No tomatoes, please

Yeah, this as nothing to do with food. But I can’t get back to the important things in life until I tackle this first.

OK. So, since I moved to the Chapel on the Hill permanently, I was hoping that I would write in my blog on a regular-enough basis for it to be entertaining. Unfortunately, I have been caught up in this horrible cabin fever/lack of motivation/horrible depression/even more horrible anxiety/low self-esteem spiral, and have had no motivation to do anything but sleep late, watch Maury and take naps while simultaneously trying not to cry all day and remember to take the dog out so the doesn’t piss on my rug.

Yeah, I’m crazy. But only a little. And it comes in waves. Unfortunately, a bad wave was coming and I attempted to stave it off by taking the semester off and going home to Charlotte to rest and recoup, but then my life kind of completely imploded and changed in crazy ways that would leave most people a trembling bundle of nerves and tears.

So, in an attempt to make myself feel better and not sabotage my relationship with anxiety and craziness, I’m gonna pull myself up by my damn Birkenstock flip-flop straps and be happy. I’m not gonna let this bullshit win and ruin my life. And the first thing I’m gonna go is make a list of reasons why I am totally awesome and deserving of amazing, wonderful lovely things and happiness and feelings and LOVE. This will stay here for me to look at and add on to periodically. If you have any other ideas, let me know. So here goes:

• I love that I put together my ikea queen-sized bed in 45 freakin minutes with only a screwdriver and picture-only instructions. And that I can put together any desk, table, bookcase or chair you put in front of me.
• I love that I look good with no make-up and in jeans and a v-neck t-shirt, but when I decide to do it up right and wear make-up for a special occasion, I look so super bangin’ and beautiful that it blows everyone away.
• I love that I have awesome taste in movies and can thoughtfully dissect and discuss any movie I see. And put it on paper for money, bitches.
• I love that I can bake cakes, rolls, bread, souffles, pies, baklavas and myriad other fancy pastries and also scramble an egg or boil pasta and cook pretty much anything I feel like without fear of failure (if only I could extend that to other aspects of my life).
• I love that I can actually truly succeed at anything I set my mind to. The problem is setting my mind to something besides wallowing in sadness.
• I love my ass. Not gonna lie, it’s really amazing. And no one believes me until they get a nice good look and I wear my yoga pants, and they’re like, damn. I also love my eyes, my lips, my hair, my ears, my calves, my feet and my little lady stomach pooch. Yeah, I like it. It means I’m soft and lady-like. And awesome.
• I love that I can answer at least half of the questions on Jeopardy! every night without even really paying attention.
• I love that I can totally rap along to Kanye West songs and do a not terrible job. Seriously, I totally got “Gold Digger.”
• I love that I can do shots of whiskey like a dude and not complain about it.
• I love that I know how to knit and iron and do dishes and hang a picture and use a drill and check my oil.
• I love that I can knock out an awesome 10-page paper the night before it’s due, and that I can help friends do the same thing.
• I love that I obsessively buy books. I love that I’m surrounded by books that I love or would love, if I ever got around to reading them.
• I love that I can do the Monday crossword in about 15 minutes. And that I can get at least some of the clues on the Sunday crossword.
• I love that I know a lot about clothes and shoes and purses and cars and feminism.
• I love that I can sing opera.
• I love that I loathe “Grey’s Anatomy,” like “Sex and the City,” and love “How It’s Made.”
• I love that I don’t complain about how fat I am around others or feel the need to eat a salad (or worse, nothing) in front of a dude.
• I love that I’m horribly clumsy and drop things and cut myself and poke myself in the eye, and that I can walk in high heels.
• I love that I love anything on VH1 Classic that has anything to do with heavy metal.
• I love that I’ve never done anything more hardcore than alcohol and a few puffs of a clove cigarette. (But I still love you if you do other stuff. Just don’t make me do it.)
• I love that I’m not high maintenance and that I can just hang, or chill, or be cool.
• I love that I could probably still beat you with a stick (or large piece of metal, either way) even though I haven’t fenced in years.
• I love that I can make really awesome pool shots.
• I love that I can string words together in an awesome manner that lend a gravity to my thoughts and feelings that others find humorous and interesting and can relate to.
• I love that I can use big words. And would probably win at Scrabble if I weren’t playing my mom. Or if it didn’t make me want to claw my eyeballs out.
• I love that I’m completely awkward and can’t dance at all, but I’m totally willing to let you teach me anyway.
• I love my sense of humor. I love that I make people laugh, heartily and in large numbers. I love that I can parlay my horrible awkwardness into funny, and that I’m cool with people laughing at me. As long as I’m laughing too.

