My new lifestyle, the inaccessible me.
Hey, you remind me of a man.
What man?
Man with the power.
What power?
Power of hoodoo.
Hoodoo?
You do.
Do what?
Remind me of a man...
Cary Grant to Shirley Temple, my favorite line from Bachelor and the BobbySoxer Whilst sipping scotch and relaxing, new roomie and I delved into our mutual classic movies collection and pulled out the Cary Grant Collection, having covered Hitchcock two days prior, we decided for lighter fare. My only complaint, if I were Myrna Loy, I would have demanded a rewrite ending with a kiss from Cary Grant.
When my new roomie casually mentioned she came with a VCR, I was ecstatic, I promptly responded, “now I am glad I didn’t throw out my classic movie collection!” Classic movies? She has a classic movie collection also, so began our bonding and mutual love over all things black and white. About a month prior to her moving in, I had begun watching the classics again, and mostly obscure classics with Heddy Lamarr and others. From the time I was 15 to about the age of 23, I became obsessed with AMC and all things prior to 1965. When I moved to NYC, there was little time to really cultivate my love for Cary Grant, hence it was put on the back burner.
Between the two of us, I own all the musicals (a throwback from my theatre days) and she owns all the serious fare. Her classic dvd collection is amazing, she has every Hitchcock, film noir, Cary Grant, etc, that’s come out in the past couple of years. Her favorite movie is The Thin Man and she’s mentioned her love of William Powell more than once. Since she’s moved in, we have spent our time watching the classics and exchanging old Hollywood gossip.
Other than that I have been extremely busy, on top of working 40 hour work weeks, I commute 15 hours a week to work, it can be a bit stressful. Then I go to yoga or running and make it home in time to eat and watch a movie before crashing to get up at 6:30am- ish. The last thing I want to do when I get home at night is get on my computer and type out stuff.
Labels: cary grant is my husband, I love black and white, my former life, women taste like chicken
Catching the Fat (and a little bit of alcoholism)-
When it comes to eating, I have little social and emotional awareness that surrounds my stomach and its daily wants. If you put a pizza down in front of me, I am probably going to eat it, but if the pizza not there, it would never occur to me to order one.
Having spent a good ten years of my life being an overeater, more from being a chronic athlete than a psycho-emotional disorder, my stomach has officially quit me. Back in the day, during high school, I would eat all the time, all day long, over stuffing myself because swimming 5 miles in the morning and night left me physically depleted. Unfortunately my idea of eating versus most peoples is completely different. My mom is a very slender person and a healthy cook. In our house, we didn’t have junk food, except for the occasional bag of Doritos on a Friday “girls’ movie night”, of which I once got violently ill on so the smell still makes me nauseous. Hint, hint, please DON’T EVER eat Doritos around me or try to kiss me after you eat them, I am likely to vomit in your face.
I didn’t eat my first casserole until roughly 1997 at my best friend, Melissa’s, I also remember being vaguely disgusted at a very bad attempt of some kind of sauce, tuna, and butter noodles. Thinking of casseroles now makes me *shudder*. At casa de Reynolds, ma bonnie mere cooked a protein (usually chicken) and some kind of vegetable nightly. It was all really uninteresting, she never let us have fast food because we were way too poor. I used to cry when I was 12 because I got mad that she still made me order the kiddie meal at most restaurants, herself not being able to afford a meal. I loved eating out more than my mom’s cooking but we were simply too poor.
While my formative years were spent in constant starvation and over stuffing myself, the kinds of foods I stuffed myself with were more fruits and vegetables than chips and chocolate bars.
I am very active, if I say I run 5 miles a day, I run 5 miles a day. Currently I am running and doing yoga, I have always been an athlete. In college I briefly became a vegetarian for 2 years and ate all organic. The one thing my friends compliment me on the most is that I have really healthy body issues. If I gain 5 pounds, I know I am likely to lose it. I don’t stare in the mirror for hours at a time and call myself fat. When I gain weight, I notice, typically because my pants get tight or something. But I apply myself to something physical and let the pounds melt off.
