a new do

I got my hair cut this afternoon. I can't decide if it's cute or if it's Indigo Girls. I hope it's cute.


I just realized how much Amy Ray looks like George Stephanopolous. All the more reason to hope it's cute.

cool it.

"We don't have an air conditioner" is the new "We don't have a television."

It used to bug me when I'd be recounting the latest installment of ANTM over lunch and some coworker would be all, "Oh, I'm sorry I've never seen that show. We don't have TV." And I'd roll my eyes waaayyyy back into my head and think, "Hoho, you're just so ABOVE the whole television thing and the rest of us are just vapid slaves to the media! Well, have fun with your BOOK and your Meuslix, sucka. I'll be over here weeping with Oprah."

And then I moved to New York and sold my TiVo and never got around to hooking up the cable. Now I'm the coworker who doesn't get the Real Housewives of New Jersey in-jokes and the SYTYCD hysteria.

But then today I was talking to someone about how I couldn't wait to turn my A/C(s) on when I got home and she said, "Oh, we just open a window and use a big fan." I felt the familiar heat rise up within me (an internal, defensive heat, not the actual ambient temperature, which incidentally was also SIZZLING HOT) and I screamed, "JUST OPEN A WINDOW? Use a big fan? Do you also put Neosporin on a broken leg?"

Oh, who am I kidding, I didn't scream. I think I muttered something about being hot-blooded and having an apartment with poor air circulation. Because in much the same way that I know Oprah and I will be reunited someday, I also know that one of these nights, while My Mister and I are sleeping like angels in our climate-controlled paradise, that smug girl is going to throw the covers off her bed, take off all of her clothes, and stand in front of her big fan while she scans CraigsList for a used air conditioner. But you know what? There won't be any! Because I bought them all.

The end.

hypothermia, giardia, etc.

The idea that love is scary has never made much sense to me. Not only does it sound like something you'd hear in a voiceover on Dawson's Creek, it just doesn't seem right to me. Having a crush is scary and dating is terrifying, but love is just nice. Especially marriage love. Sorry, did that sound gross?

Anyway, I've never understood scary love... until My Mister decided to go on a six day, 55 mile backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail. In the days leading up to his departure, I was able to come up with about ten different ways he might perish, two of which involve panthers. One has to do with too much trail mix. Now I understand. For the first time in my life, I actually relate to Dawson's Creek.

And it's... like... scary, you know?**

Hurry home, Mister.

**To be read in the scrunchy-faced, side-smirky, Katie Holmes manner.

subway etiquette

Do:

• Allow people to exit the train before trying to enter
• Move to the center of the car
• Stand clear of the closing doors
• Give your seat up for a pregnant or elderly person
• Expect that if you are carrying a suitcase, three grocery bags, a cello, and two backpacks that someone MIGHT bump into you and/or your stuff.
• Let it go.

Do not:

• Use your cell phone's speaker function to listen to T-Pain
• Smoke a cigar
• Remove your shoes if you have not showered in the preceding 6-10 years
• Abuse the subway pole (and innocent bystanders) by gripping it with your butt cheeks in order to achieve a hands-free ride.

the gluttonous showdown

If there's one thing I learned on the Fourth of July, it's this: competitive eating is not a joke. It is a serious sport (I checked - the definition for sport does NOT mention physical fitness). Since Saturday, when I've told people I went to the International Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, many have said, "No way! How did you do?"

That is both a devastating and flattering question. On one hand, people think it's reasonable that I might enter a contest where shoving dozens of hot dogs down your gullet as fast as you can is the main event. Actually, now that I've written that, I can't remember why I thought it might be flattering.

This contest is what I call a Big Deal. The "athletes" are often professional competitive eaters, meaning shoving foodstuffs down their gullets as fast as they can is what they do. They "train" by drinking gallons of water or eating massive amounts of vegetables in order to stretch out their stomachs. They engage in all sorts of gag-preventing and esophagus-relaxing exercises. It's really, really gross. And it's not just big dudes who like hot dogs! One of the top-ranked competitive eaters in the world is Sonya Thomas, a 98-pound Asian woman who once ate 11 pounds of cheesecake in 9 minutes. She gained over 10% of her body weight in CHEESECAKE. In 9 minutes. She's also the world record holder for hard boiled eggs - 65 in under 7 minutes. More than 5 DOZEN EGGS! The only other person on record for eating that many eggs is Gaston, the ANIMATED BRUTE from Beauty and the Beast. And he was roughly the size of a BARGE!

Witnessing the contest was pretty amazing/horrifying. I can imagine every eating contest has its "eew" factor (the smell at the hard boiled eggs contest, the cow brains at the cow brain contest), and the hot dog contest is no exception. Apart from the overall grossness of a giant pile of hot dogs, there is the "dipping" factor. Contestants dip their hot dog buns in water or 7-Up to expedite the whole process. As a person who is sensitive to even slightly soggy French Toast, the idea of half-dissolved hot dog bun juice is... probably the worst part of the whole thing. Maybe the worst thing ever?

The winner, Joey Chestnut, ate 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, narrowly beating out Japan's Takeru Kobayashi, the world record holder for cow brains who recently lost a hot dog eating contest to a live Kodiak bear (it was actually pretty close).

If you have a strong stomach and can tolerate a little bun juice, you can watch the whole blessed event here. Look for us in the crowd - not in the contestant lineup, thank you very much.