Ok, whew, that’s a lot to love. Hopefully this can get me through. Hopefully anyone out there loves these things too!

So last time I wrote about drinkin’, I was not yet of the legal age to drink. Now I’ve been 21 for more than a month, and let me tell ya, it is seriously awesome. I really didn’t think it would be that much different, since I can pretty much drink any time anyhow. I mean, I’m in college, let’s face it, if I really wanna get drunk, I can find a way to drink. But the moment I turned 21 (literally, I went to a bar and started drinkin at midnight) I really realized the awesomeness that comes with being able to go somewhere, order a drink, and punch the bartender in the face with your smugness when they all wanna see your license. So, in celebration of being 21, I’m sharing with you guys my most favoritest drink recipe ever ever ever. I’ve always tried mixed drinks that my mom has ordered, and usually they’re way too alcoholic-tasting for me. I can’t stand vodka (the usual base of such frilly drinks), and all I can taste is usually the flavor of rubbing alcohol when I drink other mixed drinks. So, this lovely recipe is for a daiquiri, but not the gross frozen mixed kind with strawberries and myriad other ingredients reminiscent of drunken 40-year-old Jimmy Buffett fans in Pensacola. This is the real thing, which was apparently invented in 1905 in Cuba — way before frozen drink machines existed. It’s basically sugar, lime juice and rum, and it’s freakin awesome. I add a few more ingredients to give it some color, and make it more awesome, so here’s the recipe:You’re gonna need a cocktail shaker, or just one of those large metal cups they use and a tumbler to put on top. I also use a cocktail strainer because it makes it easier to pour into the glass. So fill the metal shaker with ice and add the following:

• 1 1/2 oz. Rum (preferable Bacardi, definitely the clear kind, not the dark kind or that stupid spiced jive)
• 1 1/2 oz Sugar Syrup (equal parts sugar and water, boiled until the sugar dissolves and cooled)
• 1 oz freshly squezed lime juice (it’s not that much effort to squeeze a damn lime. Don’t use the bottled kind)
• 1 oz Whisky sour mix (in the drink aisle next to the ginger ale and bloody mary mix
• 1 oz Roses’s Sweetened Lime Juice (adds a little more sweetness and color. Probably sitting on the shelf next to the sour mix)

Mix all together in the shaker, pour into a martini glass, top off with a cherry with a stem and drink up. These things taste like candy, and will get you sauced in like, 2 seconds. I drank the one I made to take pictures of at like, 2:30 in the afternoon, and halfway through, I kinda thought it was a good idea to take my shirt off. So be careful with these. 

 In eight days I will be legally able to walk into an ABC store, buy the largest bottle of the hardest liquor I can find, and laugh in the face of the clerk who dares test the legality of my purchase. Because, yeah, I’ll be 21. And even though I’ll look like I’m 15 until I die, I can totally smack every waiter, bartender, grocery store cashier and the like in the face with my awesome twenty-one-ness.

God I can’t wait. I’m gonna make all those crazy drinks like I’ve always wanted to try, but don’t have the alcohol in the house to make. Like a vodka gimlet. Or a sidecar. What’s that? I dunno, but it’s probably awesome. I apparently have the magical power to mix amazazing drinks (I know this because I have worked many a nighttime catering in private residences, where old people get super drunk, and therefore do not feel the need to ID me before I give them their 6th drink), so I shall be so putting my mutant power to good use. Happy birthday to me!