Let them eat cake.

I love Scott Calvert of The Cake Plate. Love! Also kind of hate, because he launched a new company called Cake Jars and brought samples to our office....



Mind you: I have an inflatable slip 'n' slide to attend to this Memorial Day weekend. Sailing the next weekend. Pool party the following. Now is *not* the time to bring me cake, layered with mousse, topped off with sprinkles, and stuffed into a convenient, all-too-easy to hold jar.



[insert sigh of resignation here]



I was able to "just say no" to the red velvet layer cake. The carrot cake. Even the cuteypatootey named Dreamsicle cake. But the man brought -wait for it- waaaaaait...



Peanut Butter Chocolate Bomb.



AKA: THE. DEATH. OF. ME.



It 2009 I placed a peanut butter ban on my house (which has yet to be lifted) after I once purchased a jar on Sunday afternoon and polished it off by Tuesday evening. The horror! Unfortunately, we've had these samples for a couple weeks...but in an office full of women, we decided to risk it.



One colleague said, "hmmmm...it definitely tastes like something is thinking about fermenting in there."



But did that stop us? NO! We plowed through that milk chocolate cake, with peanut butter pie filling, dark chocolate mousse and peanut butter cups like it was our last day on this green earth. Like it was a mission from god, I tell you!



So if you pick up tomorrow's Statesman and it reads:

"Young Woman Loses Self-Control and Gorges Herself on 8 Billion Calorie Cake Gimmick Resulting in Early Death"



...it's me.

You must choose.

I work (worked?) in sales...in an odd sort of sales way. Really more event planning, but my business card still reads Senior Sales Manager. Fortunately, I have mercifully avoided ever making cold calls. Good thing, because apparently people really hate the task.



I've never had a root canal, but I'm not entirely certain I agree with the survey's findings that a violent dental operation resulting in a spectacular eruption of pain is worse than cold calling. I did once have to make cold calls on behalf of a non-profit, begging shamelessly for donations.... Somehow I lived to tell the tale, but honestly I'd rather take a bullet. I'd also rather:

• Be tied down and forced to watch Waterworld for seven days straight


• Piss a golfball


• Have a dorsel fin growing out of my back


• Eat deviled eggs (vile things!)


• Be a sound engineer on a Paris Hilton album

Really, I can't blame anyone for choosing an uncomfortable one month dry spell over cold calling for one week. Just sayin'.

The good life.

I've decided today is a good Tuesday. Here is why:

• our weekly meeting that normally lasts three hours was shaved down to a waif 50 minutes. Funny- the male heads of department are at our corporate office for the day. Turns out, when the "womenfolk" are left to their own devices we: a) start on time b) avoid passive-aggressive pissing contests and c) operate efficiently. Shocking.


• the New York editors have given me a feature which just might be my crown jewel of 2010: writing about the food scene at Austin City Limits music festival in the fall.

In sum: I have more time to accomplish work at the office today, while also knowing come October I will get my ACL pass comp'd so that I can soak up the sun, listen to live music all day, and eat whatever the hell I want.

When did it get so good?

Real quick.

Been having too much fun to bother with the internet, so apologies for lack of updates. Am currently being herded out of our Indiana hotel room for one last visit with Emma before we hit the road. Here is my roadtrip update, Twitter style:

1. You can drink beer on the street in Memphis. I like Memphis.

2. Stinky Gringo pre-mixed margarita is actually good. I like this too.

3. Spinach dip during Nashville happy hour is not so great. But their Long Islands are pretty rad.

4. Visited my first casino. The biggest in the Midwest. EPIC. Plus, *worst* looking people ever.

5. Ate my weight in crab legs and frozen yogurt at said casino's buffet. Not so epic this morning.

6. No beef ribs in Memphis. Just for the record.

DING!

Trippin'

I'm taking the blog on the road. It's 6:54 am and I'm Memphis bound with one of my best friends.

We have a Sony HandyCam, Nikon D40, a mountain of mix CDs, and a bottle of wine (for tonight!) and a full tank of gas.

...buckle up.

Quitter.

Notice the new blog title? Dig it? Well, you should because it's really quite apropos. No longer a full-time working professional and full-time graduate student. Just a full-time bad ass and full-time graduate student.



All joking aside, I took the leap and resigned from my corporate job for numerous reasons that are just too boring to list here. In typical manipulative manner, they coerced me into staying in my shackles until July 2nd to fully train my assistant who will take my position.



Daily motivation is now a challenge, but I power through it by reminding myself of my sweet reward: Costa Rica in July. Per the usual, I somehow managed to corkscrew my obssession with travel into a seemingly productive and absolutely necessary trip abroad. I'll spend one week in San Joquin de Flores, earning 3 hours of graduate school credit then another week traipsing about on my own. It's gonna be the pig's tits!



Note: don't bother asking me questions like: how will you pay your mortgage? car payment? tuition? I can't be bothered with such rational practicalities. I mean, that's just ridiculous. I am now fully embracing my inner artist and everyone should understand I'm a creator! A wandering soul! My tortured, misunderstood and superior spirit would be positively crushed by logicial thought at this point.

Give me my camera. Give me my pen. I'll find adventure and there I'll be fine.

Dog days.

Anyone that knows me knows my dating mantra well: for every five men you go out with, odds are high you'll only want to see one of them a second time. And even then, your inclination might be lukewarm at best. This, dear readers*, is why I date in volume.

In a dating world where a bachelor's big selling point is showing off his double-jointed ring finger (yes, it happened to me once) you could be out there for eternity. That is until recently...

I started going out with a fella' who -against my best efforts- has captured my genuine interest. I've now broken all my rules by granting (yes, it's a privilege) him four dates with me *and* I've forsaken my other prospects.

