Posts Tagged ‘Gross’
From the worst trip of my life to one of the best
Last week I flew to Austin for the SXSW Interactive Festival. There’s a reason everything in my life goes completely on halt around this time of year – SXSW is by far the biggest conference for tech companies and startups to launch (ala Twitter five years ago) or apps to showcase new features and try to “get noticed” by the bazillion geeks who fly into Texas’ state capital for the event. In case you didn’t know, I work for a mobile app company. Therefore, everyone at my company (and myself!) works around the clock to make sure everything is perfect and we’re making as big of a splash as we possibly can each year at SXSW…
This year was the first year I got to join my team for the trip to Austin, and I literally thought I was going to pee myself with excitement (if I didn’t pass out first from exhaustion). I’ve always felt like the “who’s who” of tech go to SXSW, and really just wanted a chance to be included in the fun and meet so many amazing tech nerds. (Tech nerds = be still my beating heart).
Except my trip got off to a bit of a rocky start, ie: IT BLEW MONKEY BALLS.
Thursday, March 10th:
2:30 p.m. I leave Sea-Tac International Airport on a one-stop flight to Austin via Denver.
6 p.m. Pilot gets on PA system on plane and says “It’s windy in Denver, foks! We’re rerouting to Colorado Springs cause we don’t have enough fuel to circle and wait it out.”
6:40 p.m. Land in Colorado Springs to “refuel.” They won’t let us off plane, so we sit around for an hour, which is PERFECT for my flight anxiety and general feeling of being trapped in a tiny room, breathing stranger’s recycled breath. Talk self off ledge.
8:30 p.m. Finally land in Denver – cause woo hoo, it’s not windy anymore! Flight attendants are all, “Oh yeah – sorry. NBD you missed your flight. It was only THE ONLY ONE going to Austin and everything else is booked cause the ENTIRE country is trying to get to SXSW. Don’t worry – just go wait in line at customer service, and they’ll help you out!”
8:45 p.m. Get off plane – want to punch a baby when seeing the size of the line at customer service (probably more than 200 people, all needing flights out. Probably all needing flights out to Austin.)
9:30 p.m. Have waited in line for an hour, phone is dying, don’t have a flight partner so I can leave the line and go to the bathroom, I haven’t eaten since 2 p.m. at Sea-Tac Airport.
9:45 p.m. Discover the only thing open in the entire Denver airport is MCDONALDS. Oh yeah – refer to my 2011 New Years post to the part where I’ve given up fast food. But I’m so hungry I could eat a Unicorn and poop rainbows. (Wait, does that accurately describe a starving person). Maybe I should just click a few times like Starvin’ Marvin from South Park.
9:55 p.m. I eat McDonalds. Add insult to injury. I killed my two month streak of not eating fast food, not because I was hungover and couldn’t think of any other way I’d want to spend my life because I’ve survived those moments. I literally ate it cause I had no other option. Insult.to.injury.
11 p.m. Make it to the front of customer service. By the GRACE OF GOD, I have a last name that starts with B. Therefore I’m one of only like three people who got auto-booked on the only flight out of Denver to Austin that wasn’t $1,000 with four layovers. Otherwise I would have been stuck in Denver till Sunday. SUNDAY! Thurs-Sunday. That’s how many available flights to Austin there were.
11:30 p.m. Check into the hotel next to the airport that I had to pay for cause the wind “wasn’t Frontier’s problem.” Miss the $100 reservation I paid out of pocket for a hotel in Austin. Miss the 8 a.m. plan I have to meet a coworker to help him set up for our first day at SXSW.
Friday, March 11th:
10:30 a.m. Fly out of Denver on a flight to Austin.
2 p.m. Land in Austin. Catch a cab to the “Marriott Residence Inn” my boss made reservations for me at.
2:30 p.m. Drive up to downtown Austin Marriott Residence Inn in a cab. Pay cab driver in cash (even though I argue for five minutes against it cause I need the credit card receipt for my expense report). He throws fit. I relent, get out, walk in hotel.
