The Scoop

It’s time for another exciting installment of weekend events! What will it be this weekend? Laundry? Vacuuming? Closet-cleaning? Answer: All of the above! We’re preparing to put our house on the market, for a variety of reasons I won’t go into here, and as anyone will tell you, it’s not a pleasant process, as weekend after weekend is spent walking through your house the way you would if you were buying it, and really, wouldn’t YOU insist that the scuff mark in the laundry room be painted over? And God, what IS that stain on the carpet, anyway? Do these people live like pigs?

Anyway, who cares, because God, the last thing the world needs is another blog post about the woes of selling one’s house in a down market, because everyone else has done it better than I ever could, but suffice it to say: it blows. Bigtime.

Oddly, real estate is one of the areas that brings forth the most amount of unsolicited advice of anything I’ve ever dealt with. It’s boggling, really, the amount of advice I’m given on a daily basis, and if I followed all of it, I would not be living anywhere, but in fact, would have snapped in about twelve bofrillion pieces from the strain of being pulled in too many different directions. And not – NOT – that I’m asking for any advice, oh my God, but the truth is that I don’t actually mind unsolicited advice. I mean, yes, it can be frustrating when the advice-givers are overly insistent, like you will follow their way OR ELSE YOU WILL DIE, OH MY GOD THAT IS SO NOT THE WAY YOU DO IT, but mostly, it’s benign. And no, I don’t follow most of it, but I’m usually not offended by it.

The way I see it is that people care enough to tell you what they think, based on their own experience, and they want you to save you the trouble of their mistakes. That really is it, most of the time, never mind that there are many solutions to one problem, and what works for one doesn’t work for all, and um, YES, sometimes we need to make our own mistakes, but they mean well, really they do. And really, as the second-youngest of seven kids with two sets of parents, parents’ friends, friends’ parents, etc. etc., you could say that my life has been defined by unsolicited advice, Jesus.

All this being said, if my hairdresser gives me one more piece of advice, it’s possible that I may drown him in a vat of Goldwell haircolor, because he has a response for EVERY SINGLE THING THAT I SAY. He noticed I lost weight, yay! Except, he follows it up with a comment that gee, while I may be exercising more and therefore probably eating more, I shouldn’t stop exercising AND keep eating more (Oh my God really? So what you’re saying is…I need to eat less, move more? How revolutionary!). And was that a pack of Combos in my hand? Because I’d be better off with some protein to build muscle. Oh oh oh, and while all of my pants might be too big, wasn’t I thinking of getting pregnant soon? [Ed note: um, not that it's any of your business, but thanks for the family planning advice, Squiggo!] Because why waste the money if I’m just to “let myself go?” Give IN to the maternity clothes, ASAP! (He’s also my mother-in-law’s hairdresser. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s being influenced. Just a guess.)

All of that was in the first five minutes of my foils, Jesus, and by the end, I’d been handed enough advice to write an entire self-help book of The World According to Squiggy, and poking my eyes out with alligator clips was something I was very seriously considering. And it turns out, even I have limits on unsolicited advice.

Also, lately, I’ve had the burning desire to attend a potluck. It’s not that I want to hover over scorching-hot plastic picnic tables full of someone else’s food that probably has the saliva of a thousand people who may or may not be related, it’s that I need to make food for more than two people. Cooking for two sucks the big one, really it does, because a three-pound pot roast, though delicious on night one, really loses all of its appeal by the fourth consecutive meal, and by the eighth, we’re both ready to hang ourselves over the dead, moldy pot roast that threatens to take over our entire lives.

But the thing is … have y’all seen The Pioneer Woman Cooks? Have you SEEN her peach crisp? HAVE YOU SEEN IT? Chocolate & Zucchini? The Smitten Kitchen? I don’t even know what clafoutis is, but I know I must have some. Hell, even Top Chef is sending me into another dimension of food lust, although personal note to Padma: I still don’t like you. Please pack your knives and go, for the frillionth time.

It’s all so unreasonable for us, it breaks my heart. Oh yes, please, let’s make a Fourth of July cake fit to serve forty people. We’d be bloody hospitalized, because no no, actually, we can’t let these things go to waste. The last time I made a batch of cupcakes, I gained ten pounds (Oh, how I wish that were hyperbole. No exaggeration? I think it was my downfall. I think I single-handedly ate fourteen cupcakes over the course of three days. FOURTEEN. CUPCAKES. THREE. DAYS.)

I’m considering joining a church, just so someone will invite me to a damn potluck, and I can finally make something that serves more than two damn people — four, if we’re really burning for leftovers.

And with that, I’m off to read more Harry Potter. Say what you will, but I really had a great time reading all of them, and of many things I’ve ever read/done, they really make me wish I had a kid to share them with. Ah, someday (NOT TOMORROW SQUIGGY). And look, I understand that they are completely simplistic to some, and many people think they’re cool because they eschew all things Potter (I find that irritating, because really? Disliking something does not make you cool). Whatever, I say! Whatever! It was an absolutely bizarre phenomenon, and while I’m not pretending they’re great literature, nor is it the only thing I read (I know what good, real-live books are, I swear, as do most adults who read Harry Potter, I imagine), but they are an intense guilty pleasure, and I’m sad to see it all end. Just please, I’m only on page 120, so don’t tell me anything yet. We can discuss … well, I don’t know when, as I’d hate to spoil it for anyone.

Happy Monday! Four days and counting until she arrives! AIEEEE!

*Beastie Boys

21 comments July 22nd, 2007