How to cure a sunburn overnight!

Ok, ok. I swear the post with the playboy bunny and the medical cannabis chocolate is next. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to write about another attempt to heal thyself. This was Tuesday night, and this is what I look like on the couch:












You like that shirtless pic, don't you, you perv. Hey guess what. That's not a racerback tank I'm wearing, that's a sunburn. Looks good, eh? Oh, and that thing on my foot? That's an ice pack for a yet-to-be-diagnosed foot problem, which I'm pretty sure (based on WebMd, of course) is a stress fracture. Awesommmmmme.

I hate sunburns. I can't imagine that anyone actually enjoys them, but they are pretty high up there with annoyingly stupid things that you could have avoided. Like most of my injuries, they are dumb and predictable. Once, when I was a lifeguard and was in the intense summer sun from 9am to 6pm every day without break, sitting in front of a shimmering pool, I was so tan I looked gross, similar to a 40 year old woman with chubby 16 year old cheeks. Then I burned, but only right at my hairline, so when that peeled it was pink. I had a neopolitan head that was so horribly disfiguring only my straw cowboy hat could save me (OMG so many mistakes all in one summer). I also once burned the letters "T O M" onto my stomach with strategically placed sunscreen, which was awful because it hurt so much I couldn't sleep with any covers on for a week. Plus I looked like an idiot until November. I never had a chance with Tom, so even though he found out about it it's not like that was a big loss. Ahhh. To be thirteen again.

Anyway, I've really embraced being super white in the past few years. I mean, not really. I, too, think it looks horrible to be ghostly pale all through the summer but my hypocritical dad (yes, the one with the beautiful, deeply-tanned man calves come August) has basically beaten into us that we WILL get cancer from the sun if we dare to go outside without block. This attitude, like most decisions you know are good for you but make you pretty square, means that you can't allow others to enjoy being tan, either. I can't be running around with lobster-red wings for the next several days, because I am WAY too self-righteous about sunscreen and sunburns to let anyone see me like this.

So what do we do when we have a problem? GOOGLE IT! Fortunately I had some aloe on hand from an aloe juice cleanse that I couldn't handle. (How the fuck does Izzie drink that shit? If you want her recipe for a sure-fire way to shit your pants, here it is: peel a giant piece of aloe vera, blend it with some lemon juice and water, then try to not gag as you drink it, if you can even get to the point of it going back to your throat without spitting it out. Horrible. Literally the worst thing I've ever had in  my mouse.) Anyway, so I had my lovely bedside man-nurse, Benjamin, rub a little fresh aloe on me, which of course did not yield immediate redness relief within 5 minutes, so I turned to the internet, the source of all divine answers to important questions (i.e. "signs he's a douche").  

Well, oh, well! (I just heard that in Nate's voice that he uses for the dog). It seems my good buddy HONEY came up as a solution! If you're not familiar with what happened last time I tried a homeopathic remedy with honey, go here. That went pretty terribly, but it's been awhile since I tried to cure myself and now appears to be a good time to try, try again. It seems that if I just rub a little honey and coconut oil on my back, I'll be sitting pretty come tomorrow morning. See this blog for the amazing testimonials. I feel like everyone thinks I'm pretty, oh what's the word...gullible, but seriously, how could you not believe it? Coconuts grow in tropical places. People in tropical places are in the sun a lot and must need a sunburn solution. According to honey, honey cures everything. Ben said it's a bad idea, but I think it's going to work out really well.

Right. So here's what happened. Turns out that when Ben dutifully covered my back with honey and coconut oil, it made everything really sticky. Really, really sticky. And oily. I'm wearing one of his t-shirts so I don't get mine all gross (he loves that!). So now, instead of just feeling like I have satan's fire billowing hot air onto my back, Ben's shirt is stuck to me and my skin feels like it's peeling off. Super. Thanks a fucking lot, Google! What are you going to tell me next, to get an x-ray on my foot? "Consult a physician"? Screw you. I go to bed and fire up a few minutes of Game of Thrones, just to soothe my tired soul before drifting into a fitful sleep.

Morning.

Lindsay and I used to spend a LOT of time at the Country Club pool in the summers. I think most kids, given the option of swimming in a pool for five hours or being at home watching Young and the Restless with their mom or Mormon babysitter, will gladly hang at a pool and order milkshakes all day long. I got into this thing where I would take a spare towel, sneak it into the pool with me, then pretend to ride it underwater like a magic carpet. Imagine being the lifeguard watching that...I don't know why no one stopped me. Wasn't anyone concerned about this towel getting wrapped around my body and dragging me to the depths of the pool, where my hand would get caught in the drain and I would drown and be featured on that hit show, Emergency 911 Calls? I could play the magic carpet self-entertainment game for HOURS. I got super sunburned every time, and that in conjunction with holding my breath for really long periods of time while I was "flying" would leave me so exhausted that I would pass out within fifteen minutes of being home. I was THAT tired yesterday, my skin being unused to any kind of sun radiation, and I'm pretty sure that's what conjured up a weird-ass dream. Anyway, I digress.

