Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
December 9th, 2007
Sometimes all you need to get your shit together is a self-imposed Suck-It-Up Smackdown, and that’s precisely what I delivered myself last week, and I’m feeling much better, thank you. Apparently, I’m still behaving rather curmudgeonly, so I can’t promise that all of my reviews will be glowing, and yes, I still want to punch Ayelet Waldman in the face, but I’m no longer filled with pissy despair, hooray!
(I hate when people get all pissalicious and don’t tell me what’s going on, PS. Hate. It’s just that … some of it is tangentially work-related in that if I talk about it, it will find a way to be work-related, and well, we all know about that. But there will be a day when this will be all non-work-related and then we can have a royal free-for-all.)
Also helpful: chocolate chip cookies, which I made from scratch tonight and consumed in large quantity after I skipped dinner for this express purpose. And they’re delicious, oh so delicious, but when I came home, Adam was horrified that I had to make them from scratch, and didn’t just buy the dough in the tube, because that’s where cookies come from. I had to defend my from-scratch decision, and that seems terribly, terribly wrong on some sort of broad societal level, doesn’t it? And it makes me sad, so very sad for my husband, who thinks cookies come from a tube.
The gods also punished me for smoking by giving me a ripper of a chest cold, and I’m currently breathing oh-so-sexily through my mouth and alternating hacking seal barks with wheezing coughing spells that end … well, the only way to end the gasping is with a giant burp, which is usually executed as loudly as possible and also sounds like I’m about to throw up. This also reminds me: except for these spells, I never burp. Ever, unless I cough myself to it. I can’t make myself burp, I don’t know how to relieve chest pressure by burping and I’ve certainly never experienced the pleasure of releasing the alphabet through my vocal chords. It’s absolutely possible that I’m making up for it on the other end, but … is it only me?
Odd, non-gaseous segue!
Occasionally I’ll find myself going through phases where I fantasize about living in another era (see: strange desire to be Donna Reed in crinoline, gleefully vacuuming my life away), because in the glow of history, don’t some things seem so simple? I mean while yes, it would suck because I like my career — or at least I appreciate the flexibility to have one — there’s got to be a certain amount of stress lifted when the option no longer exists. I know, I know, it wasn’t like that, I’m just saying I harbor the fantasy, and there are moments when it strangely comforts me. I mean I don’t want that, I’m just saying … oh forget it, you know what I’m saying.
And then there are moments that I am just so happy, so very happy, that I live in an era where it’s more likely than not that if I were dumped in a makeshift crematorium in H. H. Holmes basement, someone might look for me, oh my God. This is the longest way ever of saying that The Devil in the White City is so good! So good! And scary and amazing and creepy! So creepy! But worth picking up, and way worthing sifting through the first 100 pages or so, which is actually how long it took me to get way into it.
The rest of our weekend involved Superbad, which was … well, it wasn’t as super-awesome as I was expecting, but in fairness, I was comparing it to Knocked Up and there was no way it could win out over that, there just wasn’t. Oh, and we bought light fixtures and a Dyson Root, and are you riveted now, or what?
(The Dyson Root rocks, but six minutes of battery life? Seriously?)
*Rufus Wainwright. And I’ve used it before, I think …
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
19 Comments Add your own
1. Heather B. | December 9th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
How odd is it that as Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk came on during a little itunes shuffle, I clicked over to this post? Hmm very.
Also, I too could use a suck it up smackdown by way of a nice swift kick to the ass. Glad you’re feeling somewhat better.
2. celebrate woo-woo | December 9th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I have never known another non-burper. I’m just non-gaseous-releasing in general…unless I’m about to vomit violently, which will bring out an enormous built-up-over-years burp, or pregnant, which apparently loosens up whatever body parts need to be loose to do such things as burp or “other end” thngs. Any pressure in my chest or stomach just gets chalked up as indigestion, and I pop the tums to relieve it.
3. Crystal K, | December 9th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Oh! I read everyday, and I have commented a few times (just so you know I am NOT a total stranger, lol).
I just had to come out tonight because I have never in my life met anyone else, in my age group, that has wanted to live in other eras…actually fantasizes about it……JUST LIKE ME!!! Hi kindred spirit!!! Whew, what a relief! I am not completely odd. My favorite era would be WWII, obviously not for the war itself but because it just seems to exemplify the last “age of innocense”, ya know? Oh to swing dance without being in a competition! Oh, to bake homemade cakes and pie crusts!! Oh, to go work in factories because all the men are gone! Not really on the last part…just reminding myself that it wasn’t all wonderful.
AAAAnyway…in another odd coincidence between us…last month I bought a bowl mixer because I have always always wanted one….I was giddy and delighted to have an appliance!! One that enabled me to make my daughter’s 5th birthday cake all by myself and FROM SCRATCH!! Also, 48 from scratch cupcakes! Now would you believe that my own mother, who is relatively young, only 50, warned me that “You shouldn’t let Emma come to expect from scratch cakes! You may get tired of all that work!” Here I am trying to save a dying art, I tell you, and my MOTHER discourages me! I showed them all and made a double layer cake, with buttercream frosting and all of those cupcakes from scratch. Very rewarding….and now I’ll stop rambling and tooting my horn for carrying the torch of the anti-betty crockers.
