so you gained 30 lbs. eh- maybe you should strip down to your underpants ON STAGE IN FRONT OF MANY PEOPLE) is tonight, and i’ve been doing nothing for the last three days but freak out, practice my routine, freak out, and sew maribou onto home made underpants (oh, and freak out). that said, i just wanted to let you all know that i haven’t forgotten you,  and that i have two really great posts germinating in my brain for when this personal hell is finally over.

in the meantime, here are a few pleasant diversions to get you through:

1. i wrote this article about eating healthy on a budget for part time vagabond.

that’ll kill some time! not enough?

2. the magnificent chrystie corns has caught the coupon bug, and  is already doing it better than anyone else. her new website looks SO GOOD (jealous!).

still bored?

3. ok, maybe i’ve been taking little breaks from burlesquing and melt-downing to read my new favorite web comic from start to finish. that’s 1729 pages people. i’ve been doing this for WEEKS, and i’m still only on #1233. (thanks for the new addiction @rurugby!)

for those of you interested in the gory details of tonights titty shakin massacre (but who can’t make it to the actual show, or don’t have any interest in seeing me in pasties), i’ll be writing an article about it that i hope will make it on to the pages of the maine observer.  there might even be PICTURES. heavily airbrushed pictures, but pictures none the less. time to go stuff my ass into some red satin underpants.

cheap eats- top 10 under $10

ok, i’m done with my hopeless wallowing from yesterday.  i’m still feeling hopeless, but i’m taking a break from wallowing for a while, at least publicly. the brilliant @amycasey (worth the follow for you twitter geeks out there) recently suggested that i try the “small changes” plan, and i’m starting to think that it might be a good idea. perhaps if i can just force myself to focus on succeeding at one small element of life, i can use that momentum to pick up other small things as i go- eventually resulting in me actually having accomplished some of my goals (e.g.,having 2 month’s pay in my savings account, and fitting back into my size 8 jeans).

small task #1: stop spending so much goddamn money on eating out. i love eating out, and hells no i’m not going to stop, but i have decided that it’s time for me to take a big vacation from pricey pig-fests.  for the next month, unless it is a very special occasion (sort of like a very special episode, but with more gluttony and less emotional breakdowns), i’m going to try to keep my eating out budget to $10 or less. daunting, yes. but the benefits are two-fold! i will both A) spend less money, and B) by cutting out extras like appetizers, desserts, & booze… i should cut some calories as well. at least i hope so, because these size 12s are at MAX CAPACITY, and i will get back alley liposuction before i allow myself to go up another pants size.

in honor of this historic decision, i have decided to list my top ten things in town that are worth eating for under $10. not necessarily full meals, and definitely not always high end, but goddamn delicious and easily accessible.   i will probably be calling on this list fairly often over the next few weeks, so help a girl out, and gimme some more recommendations.

1. amatos– breakfast sandwich $2.29: cheap and dirty (and so simple, but shockingly delicious), but my absolute go-to whenever i’m broke and starving. it’s sort of like when i smoked, and cigarettes were only $2. you can always find enough couch/purse/street change to get a breakfast sandwich, and if you get them on toast (delicious non-wonderbread italian toast), it is both bigger, and better.

2. micucci– sicilian slab $4.50: we’ve all heard what i have to say about the miraculous qualities of the sicilian slab. cliff’s notes version- shit is GOOD, and 1 piece will fill you up for at least two meals. also, totally worth getting into a noisy altercation with a stranger.

3. gilbert’s chower house– grilled cheese $3.25: basically, this is what i get when i’m hungrier for more than just a breakfast sandwich.  simple and unpretentious, it’s got like an inch of cheese and really good bread. oh, and it comes with chips.

4. caiola’s– polenta fries $5.95: caiola’s is my favorite restaurant in portland, perhaps anywhere. i have never had a bad meal there ever (from their superb sangria to that salty caramel cake that haunts my dreams), but if i had to choose only one food to eat for the rest of my life, it would probably be their polenta fries. no florid description of their crispy perfection and accompanying red chutney stuff could really do them justice. i know they’re not even close to a whole meal, but seriously, GO EAT THEM RIGHT NOW.

5. green elephant– spicy vegetable medley stir fry $9: along with being the only 100% vegetarian restaurant in town, the green elephant is both totally tasty and extremely reasonable. they have a multitude of $9 entrees on the menu, but the spicy veggie medley is my favorite. but if you’re in the mood for something a little less healthy, i also recommend the king oyster mushroom tempura- rock ’em sock ’em fried mushroom action.