2:35 p.m. Try to check in, they don’t have my name or my boss’ name under a reservation. Go to call her on my iPhone, WHICH I LEFT IN THE CAB. And now I can’t track which cab it was cause I didn’t PAY WITH CREDIT CARD. Lose my mind for five minutes. Don’t have my email to check hotel reservation (it’s on my phone), don’t have phone numbers to call any of my team members in Austin. At the biggest tech conference of the year and DON’T HAVE MY PHONE or access to ANY TECHNOLOGY.
2:40 p.m. Hotel front desk person calls all “Marriott Residence Inn”s in Austin, and all claim they don’t have a reservation under my name.
2:50 p.m. By the grace of God, get a hold of my boss via the hotel telephone, who tells me our reservations are at Marriott Residence Inn SOUTH.
3:30 p.m. Arrive at hotel…
Where I spent the next five days having ONE OF THE BEST TRIPS OF MY LIFE.
(To be continued… )
Currently Feeling: Sneezy, sniffley and under the weather – boo airplane germs!
Currently Anticipating: Some exciting news coming my way… *fingers crossed*
Currently Reading: Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum.
Pretty soon I’ll be calling myself a Fat Kid
Nearly a year ago, I posted a quick post called, “This is Why I call my boyfriend a Fat Kid.” It contained a picture of his freezer:
In case you’re too lazy to click through to the post from last year, that’s 1 Costco-size box of Eggos, 1 bag of “chicken fries,” 1 bag of honey BBQ chicken wings, 1 Tony’s pizza, 1 box of bacon wrapped scallops and 1 box of Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches.
Gross, right! Well I think of this pic every time I step into the kitchen at my new job and see this:
In case you can’t make it out, that’s 1 box of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies, 2 boxes of trail mix (one with a special yogurt and peanut butter & jelly mix), 1 variety box from Pepperidge Farms, which includes Goldfish AND Milano cookies, 1 variety pack of Tim’s Cascade potato chips, including the always irresistible Hawaii Sweet Onion, 2 boxes of variety packs of chips, 1 box of Grandma’s Cookies, and 2 boxes of single cereal, including my all-time fav, Golden Grahams.
All of that is in our kitchen at work. For us to take when we feel so inclined! And when I say this kind of food is gross, I really mean I want to double fist it into my mouth right meow!
AAKKKK.
Between this and trying to squeeze in a new “working all day” workout routine, I’m fo sho going to turn into a fat kid.
Currently Feeling: Really great after a productive and enjoyable work week. Nothing like starting a weekend off right!
Currently Anticipating: The first Halloween party tonight! Whoop!
Currently Needing: To attend the gym I joined downtown near my new office. Why does it always take me so long to get over the hump of winter workouts at a gym? I hate it so!
Atleast once a day, kiddies!
Apologies in advance, for I’m about to talk about something slightly gross and inappropriate…
No, not fat people, chicken farming, vaginas or puking…
FLOSSING.
I’ll admit. I spent a huge chunk of my life not flossing. I’d always dread the dentist cause they’d jam their floss in between my teeth (in a very ungentle fashion), leaving my gums sore for days afterward. And they’d lecture me each time, “Do you FLOSS? You need to FLOSS. At least once a day!”
I think flossing was flushed down the same shoot as washing my face every night. (I know, I know. I’m gross. And I can’t believe I’m admitting this on the worldwide Web.) I guess I can just blame my MOM. Thanks a lot mom. You forgot to teach me, at a young age so it was ingrained in my being, that I needed to floss and wash my face every night. Hmph.
So it wasn’t until recently that I started to become a Flosser. I don’t know if it’s because my teeth are moving, leaving larger and larger gaps as I get older (that’s really exciting to think about), but in the last six months or so, I feel like I always have something stuck in my teeth after eating. So I started flossing after every meal, and OH.MY.GOD.
Have you seen the stuff that gets stuck in your teeth after a meal? I mean, I’m pulling out huge chunks of chicken, steak, bacon (Mmm. Maybe I should save that for later) or whatever else I’ve eaten. It seriously, seriously disturbs me. I mean, if you don’t floss after meals, or at least at night, that food is just sitting in your teeth ROTTING. Like rotten meat. In your TEETH and mouth. The same mouth you kiss people with! And if you don’t floss and get that junk out of there, where does it go? Does it just disintegrate into your gums? Have you ever had a chunk of something come out of your teeth in your mouth, and you’re like, “Hmm. I didn’t eat corn for dinner…” Yah. Because if you didn’t floss, it’s probably the corn you ate LAST WEEK.