I awaken in anticipation after an insane dream involving Ben, Katelin, and a double decker bike that I built myself. Ben was a real creep in this dream, and I actually saved Katelin until I started driving on a highway in Portland going the wrong way. Oops! I realise I might have experienced heat stroke as well. I pull up the shirt and reveal softly-scented coconut butter-smooth skin...which still looks radioactive red. Exciting. I would say that it had 0% to -5% effect. Upon further internet research it appears that putting oil on a burn is considered by some to be a terrible idea, similar to throwing grease onto a fire. I'm not sure what the honey was supposed to do but I can assure you that Ben's shirt is now crunchy like it has some kind of unmentionable body fluid on it.

My rating of this internet-found remedy? -2 stars. Zero for the ineffectiveness, minus one for the false testimonials, and minus one for the ugly pink website that it comes from.

Disappointment stings, and so do my shoulders.

A Fool's Paradise

This is a little different than the usual post on this blog. Lest you worry that this is suddenly going to be all serious or, even worse, heartfelt, I have been working on a piece involving a piece of medicinal marijuana chocolate, a corduroy couch, and a playboy playmate. What can I say? This is my life.

I have at least three notebooks going at any one time. They are supposed to be for different things, but it all gets messed up when I have only one and I'm working on project A which is supposed to go in a different notebook but I need to write stuff down even though it's in notebook B...you get the idea. I was foraging through one of my older notebooks that I mostly used during my brief stint as a New York resident and chanced upon something that someone might find useful. Actually useful (though if anyone has taken anything from this blog thus far, I hope that it is to never try and wax your own asshole). The pages before this are filled with appointments, companies to which I should submit applications/resumes, grocery lists, and lots of other Things I Should Do. Bah! You know how I feel about those things. If a list on your hand isn't good enough, then you have too much stuff going on.

Everyone says that your mid-twenties are a time of great personal growth and blah blah blah. As if I would listen to that crap. Turns out that most of the time, the older people in our lives are wiser (don't tell Carol I admitted to that). The past two years of life have taught me a lot about, well, life. And isn't that what life is really all about? Here is the little blurb that I found. Maybe you'll find it inspiring or useful or take away something, but if not, then call me an idiot and move on with your day.

September 29, 2011

Your cheesecake cannot seduce me, New York.

Let's discuss expectations. I have pretty big expectations for my life, my family, my friends, and myself. I have never thought they were unrealistic until I realized that I have been consistently disappointed in something for most of the past ten years. Ten years! That's more than a third of my life that I have spent feeling shitty about things I can't control. Relationships haven't been perfect, people run late, I fuck something big or small up, and something constantly needs improvement. Get better, get faster, get stronger, get healthier, get more. Get get get. Take take take.

Did I mention that for the better part of a decade I have been exhausted? Really, truly, exhausted and annoyed with just about everything. We aren't talking about exhaustion in the "I just spent all day outside in the sun, working the garden, or feeling the breeze on my back as I zoom around on my bike all day" kind of exhaustion. I'm talking about the bad kind that leads to ulcers and dissatisfaction and acne. Or bacne. High blood pressure and just pressure in general. This is the stuff that leads people to kill themselves.

In moving from Washington to New York, I claimed - and somehow believed - that I had no expectations of the experience. I even told that to my therapist (oh what a fool's paradise we live in in the mind). In retrospect, I see how delusional I have been. I thought I was running to a life I had always wanted and away from one I was scared of. Truthfully, staying in my prior circumstance would have led to a long road of unhappiness. No matter how much you love something you have to be free in your mind, otherwise you will constantly look for freedom outside of yourself. I honestly forgot to look at life (LIFE! How can you forget about life?) and instead focused on this fantasy that I have somehow outgrown before I even touched down at Newark.

When do we become the people we thought we would be? When do we become the people we really are?

I have values that I never thought I would and I've lost touch with so many along the way. My disillusionment with life has been in code purple, or red, or sunshine yellow, or whatever the TSA has deemed as the worst. The more people I meet, books I read, discussions I have and ultimately, find a way to lead with my heart, the less I want the life I have spent so long trying to cultivate. You know that time I told so-and-so I was adopted from New York? I must have been seven or eight. We were sitting on the porch of the Walla Walla Country Club and I was already consumed with "making something of myself". It's really fucking exhausting to worry about how you're going to prove your worth to the world.

