The One Where I Say Goodbye

Hello readers! Long time, no hear, eh?

It's not you, it's me. The fact is, my life isn't as exciting as it used to be, back when I was having drunken escapades, flirting with cute boys (which I still do, sometimes, for like a minute before I'm all "I have a boyfriend."), and spending a big paycheck I often miss on fabulous clothes and exciting travels, just to name a few. My interests have changed since I started this blog, friends have moved away, and the things that are on my mind these days -- lefty politics, leaving New York, food, etc. -- aren't really things that fit in with what this blog was initially about -- the me of 2003, who I wouldn't know if she walked up to me and offered to buy me a pint of Guinness. She'd be equally baffled when I turned it down and asked for a glass of wine instead, but she'd be impressed by my bitchin' tattoo.

But speaking of food, I had that other food blog but I couldn't get motivated to write in it because it was super ugly. But I found Wordpress! And I set up a blog/professional site that will focus on food but also other things, albeit in less racy terms than y'all are accustomed to over here.

So if you want to take this journey with me, you can find my shiny new online self at jessicahulett.com. And I hope you do, because I sure miss your insightful and hilarious comments. What you can look forward to over there in the coming weeks: A recap of TYM's (now with his real name!) and my trip to New Orleans, my meeting and having boyfriend-approved sex with Paul Rudd this Thursday, and a Top Chef inspired dish that was a true carnivorous delight.

Bookmark me if you want to keep up, as I'll be redirecting this site there for a bit and then taking it down completely.

Busted

Yesterday, while I was waiting for TYM to get ready to go out for breakfast, I popped in The Raincoats "Looking in the Shadows" and proceeded to loudly sing and clumsily dance around the kitchen. And as I was doing so, I remembered this story.

Picture it: Summer, 2000, New York City. I'm cleaning the house, listening to my new Raincoats CD. As I'm jamming and dusting, my roommate, Lee, walks in.

"What are you listening to?" he asks, cocking his head to one side, trying to place the music emanating from my boom box.

"The Raincoats," I say.

Lee starts to laugh. And laugh.

"What?" I ask.

"You totally bought that CD because Julia Stiles' character in 10 Things I Hate About You said it was her favorite band," he says, still laughing.

"Shut up," I say.

He keeps laughing.

"Go ahead and laugh," I say. "I may have bought the CD because of 10 Things I Hate About You, but you're familiar enough with the movie that you know why I bought it. So you should be equally embarrassed."

He agrees, and we spend the afternoon listening to my new Raincoats CD, after which we watch 10 Things I Hate About You. Again.

Parents + Technology = Hilarity

Mom and I were chatting on Gmail today and she typed LOL. "My goodness," I thought. "Has Mom gotten tech-savvy on me?" Then this happened:

Mom: Can you give me the site so I can check out Party in Your Mouth?

Me: http://phoebeworks.com/piym

Mom: When I go to Google do I print it out just like that?

Me: You don't have to go to Google. Just click on it.

Mom: I don't get it.

Me: It's a link. Just point to it and click.

Mom: I'll try later. If I can't figure it out, I'll get Grandpa to show me.

Me: Wait! Let's do it now. You know how when you Google something, you click on it to go to that website?

Mom: Yes

Me: Do the same thing with this: http://www.phoebeworks.com/piym

Mom: What do you mean? In Google?

Me: No. You don't have to go to Google. Just click on this link: http://phoebeworks.com/piym

Mom: I'm confused. What link?

Me: See where I typed the address and it's red?

Mom: Yes

Me: Click it. Put your arrow over it and click.

Mom: And then I go to Google?

Me: You don't have to go to Google, Mom. Forget Google.

[Mom doesn't respond for 10 minutes]

Mom: That was funny! So how do I go there when I'm not in the middle of talking to you? Just put that in Google?

Me: Save it to your favorites and then you can go there later. Like you did with Gmail.

Mom: What do you mean? I'm confused.

Me: [Sighing] Nevermind. I'll set it up next time I come visit.

I Have Some Questions

Curly sent me this article today, saying that it reads like an article from The Onion. It's actually from Colorado's Vail Daily, and it's about a local family's battle with bears in and around their home. I'm going to go through my questions, line by line.

The article starts with a bear following the woman into her bedroom.

At first, she said, she thought it was her dog.

"I turned around and it was so odd, your brain takes a while to register," said Rebehn, who lives with her son's family in Intermountain. "No way I thought there would be bear in the bedroom. It's kind of like when you think you're about to drink a glass of water and it's a glass of milk."

Here's my first question: Who's the jokester in her house that replaces her glasses of water with glasses of milk when she's not looking? Because the quote implies that it happens frequently, and that it's something we're all familiar with. Let's move on:

The bear approached her, hissing and making a funny bop-bop-bop sound, so she got between a bed and the wall.