I have had numerous roommates over the years with body issues, but I never lived with someone with a full on eating disorder till a couple years ago. My friends argue that there’s no way to “catch the fat”, i.e., become obese by being acquainted with someone obese. I think that they fail to recognize the true nature of the cult of thinness and obesity, at times it can actually stem from learned behaviors and environmental factors. In college, my house of 5 girls became vegetarians because we were all healthy eaters, we slowly over the course of two years took on each other’s eating habits. It was hard not to when you had 5 nightly cooks in the kitchen. Being the novice with no previous cooking experience, they taught me how to eat healthy.
About six months ago, I noticed my clothes were getting tighter and whatnot, it happened somewhat over night. Before I knew what catching the fat was, as apparently it’s been a source of debate for sometime, I immediately attributed it to living with people with less than healthy eating habits. I may not be an emotional eater but living with an emotional eater can be rough. Without thinking of it, at times, I would eat or order in when she would. Or if there was extra food, I would eat it when offered to me, despite having already had dinner. For someone like me, who doesn’t obsess about food, it never occurred to me that even thinking about having an extra meal at night would be a bad thing. So flash forward two months later, I find I have gained 10 pounds and my eating habits are out of control. About 3 months ago, I had to retrain myself to eat on my own again. I bought only healthy things, curbed eating out, and try to eat alone. It’s a weird thing to do, but I am never one to jump at getting dinner. It’s easier for me to lose the 20 pounds I have gained in the past year if I place little importance on my daily nutrition.
My new roommate is a really healthy eater, she’s a cook, and comes with an array of home grown organic vegetables. I am hoping in this new living experience I can move away from bad habits from the past. For instance, my other roommate drank 7 nights a week. Living with alcohol daily is also hard to move past, but new roomie and I don’t really drink Sunday, Monday, and Tuesdays. We have whiskey in the house but she’s not really a home drinker and this is the first time in a year I haven’t had some form of alcohol on a daily basis. Having a glass of wine after work is great, but every day? That’s too much for me; instead I have been going to yoga and having a glass of herbal tea afterwards.
Living with 2 different people with bad habits coupled with my own was my own personal hell of catching the fat. Living with the new roommate is allowing me to reinvent myself and to make better decisions based on healthier living.
Labels: my new life, nightmare roommates
Working like a rockstar and drinking wine like a lush.
Confidentiality agreements keep me from discussing work, checking blogs, and pretty much blogging, but getting back to work is very nice I must say. The funniest thing happened to me this week. I work for a large institution with the funds to support nice things, nice phone/telecom things. All week, every time I pick up my phone, it hangs up on me.
I am very tech saavy, always have been, it's one of the those hidden talents of mine that I kind of semi-resent. It's the way I get a lot of my jobs, but I don't want to be a tech person for a nonprofit. I prefer to be a strategist. Anyways, I am sitting at my desk and the phone hangs up for like the 10th time after ringing for like the 10th time. Talking to IT about a completely unrelated issue, I say, what the fuck is up with my phone, who can I talk to about this? I really thought maybe (with all the fancy buttons) I am just fucking this shit up.
Telecom comes to my desk about 2 hours later and I get a little tutorial. I tell her the issue with my phone and she explains to me all the different lines, we set up my voicemail.
My predecessor's last day was last friday, I don't know why she left, but she has bubble letter writing (she seems fluffy). I finally figure out how to check my voicemail from this training. I have exactly three messages- 2 hang ups and 1 from a guy name Mike:
"Ki Ki, I know you have been calling me and hanging up. I think about you all the time and I have picked up the phone to call you several times. I miss you too and I still love you. I am sorry we broke up. I miss you, call me!"
Me, not being the smartest girl in the world, ie. who gives their work number to their boyfriend? , thinks this is a prank call. So I go up to telecom, and I ask politely while snickering, "dude, is there someone named ki ki who works here, b/c I just got a voicemail today from her ex who wants to get back together!" Telecom informs me that Ki Ki was the girl before me (personally, I am thinking- maybe she was fired, b/c I don't get personal calls at work. That's extremely unprofessional!) It turns out I am not mentally retarded and I can actually answer a phone- all the hangups were from Mike who couldn't understand why I was answering Ki Ki's phone.
This is the funniest work thing that has ever happened to me.
Now I am exhausted from long commutes all week- meaning I transfer once or twice and I am at least 8 neighborhoods away from my own. This is why I am drinking wine on my couch and watching tv on a friday night- yay me.