Do you see how neurotic I’ve become about this? I’ve starting carrying around floss in my bag. And the times I haven’t had floss (like when I forget it camping), I make my BF drive me to the store so I can buy some. I mean, I’m probably diddling away my severance package on dental floss. Thank god the BF is just as neurotic about it. I mean, we both shiestly sneak away after every meal so we can floss, which is kinda weird, but at least I know I’m not going to be kissing someone with rotten food in their teeth. I think if I find myself single again someday, “Being a Flosser” is going to go on my list of requirements in a mate.
Cause all I’m going to think about every time I kiss someone from here on out is, “Gee, I hope you don’t have ROTTEN DEAD BABY ANIMAL hiding away anywhere in there.”
I bet you want to go floss now.
Currently Feeling: An extreme need to grocery shop. I’ve been getting creative with all the boxes and random ingredients, but now I’m out of eggs, bread and milk. Booo. Hisss.
Currently Anticipating: Bike riding tonight and then Superbad at Redhook Brewery outdoor summer movies.
Currently Loving: Tuna. With lots and lots of pickles!
Deodorant Popcorn Snacks
Here’s an embarrassing little TMI fact for you – I have a weird obsession with men’s deodorant. Like I love, love, love the smell of it. I love to hug my boyfriend and kind of nuzzle my nose a little bit in the general armpit direction (or yah know, poke my nose directly in it) because his deodorant just smells so.damn.good. Why don’t they make women’s deodorant fragrances an extension of our perfumes? We only get sickening smells like “Powder Fresh” and “Springtime Floral Escape.” All reminiscent of the same smells you probably find on Summer’s Eve package, if yah know what I mean. Gross. Anyway, I’ll be the first to admit that my obsession with men’s deodorant is totally weird, but it always seems to get a laugh out of my BF, so I don’t think he minds too much.
But, recently I figured something out about myself – while I love the SMELL of men’s deodorant, I don’t love to EAT men’s deodorant. I bet you’re dying to know how I found this one out…
A couple days ago, my boyfriend and I were watching some realty TV show together on the couch (he doesn’t seem to mind my obsession with realty TV, which I love him for), and I was eating one of my new favorite TV snacks – 100-calorie packs of Smartfood White Cheddar Cheese Popcorn. Picture this: I’m leaning against him; he has his arm up on my knee; I’m mowing down on my white cheddar popcorn, but I keep dropping pieces and kernels that fall down on the couch; I continue to pick them up and swear to myself about how messy I’m being; I finish my popcorn bag and get up to throw it away; I come back to the couch and see there’s a little kernel left on the seat; I grab the kernel and put it into my mouth and start gagging – it is NOT popcorn.
Somewhere between me throwing away the bag in the kitchen and coming back, a little ball of my boyfriend’s deodorant fell on the couch, right where my white popcorn kernels previously were, and I ate it. That’s right. I ate a deodorant ball that had been heating up in his armpit. Is that seriously not the grossest thing you’ve ever heard? Or at least close.
Let me tell you, men’s deodorant, or any deodorant for that matter I’m sure, does.not.taste.good. It’s kinda like hot, chalky soap. That sticks to the inside of your mouth. Kinda like you just had your mouth washed out after saying naughty things.
I think I just inadvertently cured my obsession with his armpits.
Currently Feeling: Excited to check out Jimmy Johns’ sandwiches at lunch today with my coworkers.
Currently Anticipating: Bellingham tonight to stay with my old friend from college, and then Victoria, B.C. for a bachelorette party!
Currently Loving: Rilo Kiley on my fav Pandora station.