You might be interested, though, in my 1942 copy of The Goodhouskeeping Cookbook, complete with guides on how to serve a dinner party for your husbands professional friends, lol!
4. Maggy | December 9th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
If you like “The Devil in White City” (which is never, ever available at my library and I missed the book discussion on it which would have allowed me to borrow the book), I can recommend “the Hatbox Babies”, also set at the world’s fair. way cool.
I, too, wish I could belch (or otherwise expel gas) at will. I’m so jealous of all those grade school boys , especially when I’m so bloated you could untie my belly button and I’d fly around the room. Not that I’d recommend that.
5. Orange Peacock | December 9th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Oh yes, that book was FABULOUS. I read it on the beach over the summer and even in that scorching sunlight it gave me the chills. Man, humanity produces some weird ones.
Also, entirely unrelated, have you seen “Waitress”? I thought it lived up to the hype. I still feel all warm from watching it earlier.
6. Assertagirl | December 10th, 2007 at 6:12 am
What the hell is a Dyson Root? Oh, I see, thank you Google. Have I been missing out on some glorious form of vacuum cleaner apparatus?
7. TwoBusy | December 10th, 2007 at 6:13 am
He believes cookies come from a tube? Does he also believe that orange juice is a powder/water mix called Tang?
8. Sadie | December 10th, 2007 at 6:54 am
hey, *I* believe babies come from the stork, and my boyfriend believes magical gnomes replace the toilet paper, so Adam can believe cookies come from a tube. ; )
9. She Likes Purple | December 10th, 2007 at 8:44 am
I may have liked Superbad a teensy tiny bit more than Knocked Up but I’m really not entirely sure why. Maybe it was because I saw Superbad the weekend it came out without hearing much about it and didn’t know what it was about and had relatively low expectations about it (expectations exceeded) and I saw Knocked Up for the first time just a few short months ago (September) and thought it was going to be the BEST MOVIE EVER. And it was good (so good) but, again, expectations and all.
Same thing happened with Anchorman. Heard it horrible and ridiculous and it ended up being one of my top five favorite movies.
10. Cassidy | December 10th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I really, really liked Superbad. Maybe even more than Knocked Up. Although, I could have done without all those annoying Seth Rogan/ Bill Hader scenes, you know? I just love, love, love Michael Cera.
11. mar | December 10th, 2007 at 11:31 am
aw yes, ‘devil’ so good. also, in a different way, the hatbox baby.
if adam thinks cookies come from tubes, he’d flip over the fact that i bought a rosette iron & a fry daddy last week, sose i could make scandinavian goodies by hand rather than boxed at the store. also, i covet the pizelle iron of my grandmother’s that my mum is keeping for me until my next visit home. now if only i had a lefse iron…
12. Andrea | December 10th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Maggy’s comment made me laugh out loud. I pictured her being deflated like a balloon and flying around the ceiling in a very twirly, random flight path.
Ahem.
I’m glad you’re feeling marginally better. And cookies for dinner. Every once in awhile, that should be the norm. Who cares if they’re from a tube or from scratch. COOKIES!
13. aly | December 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
i love superbad so much more than knocked up b/c while superbad was “vulgar” (my sister and my b.i.l.’s gf’s word) there was no 20 FOOT VA-JAY-JAY on the screen anywhere, anytime. there were however moments that made me pee my pants (“that’s what they said would happen in health class!” “i want to shout it from the rooftops!” “BOOP!” ). it may have helped i was on vacation at the time i saw superbad — being relaxed made everything funny x20.
i’m telling you, if you like/liked the devil in the white city you’ll love the alienist by caleb carr. also distrubing and fabulous.
i would like to live in the mark twain/devil in the white city era, myself. the turn of the century! electricity and candles! the invention of cars! swing low, sweet chariots!
14. aly | December 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
p.s. glad you’re back!
15. maya | December 10th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Am also a) glad you’re back b) prone to fantasizing about living in other times… But I always get hung up on the whole “no birth control” thing and think, hey, I would have at least five or six kids by now- and my fantasies go right out the window. The 60′s are really tempting though- great music, cool art, ugly furniture,semi-blissful consumption of hallucenigens, The Haight….and the pill!
Get well soon!
16. Maggy | December 11th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Mar, what are you making? I make pulla cardamom bread) and my sister is attempting Karelian pies (a rye-rice carb substrate). I have never tried to make gingerbread pigs, though, nor those cookies that you break into three parts.
I’m so glad Andrea got the visual I was going for. (Man, that was an ungrammatical sentence.)
17. mar | December 11th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
maggy-i’ve been making half-batches of rosettes for the past 3 days. also a cardamom bread/braid about a week ago. i wish i could make some krumkake or sandbakkels, but no tins for that. i’m gonna have to buy store-bought lefse if i can find it for my glogg party on friday. mmm, drunken scandinavians!
18. Swistle | December 14th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I sometimes wish I’d married royalty, or into some sort of family/historical situation where many, many children was valuable and awesome, and where I would be lauded and pampered and treasured for having so many children, rather than asked if I was “Catholic or something.”
19. Pee Free Pissing Videos P&hellip | December 22nd, 2007 at 2:43 am
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