Sorry, I didn't bother editing this post. Party at my apartment tomorrow night, I am gearing up for it now and busy. Email me if I forgot to invite you.
Labels: idiots other people date, my first day on the job, why is alice blogging on a saturday night
Pre-bragging before Post-bagging (does this title make any sense?)
Besides looking for a roommate and a job at the same time, my life is relatively drama free. I don’t have any man issues or any boys I am currently pining over (as if, I don’t pine, it’s not my style). In fact, I haven’t had much time to go bar hopping or socializing, I couldn’t believe how much I missed going out until last weekend, I found myself approaching men because I was pretty much starved for man-attention. I have been really busy the past month, I haven’t had much time to talk to random people or go out for about two months.
That being said, lately I have had this huge problem with men. And by lately I mean mostly in the past year. It’s actually really awkward and kind of embarrassing but has been happening quite often to me. As we all know, I hang out with mostly men. Most of my best friends are men, when I have guy problems, I go talk to Ali. I pretty much tell Ali everything, if there’s anything to tell.
As I have moved into my 27th year, I have become a very mature, grown-up young lady. I am no longer attracting the wack jobs of 3 years ago and as I get older, my relationships have grown increasingly mature. I wouldn’t say that I am meeting total losers. So why then is it, when I start dating a nice guy (seemingly nice), we go on all the right dates, I don’t put out, in fact, we keep things nice. After a couple of dates, I bring them round my friends for approval and they get shit faced and tell my male friends- Diddy or Ali, that they are going to take me home and “tap that” or “you see that redhead out there, I am totally going to have sex with her.” To which Diddy or Ali always reply; “you realize that’s my friend, right”? Then they have the awkward task of coming to me and telling me that some guy is trying to sleep with me.
Done. I have to ditch the guy right there and sometimes my ditching them isn’t pretty. I have been downright rude at times in my getting rid of them. I have my dignity and reputation to protect. I understand getting excited about someone, but it’s not like I am tapping a type here. The circumstances under the three or four times this has happened have been completely different and so have the men. I am not an easy girl, I expect to get to know a person and to form a relationship before I get involved with someone sexually. My typical wait period is three or four weeks.
I can’t sleep with someone who’s “pre-bragging”, seriously what the fuck? My love life is beginning to feel like a frat house and I actually liked the guys at the time. I saw real potential before they royally fucked it up. That’s an enormous amount of pressure to put on someone you barely know and insulting. And I find it extremely insulting.
Anyways, not cool. If you like a girl, don’t go up to her male friends and tell them you are going to “bone her”. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you guys?
Why do you have to embarrass me in front of my friends?
Any other women have this problem? Men- thoughts?
Labels: Ali to the rescue, I should just leave the city now before I die alone, men I forget about, tool magnet
Cleaning House
Today after roughly four years in my apartment, for the first time in almost its history, I constructed a living room. It's a nice comfortable living room. It's amazing the amount of space that's now in my bedroom after taking out the furniture and tv and putting them in the newly converted living room. My huge walk in closet is now a full fledged sitting room. Pam and I sat in here all night in wonder, besides the kitchen, we have never had a communal space. And it's perfect for our August 11th Texan themed party.
It has a tv, a couch, and a sitting chair you can lounge in. When
DrunkBrunch and I first lived here, we were too poor for furniture. All we had was 1 chair in this room and a small tv. I used to sit on the floor while she sat in the chair. I actually kind of hated it back then, it completely mocked the 2 living room house we had in college. Which is why it became a closet for 2 years and a bedroom for 1. I didn't want to deal with the hassle of a room that was either not furnished or a room I thought I would barely use.
In other apartment news, I threw out all of our kitchen shelving unit and we are still in the process of scouring the apartment. It's not like I buy groceries anyways, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
I still can't get over sitting in a living room. I want to decorate it and paint it also. It's so plain in here. I finally feel like an adult.
In other news, Lola has been freaked the fuck out all day. Mostly from my screening applicants all day, this is the hardest time I have ever had finding a roommate, due to the weird move in time, but I should be all set by tomorrow.
Labels: highlights of an otherwise boring week, housewife, I like my life, Lola not funny
