Day 91

BLONDE THINGS THAT ROCK: BLONDIE BROWNIES

I have never made blondies, but I have certainly enjoyed them. They are like brownies in texture and composition, except they are brown sugar and molasses-flavored instead of chocolate.

I’m not sure why I’ve never made them, because I try to make everything from scratch at least once. I made pretzels with my grandma once at her apartment. They are similar to bagels, insofar as you have to boil them in salt water to get that shiny, chewy skin. I’ve made bagels, too. And meatballs. And pies and cakes and cookies and lasagna and soup and …. The list goes on. I think this all goes back to my love of figuring stuff out. I like to make things because I like to figure out how they are made. I’ve never admitted this before, but there is a show on the Science Channel (did you know this channel exists? I didn’t until I discovered it… “I claim this channel in the name of Blonde-landia…”) called “How it’s Made.” I have been sucked into hours of this show. I think I find it soothing to watch machines fold paper into envelops. Or a weird-looking lady hand weave a hammock. Or watch candy be dipped in chocolate. I think it helps me de-stress because it’s as if everything is right with the world. The machines are working properly and I am learning how car batteries are made. Nothing could be more perfect.

That was kind of off point, but you get the idea. It’s weird that I’ve never made blondies when they are so delicious and awesome. It’s all in the name (much to Juliet’s dismay – perhaps a blondie by any other name would NOT taste as sweet).

Today gets 3 Barbie Warhols:

Day 90

It has only been 3 months, but it feels like I’ve been BLONDE for a lifetime. Is that because I am living my life more to the fullest (and does this statement even remotely make sense)? One thing that I think I have noticed is that people like ME more. I’m not sure if they are less intimidated by the BLONDE, or if I am just becoming myself more (again, I’m not sure if this sentence makes sense, but it makes sense in my head, so fuck you). It’s all subjective, as are most of the observations I have made thus far, but this blog is about MY BLONDE YEAR, so I don’t fucking care if you like it (Amy Poehler, you’re my hero).

It was a difficult day at work, so I am de-stressing with a beer while watching Heathers. That movie is one of my favorites and it is so endlessly quotable. “Real life sucks losers dry. You want to fuck with the eagles, you have to learn to fly.” That’s just AMAZING and perfectly over the top. And the blondes in this movie are so perfectly BITCHY! “What’s your damage, Heather?!”

I really like it when Veronica explains to J.D. “No, my life’s not perfect. I don’t really like my friends… Well, it’s just like – they’re people I work with, and our job is being popular and shit.” Sometimes I know EXACTLY what she means. Not necessarily with my friends or whatever, but how certain situations can feel like work, or how obligations can enslave you. Sometimes maintaining the status quo is easier than going against the system. I guess that’s why drastic change is so slow; we can’t find the proper impetus to make us buck the system.

This movie also makes me want to play croquet and wear giant scrunchies with bright-colored tights. It also takes place in Ohio, which is a plus. It also still kind of holds up, considering is it almost 25 years old. “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw!”

Today gets 3 BBQ Corn Nuts Barbie Warhols:

Day 89

I have been dwelling on this whole height thing for 2 whole days now. It’s not healthy. My hives are going to come back! I was in the shower; the place where most of my epiphanies happen (geez, that sounds dirty), and I think that finding out my height has changed is the same as my self-imposed hair color change. The variable in this scenario is that I did not choose to be shorter. It is a physical attribute that has changed, but has no bearing (or shouldn’t) on me as a person. My physical self is separate from my personality and who I am really (I was going to write “who I am inside,” but that seems too much like a lyric from a Disney movie or something). This is kind of yet another twist on my yearlong search for self-confidence, self-awareness, and BLONDE-ness.

On another note, I’d like to bring back a segment I like to call:

DR. BLONDIE’S WEIRD DREAM ANALYSIS

I have been having this strange recurring dream for probably about the last 10 years of my life. I’m approximately 12 year old and the entire dream is my point of view. I’m at the grocery store with my mom and my grandma, like we used to do almost every Saturday when I was young (in real life, I would help my grandma pick out groceries and she taught me how to tell when fruit is ripe - sometimes you have to knock on the cantaloupe, etc). In the dream I am pushing a cart and my grandma is pushing a cart. Somehow I know my mom is at the service desk getting my grandma taxi tokens. My grandma is picking out tomatoes and she asks me to go get the milk. I don’t recall her saying this to me, it’s almost as if she communicates it to me telepathically.

I wander over to a display of milk. They are in gallon and half-gallon jugs and they are on ice in a display just like fruit. They are stacked and arranged just as though they were apples. I pick up a gallon and I see something dark floating inside. I put it back in the ice. I pick up another one and it has something dark floating in it, too. I pick up a half-gallon jug and it has something in it and I turn the jug around and see a baby’s head. This is not a baby doll head, but a real, human, dead baby head. I freak out, screaming and drop the jug on the floor and everyone in the grocery store is staring at me. The jug bursts open as it hits the floor and the milk goes everywhere and there are streaks of blood in it. My grandma comes over and looks at me like I’m crazy and that baby parts in the milk is normal.