6. the maine squeeze– amanda berry $5: i have a bigtime starch and fat problem. potatoes, bread, pasta… butter, cheese, cream sauce… you might notice that the majority of my top 10 faves are a combination of those very elements. however, every now and again even i hit the wall, and i start to feel like if i don’t get some fruits and veggies fast- i might die. maine squeeze will make you a giant-ass smoothie of delicious healthfulness for a mere five bucks. the amanda berry has the distinction of being one of the few smoothies on the menu without bananas (my arch nemesis), but you should eat them, they’re full of potassium and they’re good for leg cramps.

7. kamasouptra– loaded baked potato soup $5.50: again, you’ve heard me do the dance of love for these guys, so i’ll keep it brief. a bowl of incredible soup (at a place that has more veg options than meat options) + a piece of bread roughly the size of small watermelon.

8. norm’s– mashed potatoes $2.50: norm’s is tricky for me because it’s a BBQ joint (meat fiesta!), but the trick is in the side orders. a cereal bowl filled with buttery garlicy mashed potatoes and/or a hunk of home made corn bread that can double as a personal flotation device are only a few of the tasty, filling, and dirt cheap options on their side order menu. there might even be some vegetables in there, but who gives a crap about those?

9. otto–  cauliflower & mushroom pizza $3.00: i sing a lot of (well deserved) praises about micucci, but in the land of the thin crust, otto reigns supreme. innovative and flavorful, with a rotating cast of flavors from mashed potato to cheese tortellini, 3 big slices for 9 small dollars is a dinner to be proud of. actually, it’s kind of freaky that maine has such kick ass pizza. i thought we could only make lobster rolls and whoopie pies?

10. corner room– papparadelle & mushroom pasta $9: i can easily take down $60+ worth of food and beverage at the corner room without even thinking about it, but the beauty is that assuming i lay off the booze & desserts (although their stiletto & tiramisu are positively worth shanking for), i can get a perfectly serviceable and incredibly delicious dinner for just $9. all their pasta options come in whole or half orders ($15/$9), and the half order portions are more than enough food to constitute a full meal (especially if you ask for extra bread). the papparadelle dish is full of perfect home made hand cut pasta (double wide), floating in the kind of pitch perfect cream sauce that grocery store pasta dreams about.

HONORABLE MENTION hot suppa– fried green tomato eggs benedict ???: i’m fairly certain that it’s less than $10, but i couldn’t confirm, so i don’t feel like it’s fair to put it on the official list. regardless, even if you’re a canadian bacon loving carnivore, this is still one of the very best things to eat on the peninsula at ANY PRICE. it has the perfect balance of salt and fat and acid, and by far the best benedict i’ve ever had anywhere ever (and if there’s benedict, i will eat it).

weekend pickthrough- getting around edition.

this has been kind of a crazy week for me. along with eating a TON of candy bars (which is weird, because i’m not really a chocolate person), i had my first official post drop on part time vagabond, and as of friday afternoon,  i’m shakin it over at flyte new media (my first social media article ever!). i’m such a blog slut!

but seriously, i started this blog last year, because i wanted a reason to write every day. my life to date has been clogged with awful poetry, half finished novels, and otherwise general aimlessness. even if i’m not writing about anything important, this blog has given me focus. I joke about being a blog slut, but at the risk of getting all squishy and sentimental, this is a really exciting time for me. pre-broke207, i was just stumbling out of my twenties right into another decade of hapless wandering and bad decisions. ok, i still make a lot of bad decisions (candy bars!), but i find that i’m stumbling a lot less. so to make up for the very poor quality weekend pickthrough below (i was busy!), i would like to take a second to say thank you. thank you for reading, and commenting, and being generally awesome. and thank you also to flyte and part time vagabond, for trusting that i have something worthwhile to say in their space. oh, and thanks in advance for not hating too hard on the lame pickthough.

slap a couple of these babies on your pop tarts and you never have to feel eco-guilty again.

many thanks to the infamous qbert for pointing me toward a website dedicated to my present favorite fashion icon (what can i say, i’m a sucker for sweater sets).

worst gift suggestion EVER.

hey guess what, GETTING A MAMMOGRAM DOES NOT HURT (so get goin)!

a miracle of modern architecture. plus, it’s shaped like a turkey.

who knew that a field guide could be so hilarious.

with everyone competing to make the most ludicrously unhealthy sandwich, when is someone just gonna throw down and slap some lard between two buns (or maybe two grilled cheese sandwiches) and call it the winner?