Okay, it’s about time I created a ‘Dirty Hippies’ label
I’ve been patiently waiting to update everyone with a few pictures from my weekend, but they’re trapped on my best friend’s camera, so you’ll just have to read the text version for now. I’ll spare you long-winded details, but I had some fun events this past weekend, and some even greater photographs. Friday night I went to The Polish House for Polish dinner, Polish beer and hanging out with some Poles. Not, I’m not Polish, in case you were wondering. But you can become Polish and hang out in their private club for $1! Now that is a steal during these hard times of THE.RECESSION.
Saturday I went to crazy friend Wen’s birthday party (he who loves to have me as a back-up dancer in his videos)… as a hippie. What is it with hippies? I feel like I’m always talking about them. Maybe I’m a little bit more hippie than I like to admit. I was certainly a dirty hippie on Saturday. Why, oh why, you ask?
Saturday night I was SUPER rushed to get ready for the birthday party because my friend was picking me up at 7:30pm on the button. I arrived home, unshowered, with seven bags of groceries at 7pm. And, I didn’t know what to wear. A really awesome trifecta, if you ask me. After throwing on approximately five different outfits, I settled on a grey tie-died sweater, skinny jeans and tall, brown-suede boots. I gave myself a once-over in the mirror and realized that the sweater was a bit off-the-shoulder, so you could see my bra straps. Eww. That is one Carrie Bradshaw fashion statement I do not agree with (right next to the duck feathers on the butt) – bra straps are tacky. So I did the trick us girls learn in junior high while changing in the girls’ locker room for P.E. – a little slip and duck of the arms, and I threw my bra on top of storage drawers in my bathroom. “I’ll just throw a strapless on while I’m finishing my make-up” I thought to myself. I continued to run around like a chicken with my head cut-off, and barely threw my groceries in the fridge with enough time to slip out the door and into my friend’s car.
It wasn’t until I had arrived at the party, hung my jacket, said my hellos and took my place in line at the bar that I realized I.HAD.NO.BRA.ON. OMG. I panicked and quickly tried to call my friend who was arriving at the party later, but she didn’t have a bra in her car. Looks like the girls were standing alone on this one. Yep, I officially hung out at the bar all night, braless. And Bestie Amanda had a great time gently poking my braless boobs and snickering at me. Hussie.
Who has two thumbs and is officially a dirty hippie? Yep, this girl.
Stay tuned for my adventures in not shaving my armpits or legs!
Currently Feeling: In love with my recent lunchtime Maximum Sculpt classes. It feels so great to have my workout done so early in the day!
Currently Anticipating: Date night tonight with salmon teriyaki dinner.
Currently Wanting: Another slice of lemon cake that’s sitting in the break room.
I did it, I said FART on my blog
I’ve recently been attending a yoga class at my gym on Monday nights. I’ve always wanted to do yoga, but have never found the time or money for it. This week I finally unwrapped the pink yoga mat I purchased approximately eight months ago that’s been in my car, if that tells you anything. I think the increase in stress and anxiety in my life led me searching for someway to relieve it – and I’ve always heard yoga does the trick. So I signed myself up.
So far, it’s been really great. I love the special yoga room at my gym that has equipment to borrow, like blocks and straps, so I don’t have to buy them, and the giant windows gently let downtown Seattle twilight the room. I love that the yoga teacher plays relaxing music – but not just “ding, ding, ding” and babbling brooks – a couple weeks ago she busted out “Us and Them” by Pink Floyd. (A personal favorite).
But really, I have a dilemma with this whole yoga thing. I seriously only concentrate on not-farting the whole time I’m there. Yes, I know it. I just said FART on my blog. Gross. But, “girls give off just as much methane gas from farting as men” or something, which is what my boyfriend told me once to ease my embarrassment about farting myself awake while lying asleep in his lap on the couch. (Yes. He was awake; so mortifying). The problem with the girls farting vs. guys farting thing – even if we’re on level playing fields there – is that guys get away with it. They don’t care; they don’t give excuses, and they certainly don’t get embarrassed. But us girls, oh no – we’d rather die a slow and terrible death – or kill someone – than fart out loud in public or, for most of us, around a boyfriend. (I will never be okay with opening doing this with a boyfriend, and for those of you who think it’s a part of being comfortable with someone, I will argue you to the death).
