reality bites describes my life

Interviewer 1: Now, radio is all instinct, Lelaina. Do you know where all the radio comes from? The gut. It's all in the gut. Because when you think on your feet...got to go from your gut. And my gut is telling me that, uh...this isn't gonna work out.
Lelaina: Maybe your gut's just saying you're hungry or...
Interviewer 1: Oh, no, no, no, no. It's telling me that, uh...you're overqualified for this job.
Lelaina: I'm really not that smart.

Interviewer 2: No offense, sweetie, but you don't have any experience on a newspaper. You're TV.
Lelaina: Well, I'm trying to make my transition to print journalism.
Interviewer 2: Ah. Why?
Lelaina: Well, newspapers are the last watchdogs...of our... our government. They enforce the checks and balances. And one half-hour of TV only adds up to...
Interviewer 2: OK. All right. Define irony.
Lelaina: Irony. Uh...Irony. It's a noun. It's when something is... ironic. It's, uh... Well, I can't really define irony...but I know it when I see it!

the apron

have you heard of it? it's a really great invention - right up there with sliced bread!

i've had two of them hanging off my refrigerator for a year now, but i never thought to tie one on. it just seemed like one extra step in an already complicated dance called cooking-in-a-very-small-kitchen. but i'm trying to make more foods these days to save some moola and just, you know, be a grownup.

for many a day i felt frustrated by how filthy my jeans got after one wearing. the oily peanut butter smears, the dried egg yolks, the flour powder. do other people just get naked to cook? is that how they keep their clothes clean? and then i looked over one day, and the cutest apron ever, homemade by my friend caroline for a christmas present, covered specially in a tea cup print to honor my addiction, winked at me. and i fell deeply, irreversibly in love.

it's like a big napkin you can wear! that's got pockets! and kind of feels like a pulled-together outfit! and it makes me feel all feminine and feminist simultaneously, somehow. also: as happy as i am with my current choice, i think i may have just stumbled across that all-important thing-i-can-collect. you know, for when people ask me what i want as a gift or i'm, uh, spending hours at a time on etsy, the site that is the answer to every crafty dream, and i want to drop a few bucks that i don't have.

or maybe i could just make my own?

joan cleaver and kim kardashian

last night, whilst heating up some leftovers and blah blahing to clay re: a couple i know who has a rather heartbreaking imbalance of duties, i say, in complete earnest:

"and he doesn't even keep house!"

uh, excuse me?

perhaps it would have been okay to say: "he needs to clean more" or "he could at least make the bed" but "keep house" ? when bja starts cattily judging other people's housewifeing skills ala 1952...sister's gotta get a job.

in other news, how awful is kim kardashian on dancing with the stars? she's completely out of touch with her body (seems weird, but i find the girls who flaunt it often don't understand it) and her blank stare gives me the spooks. also: susan lucci needs to eat a bag of potato chips.

i really want something from j. peterman

i just have to decide what. a few months ago, i requested the catalog online, just because i had to see it in real life, just because i had to know if elaine spoke the truth. and seriously people - it does not disappoint. the clothes all have pleats, the descriptions all reference sundance or lady godiva, and the illustrations are straight out of highlights magazine. i love to climb in bed, pull on my hoodie, and read aloud - in a british accent, duh - some of my favorite selections.

currently, it's:

"she's married to a doting london banker with a genealogy that predates the magna carta. they're quite an item in the smart set."

right?

i laugh, you laugh, but deep down we all want a maroon velvet coat with shoulder pads and peterman knows it. he's got x-ray vision into my soul and doesn't care how much i make fun, because ultimately, i'll lock my doors, make sure no one's watching, then lay down my credit card. the picasso shirt? the secret thoughts coat? the harlow pants? i'm dizzy with options!

the idea of a new job (oh, where are thee) one day, where nobody knows me yet and i can recreate myself beforehand becomes an all-too-distracting daydream during my constant death march through craigslist. a daydream that includes homemade lunches, lipstick, shiny hair and a thomas jefferson shirt. oh, how they'll envy me.

if you sit on the corner of our bed, backwards

we've got a bay view. right now i'm watching a barge chug along, finding its way through the fogginess. and...it's gone. good luck, little engine. come again soon.

i'm living on the edge, giving this room a whirl at noon, because i never really see it except at night, and it's looking so lovely these days! what with the new gray walls and the vintagey bedside tables and the hangy lamps with dimmers. you'd like it, i think.

having a one bedroom apartment is an interesting thing. it's not like we go and hang out in our bedroom with a snack (do you? are we weird for not?) so essentially, we end up in the same room together all the time. i'll admit we don't really mind the arrangement, because we happen to be talented at sharing space while doing our own thing. (read: face plants into video games or magazines or the internets or mystery novels or brownies.) in fact, clay once moved his "office" across the apartment to a weird little closet (damn that hgtv and their world-shifting ideas) and we actually missed each other. okay, yup, just puke right here into my cupped hand. finished? okay, moving on.

but since these days we're both here more than normal, in a perpetual snow day (pajamas and hot beverages and midday television) because he's working from home and i'm...not working, i thought i'd branch out and expand my horizons. heyoh! three boats now? my undivided attention has been requested by the coast guard. must focus.

a slight revision

it seems that i may have been a wee bit presumptuous, declaring my un-unemployment the other day. sigh, sigh.

you see, day numero uno i: woke up early, made my peanut butter and jelly sammy, put on my red shoes, and headed out the door. i felt butterflies and a slight sense of impending doom, but ignored them because i was about to make a difference! (and make some money!)

i won't go into the gory details, but let's just say the day involved:

1) a supervisor who, 5 minutes in, told me:

"i'll understand if you don't come back tomorrow"

2) a student who, 5 minutes in:

threw sand at my face, spit a rock at my head, punched my stomach, ran at my uterus with scissors, called me a mother f*9&er. etc. etc. etc.

at one point, i was standing in the middle of a baseball field, my red shoes soaking wet, my chicken skinny shins getting pummeled, my supervisor with tears in her eyes and my soul yelled NO.

and so. here i am, back on the brown couch: learning lennon/mccartney on the guitar, applying to jobs that promote physical safety, and getting ready for some football.

i just counted fifteen

dirty bowls on my counter top and coffee table. i didn't even know we had fifteen bowls? but surprise! we do! and i used them all up in the past week eating a wide variety of foods like cream of wheat, oatmeal, and cream of wheat.

clearly, i fell a little behind this week on some things - like cleaning and eating things that don't fit in bowls. it's tough to realize, but whenever i fall off my constitutional-by-the-water and zen regimen, i just don't keep things together as well as i do when i don't. i had some sniffles and my knees were hurting and i got grumpy and pressed pause. then uh, suddenly i was surrounded by bowls, wearing the same baggy socks for the third day in a row.

but i'm back on track, people! the bowls are in the dishwasher and i'm even thinking about putting on pants with a zipper. more importantly, i'm packing because next week the beyonce and beyoncee are going to hawa-ii for a delicious seven days. crack out the fake tan and one piece suckas! bja's going surfing.