New York is awful and I can't stand to be around this many blind, aimless people chasing goals and careers and love. New York is wonderful because without being here, I would have never understood just what a shitty path I've been on. The world we see is the reflection of our souls.

I guess the most important thing I have learned along the way is that life is a choice. Be who you are instead of who you think you should be. Live how you actually need to live. Be honest with yourself. Stop pushing and fighting so much. Give up control, get lost, wander, cry, talk to strangers, and soak it up. Give up expectations and just let it happen.

Live like you are living.

Vegan-ish

It's no secret that I eat a lot of weird shit. Friends at work in Seattle and New York commented daily about the concoctions I would pull out of the microwave, usually involving some mixture of kale/spinach, TJ's masala burger patty, 5 tomatoes, and beans. Throughout the year, that menu changed to just eating 10 tomatoes on a plate or just a bowl of beans. My eating habits have evolved as I've become more compulsive in my advancing age. As a kid, I used to adore school lunches, even the ones that every rational child thought were disgusting. Cheese Zombies? Check. Zippy Dog? Of course. "Soft Tacos" made of horse meat? Give me seconds. For after school snacks I used to beg my mom to take me to Dairy Queen and get me a chili dog or the #2 meal from McDonalds. Eating well, a term that has changed from quantity to quality throughout the years, has always been valued in the Morgan household.

All throughout college and for some time after, I was a fish-eating vegetarian. You can still eat a whole lot of disgusting stuff as a vegetarian, dairy being the main culprit of an unhealthy vegetarian lifestyle. Look at the menu at the next standard restaurant you go to. If you don't eat meat, I can guarantee that there will only be two choices: some kind of salad with cheese and nuts, and either butternut squash ravioli OR some kind of cheese and cream covered pasta. Dairy is the crutch of the vegetarian world. Once I moved for grad school and started living with Shawnz, a Chinese dude from Singapore, and Soraya, a Thai girl, I decided this whole "vegetarian" thing would have to go. As they led me through the underbelly of the London East Asian food scene, I found that pretty much all of the food I had been ever been exposed to was bland by comparison. Bland and disappointingly inauthentic. This is where I developed a true love for offal, odd cuts of meat, and shellfish in varying stages of rotted, pickled, or dried. Clearly, I've had a real love affair with food my entire life.

Recently, though, because of my yoga practice and escalating compulsions regarding food, health, and politics, I have become vegan-ish. Vegan-ish essentially means that I'm incredibly picky and annoying to eat with or prepare food for, as almost everything delicious that my family knows how to make and nearly all of the best authentic Thai, Singaporean, Indian, and French food is meat or dairy laden. That's disappointing to me, but not unworkable. Listen, I can't help that my family has a history of high cholesterol. Why waste your time on boneless-skiness chicken breasts when you can eat something with some real flavor? This is my philosophy, and I'm sticking to it. Let me show you my food pyramid, and you'll see where I make the exception between vegan and vegan-ish.

I think it seems perfectly reasonable. You?

Also, if anyone is in the market for a true gift that will keep on giving...this Paté of the Month Club is perfect for me.

15 More Signs He's a Douchebag (With Visuals!)

One source of continual amazement to me is how people end up reading my blog. I don't have facebook or twitter, so the fact that I have had a pretty good amount of hits on my blog is pretty surprising. The traffic, it seems, comes mostly from one of life's biggest questions:

How to tell if he is a douchbag.

I stand by my original theory (found on this post) that if you have resorted to a google search to determine if someone has a pretty major character flaw, you are in a really desperate place in your life. Or you're not very good at listening to your gut, friends, parents, bodega owner, or therapist. Look at these stats, taken directly from this blog's statistics page.

Traffic Sources : Key Search

signs he's a douchebag 5306

signs of a douchebag    2953

signs he is a douchebag  893

how to know he's a douche  421

he is a douche  399

signs he's a douche  237

unfit to advise  224

douchebag signs  202

signs he is a douche  116

signs of a douche 97

A whopping 97% of top traffic on this site has something to do with people searching for answers about their douchebag boyfriend. Over ten thousand people have searched about douchebags and have ended up on this page in the last 15 months. You've got to be fucking kidding me.

I am going to make this as clear as I possibly can for you, so let's work with some visuals.

If he takes FB pictures of himself like this:



If he wears anything remotely like this:



Pays someone for this more than once every five years:

Styles his hair like this:




Or possibly this:

Enjoys beverages anywhere in this realm:





Ever, EVER poses like this for a picture:




Continues to wear this:

 



and this:




thinks this combo is great:





thinks this guy is "the shit":

 


makes you feel like you have to look like this:

has ever done this:



confuses having this with having done something good in life:

And finally, addresses anyone as "bro" or "boss" and/or uses the word "gnar", which means he is probably wearing something like this:


and this:

He is a douchebag.

I hope this helps.