Case in point: this weekend, our dogs met. By the way, that's a big deal. OK, so it's not exactly Reagan and Gorbachev here, but pretty close in global importance. I spent at least twice as long grooming Schatzi as I did myself. Was not pleased to discover she had taken off her pink bandana and chewed up a corner, but I got the knots out of her ears and she hadn't been in the lake all week, so her BO was relatively under control. All good things.

After much to-do, I can confidently say the canine introduction went off without a hitch. Well, except that Schatzi ate all of G's food. And then she found a paper bag to tear up. Not so bad until she knocked over a potted plant on the deck. And tried to steal dinner off the table. Then also stole G's dog bed....

I do hope we get invited back again.

*Perhaps presumptious, but I went ahead and used the plural form, assuming that I do indeed have more than one lone reader. Hopeful.

Cookie monster.

So our office orders supplies from an exclusively on-line company. I like their customer service and their prices can't be beat, although their bargain basement price tags alarm me just enough that it's quite possible most of their wares fall off the back of a truck.

Anyway.

A co-worker ordered supplies, which were delivered yesterday. Amongst the usual pens and paper, we also found [surprise!] a tin of cookies. Oh, happy day! Mmmmm a delightful blue treasure chest, full of Royal Dansk danish butter cookies-- high class all the way. We didn't order cookies, but figured they were a nice appreciation gift for spending more than $200 on our purchase. I tell you we did some damage...this was binge eating at its finest and we enjoyed every little bit of our afternoon treat!


That is, until I stopped noshing long enough to wipe the crumbs from my face and answer the phone. Our dear delivery guy was calling to see if we had received a box to RJPS.

"Nope. Not here." I answer.

"OK, well it has some pens and paper. Looks like I have your box of supplies and I must have mixed them up...oh, and there's a package of cookies in there."

Me: ".......................................Umm. Let me put you on hold for a second and see what I can find."

SHIT. Shitshitshitshitshit. Not only had I already distributed aallll the office supplies amongst our departments -like the benevolent spirit I am- but the cookies were six feet under. And there, next to our confectionary graveyard lay the packing slip -invoiced to RJPS- with a cookie tin line item.

Do I lie? If I lie, do I say there were never any cookies in the first place? Or just say we never got the box at all? Do I tell the truth and expose our glutton?

I simply told him we had indeed received the RJPS delivery and arranged for a switcheroo. This morning, we hid the evidence by destroying the [ghostly empty] blue cookie tin and claimed there were never any cookies. I also couldn't bear to tell him that our executive chef blatently stole a gel pen from the mixed-up supplies, with no remorse.

The kicker? He brought us a tin of cookies, just because.

Hump day.

It's officially the middle of the week for those that aren't coordinating a Saturday wedding. I sincerely hope that's most of you. Today also marked my return to the gym. HUZZAH!

...somehow in the midst of closing on the house, destroying and rehabiliting said house, working, and schooling, things holding moderate to high value in my life (fitness, mental stability, social ties, proper hygiene) fell by the wayside.

For the record: 5:00 am is not my friend. Or yours, more than likely.

What's even less friendly? 5:30 am spin class. You've been warned.

I'm happy to report I survived the full 60 minutes, although not without a small amount of trauma. You see, I failed to eat dinner last night-- after a late return from class I determined collapsing into bed would be far more satisfying than any form of caloric intake. Unfortunately, I also failed to eat breakfast-- it was 5:00 am, ok? Seriously, I almost forgot to put on shorts.

Anyway, about mid way through class (aka: just this side of my heart violently exploding) I felt vomitness setting in. Is that a word? At any rate, it is now because the sensation was very real! It must have been the combination of water on an empty stomach, intense cardio, and the instructor's gross error in judgement by playing Evanescence.

I was able to keep it together, although I do believe I let out a small -yet audible- scream at some point. Fortunately, this occurred at exactly the same moment a fellow masochist could no longer contain their flatulence, conveniently diverting attention from the fact that I looked like a sweaty, female version of Meat Loaf circa the Bat Out of Hell: The Monster is Loose years.

Oh yeah, it feels good to be back!

Uncomfortable.

Just returned home from a night in my seminar course, Liberal Arts Perspectives: Time. Today has been pretty rough, as I spent most of my sleeping hours finishing the research paper for my elective, Women in World War II. As a clear indication of my fuzzy mental state I inexplicably volunteered to present my seminar research paper an entire week early.

I will now let the word "volunteer" completely sink in.

Just so we're perfectly clear: I physically raised my hand -with full knowledge of the consequence of said action- to sign myself up to present a twenty page research paper SEVEN days earlier than required. I did this willingly, without a masked man putting a gun to my head. I mean, really?! There was a brief moment when I considered this might be a bad idea, but then realized I will test the very limits of my physical and mental constitution for glowing recommendations to my doctoral program of choice. I believe this makes me the academic equivalent of a consumer whore, oui?

I couldn't shake the feeling of having a giant sweater wrapped around my brain; further evidenced by a classic uncomfortable moment: while a class mate was poignantly detailing his poetic near-death experience undergoing surgery on a malignant brain tumor, I started laughing. It was that most dreaded of moments when you feel the giggle bubbling up...I had suddenly -horrifically- thought of a very funny exchange at brunch yesterday. And the laughter decided to make an audible appearance. Realizing I looked like a completely insensitive jerk, I pulled the classic recover: **fake coughing. Except that I did cough up something -probably lodged from lunch- and proceeded to somewhat choke. Not completely, but enough that I quite simply made matters worse.

Stares. Stares aaallll the way around that room. Kind of like the guy above...go figure.

**Come on, you know what I'm talking about...we've all been "that guy" during the funeral, or church, or lecture from the Holocaust survivor.