Sometimes the dream ends there, sometimes my mom or my grandma say things like “that’s the sign of good milk,” or “that’s how you know it’s time.” It’s all very creepy and disturbing. This is the primary reason I stopped drinking milk.

This dream has a much deeper meaning, not only because I’ve had it more times than I can count, but because of the strong symbolism contained within. Here are my thoughts:

1. The fact the both my mother and my grandmother are in the dream leads me to believe that this dream is about my feelings about motherhood.

2. The babies in the milk is very maternal. Babies live on their mother’s milk.

3. In the dream, I am disturbed by the babies in the milk, but no one else is. This must me that my ideals of motherhood do not adhere to society’s standards.

4. We’re in the grocery store, doing the weekly shopping, which is traditionally a woman’s role (if this is circa 1940).

5. The milk is on display because my internal clock is trying to tell me to have babies.

6. I had this dream last night because of my fear that my shrinking has to do with a lack of calcium.

So there you have it. Dr. Blondie does it again. It’s about babies and shit again, but tell me that dream isn’t ROYALLY FUCKED UP. It’s like a horror movie. It has forced me to change my milk-consumption habits.

Today gets 3 Barbie Warhols:

Day 88

Today was pretty terrible. It was okay as far as Mondays go, but not great overall. Everything I tried to accomplish at work today was thwarted by something. I didn’t have a driver installed for the printer that I needed to actually print to. I did something for someone that wasn’t actually necessary. I spent 2 hours working off the wrong version of a document. Needless to say, today was just the pits (is it 1955? Because I’m positive that people haven’t used that expression since the Eisenhower administration).

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, I’m living with the horrible truth that I’m not what I thought I was. Yesterday, much to my dismay, I found out that I’m only 5’8. This revelation fills me with mixed emotions. I am terrified because this means that my body mass index math is completely off and I may actually be really fat. However, this also means that my chances of landing a fellow taller than me just got much more realistic. BUT WHAT HAPPENED?!?!?! HOW DID I SHRINK?

I feel like I’m Lily Tomlin from The Incredible Shrinking Woman, but I doubt that anyone reading this actually remembers that movie. She was a brunette, so I can’t really make any sort of correlation between being BLONDE and shrinking, but considering that I’m basing this solely on the casting of a 30-year-old movie, I guess there is some wiggle room in my theory. The BLONDE could have caused me to shrink. The Incredible Shrinking Woman was exposed to chemicals or something to make her shrink, so perhaps the various bleaches, toners, and conditioners that I’ve put on my head have absorbed into the follicles and into my skin and bloodstream and have made me into some (hopefully cooler) version of Ant-Man. Somehow I doubt it.

I have also considered that my bone density may be lacking. That’s a thing, right? Perhaps my bones are getting smaller. I don’t drink milk because I think it’s weird that we’re adult mammals who consume milk of another mammal. It’s just gross. I have also considered my posture. I have terrible posture, but this has always been true. Perhaps years of poor posture has made me shorter. What if I have early-onset osteoporosis? Is that a thing? I’m not really too concerns about this, but it is alarming to realize that you’re GETTING SHORTER. Mostly, when you’re a kid, you’re excited to discover that you’re taller. It’s like a physical signifier that time is passing and your life is progressing. WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS MEAN? I may need to track down a medieval rack. Maybe I’ll check craigslist.

Today gets 1 sad, short, shrinking Barbie Warhol:

Day 86

WARNING: I’m going to talk about vaginas. Mostly my vagina, but I’m going to generalize as much as possible, for your gentle minds. It will probably be like “The Vagina Monologues” minus the wit and bad-assery of Eve Ensler.

I had to get a pap smear today. Because of my awesome job as a freelancing bad-ass, I don’t have health insurance. It totally blows and I might be eligible for ObamaCare, but I have yet to have a chance to properly investigate (instead I write blog posts and watch HBO a lot). So, for now, I’m paying out the wazoo for prescriptions, etc. (And please don’t tell me I can get individual insurance, I can’t. I’ve been rejected more times than a geek trying to get to 1^st base with a cheerleader (I like to stereotype)).

So what this all means is that instead of going to my regular gynecologist in Insurance Land (where I would probably end up paying hundreds of dollars for someone to get to 3^rd base – hey, shouldn’t they be paying me for this?), I went to a walk-in clinic. I had been there before, so it wasn’t completely foreign terrain, but I certainly didn’t have someone swab my hoo-haw last time. I do like this walk-in clinic. They don’t take insurance, so it’s like a big “FUCK YOU” to people who have insurance and somehow, this makes me feel better about my situation. Their prices are reasonable and their facility is clean. They have a free parking lot. The odd thing is that the 2^nd floor is a medical marijuana dispensary, which I guess makes sense since it is “medical” marijuana. The waiting room smells like pot, which is weird, but also oddly comforting. You get to watch the EXTREMELY varied clientele who go upstairs to this establishment. I’m talking business-looking people; gangbangers (can I say that without sounding racist?); elderly, feeble-looking ladies; young, over-tanned hotties; and dudes who have SpongeBob SquarePants boxers hanging out of their pants.