Adventures from the Public Library

Tough economic times have led to many people still filing for unemployment, searching for their "true passion" in life, holding out for management positions, and generally wasting time. I, too, have spent time unemployed. One might say I might be characterised as unemployed right now, except that in the art world we call it "working remotely".

You might be surprised to learn that I have become a student of humanity. I liken myself to Darwin, both in importance and the belief that my theories should be the foundation of important scientific studies. I am one who truly enjoys the differences between each of us, revels in heterogeneity, and finds joy in the uniqueness in all of us. This applies to burritos as well. These are my field notes of the library-dwelling species most common in the northern hemisphere.

1. The Tapper (Tappus Annoyass Humanus)

SNIFF SNORT RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TIPPETY TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP SNIFF GRUNT SNORT SNORT TAP TAP RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TAP SNIFF SNIFF RUSTLE TAP RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TIPPETY TIPPETY TAP TIPPETY TAP TAP TAP TAP RUSTLE GRUNT SNIFF SNORT RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TIPPETY TAP TAP COUGH TAP TAP TAP TAP SNIFF GRUNT SNORT SNORT TAP TAP RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TAP SNIFF SNIFF RUSTLE TAP RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TIPPETY TIPPETY TAP TIPPETY TAP TAP TAP TAP RUSTLE GRUNT SNIFF SNORT RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TIPPETY TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP SNIFF GRUNT SNORT SNORT TAP TAP RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TAP SNIFF COUGH COUGH SNIFF RUSTLE TAP RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TIPPETY TIPPETY TAP TIPPETY TAP TAP TAP TAP RUSTLE GRUNT SNIFF SNORT RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TIPPETY TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP SNIFF GRUNT SNORT SNORT TAP TAP RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TAP SNIFF SNIFF RUSTLE TAP RUSTLE RUSTLE TAP TAP TIPPETY TIPPETY TAP TIPPETY TAP TAP TAP TAP RUSTLE GRUNT

2. The Picker/flicker (Ickus Boogaris Humanus)

I can see you, you know. When you sit down across from me, even though I’m looking at my computer and typing doesn’t mean I can’t see your hands move up to your face, your short little fingers indelicately foraging for the lost treasure your nose hides, your arm reaching back to flick said treasure away from your seat onto the floor behind you. You’re nasty, and yes, I’m staring at you with a bitchy look because I saw you do that, and you should know.

3. The Spreader (Lotsastuffus Humanus)

These people suffer from an affliction known as P.S.S. (paper spreading syndrome), commonly referred to as Carol Morgan Disease. This is, perhaps, the most irritating to me because I tend to be overly sensitive about the equal division of shared public space (fatty on the southwest airlines taking up 1.5 seats, I’m also talking about you, but not directly in this post). Let’s lay it out for you: you have exactly the space that the arms of your chair dictates, and halfway across the table. Not ALL the way across the table, not two chairs worth of width, but exactly what any rational person would assume they can use. As a note, you don’t need to bring your mini laptop, normal laptop, notebook, and two different pens to the library. I know you just came here to check facebook and/or get away from your roommates.




4. The Tortured "Artist" (Unemploydus Humanus)

for reals. I’m just wasting the day away, too, so you don’t have to pretend like you’re doing anything other than looking at people.com or comparing molasses types online. Don’t act like you’re struggling with your novel, invariably the next piece of great American literature. I know you’re typing asjkdnfaphiwenjklasnc;awef over and over and sighing as an act.

5. The Headphone Jackass (Unawarus Assholus Humanus)

Yup. I have earbuds, too, and the whole point of having them is that you can listen to whatever you want without everyone else around you also hearing it. Whichever companies make those shitty headphones where you can hear the sweet beats of your neighbor should be shut down with the designers locked inside the factory while it is set on fire. The point is that if I wanted to listen to music, I wouldn’t have come to a library and sat down sans my own earphones, planning to listen to yours.

6. The Raging Homeless (Vagrantus Crazus Humanus)

Dude. You’re homeless, not enlightened. You smell like piss, you look awful, and you are mumbling something incoherent. We all know your homeless. Oh look! The cross eyed-mentally retarded woman is your friend, that’s sweet…and oh! My goodness! There’s another ragamuffin you’ve met in the stacks! No no, don’t worry about us, those here to sit in relative quiet and have a space to work. This is YOUR personal space, you talk about the injustices of the world just as much and as loudly as you like.

7. The Lovebirds (Getaroomus Youngus Humanus)

NO ONE CARES THAT YOU ARE YOUNG AND "IN LOVE". I don’t want to see your physical expressions of love, so take it some place more private, like the subway. Trust me, I understand that you have limited space in your home, but you may as well get your rent money’s worth and take it on inside. Giggling is particularly annoying as well.