So the whole 75 minute class, I’m thinking about how freaking.embarrassing it’d be to fart. But yoga forces you to bend and contort your body, often times holding and squeezing muscles with your butt high in the air. There’s times when it’s all I can do to prevent a slip. It’s stressing me out! I tell yeah, I join yoga to ease my mind from the stresses of life, and I spend the whole time stressing about farting. I need a stress-reliever from yoga. Or from farting.
Namaste.
Currently Feeling: Super relieved to have Mexico figured out.
Currently Anticipating: A crock pot dinner tonight with Bestie Amanda.
Currently Loving: Soy crisps with Laughing Cow cheese.
Lions and tigers and hairs, oh my!
Something has been bothering me for quite some time now… and while it might be a little too crass for some of you, I just have to bring it up.
It has to do with bushes. No, not George, although he’s bothered me for quite some time also. The bushes I’m talking about are approximately half a foot south of your bellybutton.
What I’d like to know is when it went from being socially acceptable to have a big, hairy bush to NOT being socially acceptable. Because I’m pretty sure the latter is much more the case now.
I think about this all the time when I’m at the gym. I try really, really hard to not pay attention, but most the time, the sizes of bushes in the locker room freak the shit out of me. Bestie Amanda and I were recently talking about this – there are women at the gym, sometimes even in as early as their 30s, with an embarrassingly amount of pubic hair, and I just.don’t.get.it. Are 20-somethings the only generation who are concerned with this? Do you become unconcerned as you get older? These ladies walk around, proud as hell, boobs flapping and four inches of puff. (One time, I caught a naked lady in front of the bathroom mirror, leaning over and washing her armpits. So not only was she showing her bush to all, but her boobs were flapping back and forth from the scrubbing momentum. It was slightly disturbing – end tangent.) I’m not all about the nakedness in the gym locker room. I tend to be a little bit more discreet. But if I did prance around naked, I wouldn’t be sporting a bush the size of the Tongass National Forest.
I can’t exactly place my finger on when I learned that trimming was expected; I just knew. Clearly, however, it wasn’t this way a short time ago. When, exactly, did society’s norm transition and how the hec did something like that come about? I mean, I’m sure you’ve all seen 80s porn movies, a big bush was popular back then! Is this similar to the fad of shrinking women? Like how in the 1800s it was popular to be all rotund and squishy, and now being bony and poky is popular? Are little girls going to start needing Brazilians at age 12?! (Or age 10, whatever it is now with all the hormones in meat).
The whole thing kinda grosses me out – and conversely, if you’re a guy. The same thing is expected. Let me let you in on a little secret – I’ve had countless conversations with women who were appalled that the new guy they were dating didn’t manscape. That’s right manscape.
Whatever planet you came from that taught you it was necessary for women to trim, but not men, is the same planet George Bush came from, and that era is OVER.
Bush IS out.
Instantly spend three times longer in the grocery store!
This past weekend I picked up “Eat This, Not That” after listening to all of my co-workers talk about it (I am easily coaxed onto bandwagons). As I move comfortably and sometimes awkwardly through my 20s, I am increasingly more concerned and aware with the food I buy. Everything in my pantry and lunchbox is low sugar, low calorie, whole wheat, high fiber, blah, blah, blah. It’s sorta funny because I don’t even blink on the weekends when pizza is ordered, and high-calorie lunches and dinners are consumed. I swear that 75% of the calories that make me a little squishy come from weekend drinking and eating, but I digress.
During the week, however, I’m usually straight as an arrow with my diet. What caught my interest with this particular “diet” book is that it dissects the labels, ingredients and misnomers in the grocery store. It compares items in every part of the store that you think are healthy vs. what really are healthy. ie: “Healthy” items to avoid. For instance, instead of eating Kellog’s Smart Start Strong Heart cereal (with more than 10 itemized sugars and sweeteners), you should eat Kashi’s Vive cereal. Or that some organic, light, or fat free yogurts contain as much sugar as a scoop of ice cream or Kit Kat. Or how to pick your butter, peanut butter and cheese. It even goes through snack isles, showing the better corn chip, the better cracker, the better hot dog (Kosher beef even beat out turkey!), the better cookie.