Anyway, so another plus for this place is they don’t weigh you. They have a scale, but they just asked me my height and weight. This is a major plus when you’re as self-conscious enough about your weight as I am, not to mention those medical scales have had it out for my self-esteem from day one. They always say you’re 5 to 10 pounds heavier than your scale at home. So did I lie about my weight? No, I implemented the standard for all women- you deduct at least 10 pounds whenever you tell someone your weight.

So I finally get in a room and I see the tray of apparatuses that they are going to stick in my nethers. I kind of start to feel like this is a circus freak show and our gimmick is “Let’s see how much stuff we can put in this chick’s vagina.” You always hear horror stories about the cold, metal duck lips, but the speculum was plastic and I had a very nice physician’s assistant get to 3^rd base. She was very professional and polite and laughed at my jokes. All in all, it was a pretty great first date. Normally I like to have dinner and movie, maybe some over-the-clothes action, but this girl went straight for the gold. I am kicking myself for not taking advantage of the situation and making some curtains/carpet jokes. I hate missed opportunities for inappropriate jokes!!

The whole scenario is awkward. Men complain and joke about the whole “turn and cough” hernia test, but I think this is far worse. It’s also REALLY not fair that people are more comfortable talking about penises than they are vaginas. Why did I have to put a warning at the beginning of this post? Is it because society has taught me that vaginas are secret or something? Well, I have a vagina and I take care of it, even if doing so involves a complete stranger and a q-tip. Deal with it, world. I’m going to talk about vaginas as much as I want to and you’re going to have to just fucking get over it. I’m BLONDE and a FEMINIST with a VAGINA.

Today gets 5 Barbie Warhols:

Day 85

I've always marched to the beat of my own drum... or built my own sandcastles as it were...

I’m not sure what it is about today, but I really do live an amazing life. I am very lucky. Today I was looking back on my life and, granted, I’m only 26, but I’ve done a lot of random stuff. In 4^th grade I won an illustration contest for the local hospital. I even remember the weird mauve dress I was wearing (it was one of those 90s floral numbers that’s a sundress with a t-shirt sewn underneath it). My parents gave me a (used, rebuilt) car for my high school graduation; it was parked in the front yard with a big homemade bow on it. I’m a trained dancer. I’ve cut school more times than I can count and got away with it.

I was also a trained physician at the age of two. Suck on that, Dougie Howser.

I drove across the USA with my big sister. I’ve been to the real Field of Dreams. I’ve won money in Vegas (a grand total of $10, but that still puts me ahead). I’ve been to posh Hollywood parties. I’ve met some of my idols and have worked with some really cool people. I’ve managed to not get swept up in the Hollywood hub-bub. I have really great friends who go on really awesome adventures with me. I grew up with a homemade cinema lounge in my parents’ basement that I helped create. I have a cat who won’t let me ever feel sad because she’s too silly and has impeccable comedic timing. I’ve been to Disneyland and Disneyworld. I’ve seen every episode of “The O.C.” approximately 7.6 times. I’m a (self) published author. I’m a (home) renowned chef. I’ve read The Outsiders about 900 times and it feels like a new book every time. I followed my dreams despite the odds, despite the naysayers, despite the challenges. It’s not always easy, but I’m actually doing what I’ve wanted to do my whole life… and you know what makes it even better? I’m doing it as a BLONDE.

I was an accomplished sidewalk artist on the streets of Paris (a.k.a. Grandma's house) at the tender age of 3. (Please note the stunningly accurate illustration of Princess Leia.)

This really isn’t me bragging about how awesome I am (that’s totally true, though), this is me being sincerely grateful for everything in my life. I’m a lucky BLONDE bitch, and don’t I know it.

Today gets 5 Barbie Warhols:

Day 84

Sometimes I can’t believe parking. Maybe it’s my wide-open spaces, Midwestern thinking, but if you have an establishment that you want people to go to, shouldn’t you provide a parking option? You would not believe how many places in Los Angeles either a) don’t validate or b) don’t have a parking lot at all within 50 miles. Street parking is often unavailable, and this is LA, so valet parking is usually somewhere. However, if those valets can find somewhere to put my car, shouldn’t I be able to find somewhere to put my car?

Parking is one of the main reasons I don’t have a lot of people over to my apartment. I live in an area where there are a lot of parking restrictions and a lot of people try to park there to avoid paying for valet at the nearby hotels, clubs, and bars (yes, I live by all those things). I feel responsible for my guests finding parking. If it were really that important for them to be there, I would try to make a deal with the parking garage across the street. That’s how commited I am to this whole parking thing. Parking apathy can hit anywhere at anytime. Proprietors pretend like they don’t know the neighborhood at all and refuse to have any available parking. Is this something they do on purpose to try to add to the mystique of their business? Parking apathy- beware.

Since I’ve been blonde, I’m not saying that the parking gods have been smiling on me more, but I have gotten away with a lot more than usual. I’ve double-parked, parked in handicapped spaces, and made up my own parking spots. I think normally in these situations, I would get scolded or towed or ticketed. The BLONDE has prevented these things. Do I know that the BLONDE had anything to do with this? No, not hard evidence, but I’m going to go ahead and declare it so.

Today gets 3 Barbie Warhols: