stuck.

i’m assuming that writer’s block and erectile dysfunction are probably pretty similar conditions. it’s been a week, and somehow i just can’t seem to get it up. i keep trying, but every day i don’t write, things get more complicated. i don’t think i need to burn this blog to the ground and run or anything… in fact, i actually have a really good post waiting in the wings for something very special to show up in the mail (just you wait!). but at this very exact moment, i’m feeling a little adrift… so i apologize for the delay. i’m not giving up or jumping ship.  i’m just a little overtired, and cranky, and too stupid to think of anything good to say. anyone out there floating in the universe have any big ideas?

weekend pickthrough- burlesque blowout edition.

i’m tired. so tired. i have a hard time saying no to experience, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it tends to deprive me of things like sleep and money and sanity in a way that can make my life a little complicated. oh, and my ability to use and spell words declines steeply on less than 3 hours of sleep.  but, it’s been a pretty incredible couple of weeks.

for those of you who remember the chronicles of my first STRUT performance , and then my follow-up win, and have any interest in finding out how the story ended… i am pleased to announce that I WON THAT SHIT! the whole thing. pretty amazing really, but a longer story than i am conscious enough to tell right now. the cliff’s notes version is that i brought home the final round with a nancy drew inspired number with a hilariously oversized cardboard magnifying glass and some bloody hand print covered lingerie. huge props to my totally excellent and equally deserving competition (holly danger your sexy light-up UFO number rocked my universe), especially twisted cookies who actually tied for first (can you say COOKIE MONSTER SNUGGIE?). i really only won because i conned a lot of friends into coming to see me, and the tie was decided by audience enthusiasm. anyway, it was pretty much one of the coolest things that ever happened to me (thanks again atomic trash!), and yielded some pretty excellent side effects:

1. part of my prize is that i get to perform in the atomic trash 2nd anniversary show in january, so my burlesque career is not yet over!

2. a really awesome local graphic designer (and exceptionally nice chap) read my first article and designed a poster about candy sprinkles for a new font exhibition.

3. i got to bring the nancy drew piece to the burlesque-a-thon in boston this weekend, where i performed it on this terrifyingly giant stage (with 99 other acts, one of which involved A GIANT PLUSH VAGINA).

this third cool thing was rendered slightly less cool by the fact that we didn’t get out until 3:30, and still had 2 hours to drive home, and then had to get up for nutcracker rehearsal at 8:30. ouch. anyway, i’m delirious. and grumpy. and very very stupid right now. so before i make any more ludicrous typos or generally poor word choices…

**UPDATE**

4. candy sprinkles got a really fantastic name check/compliment in this bu online magazine article about the burlesque-a-thon. (read lauren 1-2 am)

researchers race to recover radioactive rabbits (no seriously, that’s actually the title of the article).

for my graphic design peeps, some hilariously infuriating quotes from bad clients. (sort of like overheard in the office with more requests for lens flares).

i adopted jobler! who will you pick?

puppies trump old people any day.

wow. i can’t believe that this is a college student. (the horrors of functional illiteracy)

go kurt vonnegut.

there is literally nothing better than hearing draco malfoy say “justin bieber, he is the man. boo-ya!” in a fake american accent. NOTHING!

is there anything lazier and more wasteful than washing potatoes in the dishwasher?

domestic bliss, stormtrooper style.

behold the spirits of douche-o-ween!

it’s a tragic but unavoidable fact that women all over the country think that turning themselves into the whore version of anything is the best course of action for halloween costumes. i actually took a little poll yesterday on twitter to find out what obscenely stupid things people have seen tarted up for this upcoming holiday season. the results will not surprise you AT ALL.

slutty gumby
slutty big bird ( i expected more from you target!)
slutty spongebob (i mean sponge BABE)
“just out of the shower” towel & flip flops (slutty AND lazy)
slutty ninja turtle
slutty smurf
slutty nun
and of course the big winner of the slutoween ludicrous costume contest- for it’s high levels of both whoreishness AND general offensiveness… SLUTTY ANOREXIC!

yeah, slutoween is tapped out. even babies have slutoween costumes now. hell, there’s even a flickr group…  basically, i’m tired of making fun of skanks (i can’t believe i just uttered those words). this year, i’m going after the gentlemen. sure, they have every right to make fun of the women’s parade of obviousness and low self esteem… and we have every right to make fun of the fact that an equivalent majority of men use halloween as an excuse to expose their inner jackass (among other things that they shouldn’t be exposing).  this costume-round up over at woot pretty much says it all and then some… but seriously everybody- are we really that pathetic as a species that we need to lower ourselves so far down, even one day a year? why can’t halloween be an excuse to be clever and hilarious instead?

so here is my challenge to you american public:

it doesn’t have to be brilliant, expensive (there’s even a hot hot $5/$25 coupon for goodwill of northern new england to ease your costume purchasing financial burden- thanks for the tip coupon goddess!) , or labor intensive… just be something smarter than the lowest common denominator. leave your push up bra and you dick jokes at home on halloween for a change, and find yourself a costume that has some dignity.  i promise that there are virtually thousands of ideas out there that do not involve you looking like a hooker or a sex offender. in fact, here are some of my favorite full genital coverage costume ideas for this season:

1. those awesome dudes from katamari.

2. can you say HUMAN SIZE LEGO GUYS?

3. screw you cardboard box robot, i’m gonna  be boxed wine this year!

4. yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip uh huh.

5. i don’t normally dig the military thing, but this is a soldier costume that i can whole heartedly support. (just don’t sit on my furniture while you’re wearing it).

me and two of my best lady friends are going as the murderous vixens from clue. i’m mrs. peacock (watch out for the wrath of my lead pipe!). what are you gonna be for halloween this year?

*UPDATE*

looks like someone else has already challenged the ladies of america to cover the hell up. take back halloween is an awesome costume guide for the uninspired woman seeking full nipple coverage. also, i’d really like to see some costume pictures of y’all getting your trick or treat on.

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…