See, the food industry has caught on that it’s popular now for items to be healthy and organic, so they “trick” you with false labels, using “light,” “organic” and “healthy” whenever they can, but to keep the taste, they make up for decreased calories by increasing the amount of sugars and additives. “Eat This, Not That” breaks those labels down, dissects condiments and meat, and explains produce, and its nutritional breakdown. The book is fascinating stuff, I tell ya.
There’s only one slight side effect to reading about all of this… Last night I ventured to the grocery store for the first time after finishing the book, and I felt overwhelmed in every isle. Everything was claiming to be healthy, and I had to pick everything up, turn it over, compare ingredients and look for hidden items like “high fructose corn syrup.” I was in every section for a half hour, if not more. I’m pretty sure the people there who caught a glimpse of me picking items up, reading, picking them up again, comparing, thought I was nuts.
I explained the book to someone recently, and they said, “Yeah, but I hesitate and wonder if I really should be worrying about this because I grew up as a kid, eating Top Ramen and Mac n’ Cheese, and I’m fine!”
Good point, I guess. I suppose it’s all relative, and if that helps you feel better after consuming the entire box of Kraft Mac n’ Cheese (something I’m known to do on an occasional basis), then FAB-u-LOUS. But I know I feel slightly better watching the chemicals in my food, and if you do to, pick it up.
Currently Feeling: Motivated.
Currently Anticipating: A double date for TheatreSports with Bestie Amanda and her boy tomorrow night, and Super Bowl parties on Sunday!
Currently Needing: To swap out my fiction book right now, I’ve lost interest in “Saving Fish From Drowning,” so haven’t been reading…next is “Save Karyn” one of the books from my favorite blogger, Karyn Boznak at Pretty in the City.
I sat next to a Gold Digger
Yesterday morning, the guy sitting next to me on the bus was picking his nose.
Now, the city metro is never a normal place. You can, and must, expect the weirdest behavior ever…people screaming, ranting, talking to themselves, picking fights, half-clothed, drunk or smelly. My favorite is the people with multiple bags of garbage. The bus has to stop, take five minutes to drop the handicap platform and raise it back up, just so this person can pile their bags or wheel their cart of garbage onto the bus, and then ride the bus for four blocks in the ride free zone, only to start the whole platform rigmarole again.
But, this guy appeared to be “normal” by all of society’s standards. I am very picky about who I choose to sit next to every morning. I walk down the isle, shifting my eyes back and forth, scanning each person for the less-creepy looking seat partner. This particular guy appeared to be in his 20s, was neatly dressed and was reading The New York Times.
But the whole time, out of the corner of my eye, I could see him digging, then he’d drop his hand, and out of my peripheral vision, I’d watch him roll his fingers together and then kinda flick. Five minutes later he was back to digging.
Really? I mean, really. Do you really think that nobody – people in the back of the bus and people packed in the front – can see you picking your nose? Or do you just not care?
That is a total disregard of caring about what people think of you, which sometimes I wished I had 10% of.
Currently Feeling: Grateful for certain people.
Currently Anticipating: American’s Next Top Model and Project Runway.
Currently Loving: Having someone at home to talk to and watch TV with.
Curly Like Jessie Spano*
I am a curly headed woman.
I know, I know. You all have to peel yourselves off the floor in shock from reading that line.
BUT, as a curly headed woman, I’ve spent years, probably 1,000s of dollars and countless hours using, purchasing, researching and gathering recommendations for THE PERFECT CURL hair product. I’d like to think that I’m somewhat of an expert. In fact, the commission I made on hair product sales while working as a receptionist at a salon during college supported my college drinking habit.
So, it really just frosts my cookies when I see really great curl potential walking around in light-socket, mad-scientist frizz. Come on people – put some product on that head of hair of yours!!
That’s my thought of the day.
Currently Feeling: Like a fatty.
Currently Anticipating: “Dexter,” wine and boyfriend on the new couch tonight.
Currently Wishing: I was going to the Goldfrapp concert tonight at the Showbox. No money, there’s never any money!