Bop-bop-bop? Was the bear singing? Did he have a Grease audition later that day?

"I grabbed a decorative pillow and threw it at her and she turned around and left," she said.

Have you ever heard someone say the phrase "decorative pillow" in casual conversation? "Oh, I went to Bed Bath & Beyond today to buy some decorative pillows." I'm skeptical of this quote.

The bear fled into an empty bedroom nearby and Rebehn said she closed the door. She peeked through and alerted her son, Brian Hoyt, who thought the bear was a small one he could capture in a bath towel.

Who thinks that? "Oh, it's probably a small bear. I'll just grab it with a bath towel. A bath towel?! It's a bear!

The bear then went into a kitchen and rummaged through the garbage, cupboards and drawers. The bear tasting some chili and some ice cream but seemed to prefer chicken wings from a local barbecue restaurant, Rebehn said.

"The only thing we know that it ate every last bit of was Moe's Barbecue," she said.

I'm not going to get into typos. Is Moe's Barbecue a sponsor? Curly thought that quote should be in Moe's next ad campaign.

Wildlife officers found nothing specific that would have attracted the bears to Rebehn's house, Hampton said.

I think we all know by now that it was the Moe's Barbecue, Hampton. "Hearty enough for a bear!"

Getting My Hippie On

So I've been kind of bummed out for awhile. I decided to do this whole mid-career job change thing by going to culinary school. Then I graduated and kind of had no idea what I wanted to do. Then I bummed around with my leftover freelance writing gigs, taking an occasional temporary personal chef or catering job. I did some food writing, which was pretty awesome, but not steady enough to support myself. What I wanted was 2-3 part-time private chef clients, or one full-time editorial food job.

Neither of those things happened. What happened instead is that the job market fell apart. I didn't have the experience to compete with more seasoned chefs for jobs, and editorial jobs pretty much dried up. My regular freelance work suddenly became not-so-regular. So I waited. And I waited. And as my savings account started dwindling, I started to panic. And when I start to panic, I drink more, eat more, sleep less and generally start to run myself into the ground. Oh, and I busted my foot up again, which means no exercise. Basically, I feel terrible and I look terrible.

Over the weekend, I decided it was time to take charge. I've always wanted to be a person who could do disciplined detoxes and/or cleanses, but well, I don't have much discipline. I have no interest in liquid-only detoxes, but I've always been kind of fascinated by The Brown Rice Fast, which is a macrobiotic hippie thing that's supposed to last 10 days. No way can I eat nothing but brown rice for 10 days, but I'm going to try it for three days, with a bit of modification -- I'm going to eat steamed vegetables with my brown rice. And drink my Yogi Detox Tea three times a day. If I feel awesome after three days, I might keep it up for 10. We'll see.

Day 1 verdict: I'm really freaking hungry. And when people try to make plans with me for later in the week, I preface it by saying "If I'm not pooping my brains out that day..."

Goodbye, William Safire

William Safire died of pancreatic cancer today at the age of 79.

He wore a lot of hats during his long career -- Nixon speechwriter, Pulitzer Prize winning political commentator, novelist -- and all without a college degree. How I first came to know him was through his "On Language" column for the New York Times, which became an instant favorite read of mine. He complained and nitpicked in the most entertaining way, and I always found myself saying things like, "That drives me nuts, too, William Safire! Why do they say '100 troops died' when 100 soldiers died? Doesn't the word 'troop' imply a group of some sort, making the phrase '100 troops' actually mean something more along of the lines of a minimum of 300 hundred soldiers?" Politically, we were on opposite ends of the spectrum, but grammatically, often on the same page.

In memory of William Safire, I offer up one of my favorite Onion articles of all time, which I'm sure gave him a good chuckle:

William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Junior

NEW YORK–Stopping for lunch at a Manhattan Burger King, New York Times 'On Language' columnist William Safire ordered two "Whoppers Junior" Monday. "A majority of Burger King patrons operate under the fallacious assumption that the plural is 'Whopper Juniors,'" Safire told a woman standing in line behind him. "This, of course, is a grievous grammatical blunder, akin to saying 'passerbys' or, worse yet, the dreaded 'attorney generals.'" Last week, Safire patronized a midtown Taco Bell, ordering "two Big Beef Burritos Supreme."

Grannies Gone Wild

While I was changing my clothes the other day...

TYM: Nice Granny Panties.

Me: They're not Granny Panties, exactly. They're actually super thin panties that you wear under tight things so you won't have visible lines.

TYM: So they're Granny's Night Out Panties, then.

Me: Yeah. Basically. Shut up. I need to do laundry.