A short love letter to Guy Fieri

Having recently graduated undergrad I have found myself with a plethora of free time, and there is no one I would rather spend it with. Watching you stuff your gullet with saucy barbecue, cheese drenched fries, and even poached seaweed has given my post grad life purpose.

In the first episode I saw, you referred to mayonnaise as ‘food lube’ and with that I was hooked. Even when you pronounced chilaquile wrong and were corrected by a Mexican restaurant owner, you stayed convicted. You didn’t back down; you just kept pronouncing it your way. And I like that kind of strength in my tv-shows-about-foods hosts.

I like how you talk about your ahi tuna tacos as if that monstrosity of a combination was even remotely a good idea. I like how you always stick your fingers into the food before the chef is even done preparing it. I like how you exclaim “That’s a huge portion!” as if you aren’t going to finish the entire plate.

You make me want to eat pizza topped with eggs and drive to the middle of nowhere Texas to try brisket on a stick. No one can take me to Flavortown quite like you can, Guy.

Modern Romance: some thoughts

If you are to ask me anything about dating in the coming weeks I will inevitably start spouting quotes from Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance. After finishing the book this weekend 90% of my sentences have started with “Well, Aziz would tell us,” or “In the middle of the book Aziz talks about,” or “If we’re going out tonight we’re getting Ramen, which is what Aziz eats in the Tokyo chapter of his book and I can’t stop thinking about his lil’ cheeks and infinite wisdom.”

Technology and dating fascinate me. As an avid user (and self proclaimed failure) of online dating apps I think a lot about what it means to navigate these new arenas. Online dating has all new rules and problems, and redefines success and failure when it comes to romance. Almost everyone I know has downloaded or used a dating app, but incessantly complain about online dating. Few of my friends have built relationships using these avenues and those who have made up an origin story so as to not admit to meeting their significant other online. The duality, the contradictions– it’s intense. I want to know how we can all live in this phone world that seems essential, but frustrates and confuses us so much. I picked up the book because I figured it could give me some insight into this world I already participate in, but hardly understand and OH BOY did I LEARN.

First and foremost what struck me about the book was this shift from access to people and opportunities in the last couple of decades. Older generations met significantly fewer people in their lifetime without the help of the internet. People married for stability, or to get out of their parents’ house. Marriage wasn’t an option for young people the way that it is today. This section of the book excited me. I wrote in the margins I am so lucky to remind myself that the entire world is now at my fingertips and having access to that means creating the big, vast, exciting life that I want. And then I kept reading, and the overwhelming, confusing, and frustrating parts of online dating set in.

Have you ever sat down at a restaurant and opened the menu to an endless amount of options from chicken fingers to herb-encrusted-lavender-infused-gorgonzola-stuffed-halibut risotto paste and thought I AM NOT CUT OUT FOR THIS? It takes me exactly 49 minutes to order at any given restaurant because I am indecisive, love food, and don’t understand 90% of food words. By the time the menu is put in front of me to the time the waiter comes to take my order I have changed my mind at least 11 times and usually blurt our something random all the while wondering if I would have better enjoyed another option. The point is, with so many options it is easy to get overwhelmed. I can only maintain two different online dating accounts, or I would spend 24 hours a day laying in my bed swiping through pics of dudes. I’ve chosen Bumble (for serious inquiries only) and Tinder (for the casual and sexy at heart.) Currently, my Tinder account houses 584 matches (#humblebrag) which is 583 people too many. There is no way I would ever be able to sift through that many people, but it goes to show how many options are out there. 584 is only the number of people I’ve mutually swiped right on, which means there are ten bazillion more waiting to be discovered by my right index finger.

Ansari touches on this phenomenon in his book. For most young singles, the options feel overwhelming. Even if you go on a date with someone you’re left wondering what other people are out there. Say you give your first date with someone a 7/10. Those are pretty good odds, but there has to be at least an 8/10 just a few profiles away. Keep swipin’. And that means we’re investing less time in each other. We’re making snap judgments on each other both when we swipe and when we meet. Swiping through profiles with limited pictures and bios that usually boil down to three or so emojis, means making some snappy decisions. Sometimes I swear my fingers decide before my brain can catch up. But this quick thinking (or not thinking at all) isn’t limited to using apps. We’re making snap judgments during dates when we should be investing more time and thought in each other. Because the options are now endless you can decide not to go on a second date with someone just based on the sweater he chose to wear, or how he holds his fork. Five minutes in if some guy suggests a beer I don’t like/ says he’s vegan/ disses J Biebs and I’m like BYE, ONTO THE NEXT ONE. I’ve been on a few handfuls of first dates in my time as a lady in waiting, but only two second dates, one with a person who became my boyfriend.

My big takeaway from the book was this question: if we just invest a little more in each other, how can we change or improve our own online dating experiences? Is my time better spent going on three dates with someone I think I could make a connection with rather than going on three dates with different suitors? Maybe this investment and remembering that there are real human beings on other end of your iMessage could help eliminate some of the major frustrations with online dating AKA STOP GHOSTING PEOPLE OUT, LIKE SHIT YOU GUYS. ( I will admit I’ve ghosted my fair share of dates, but it happened to me recently and DAMN I WILL NEVER DO THAT TO ANOTHER PERSON EVER AGAIN. At the very least make up some Peace Corps expedition you’re going on, idk.) Dating has never been cut and dry. Choosing another human to watch movies and hold hands and adventure through life with is inherently weird. And when it comes to the weird world of technology, even dating can’t escape. It’s important to remember that typing on the other end are two thumbs attached to a real human (or porn bot, or two index fingers attached to an 80 year old war criminal posing as a 20 something indie rock enthusiast.) We are still people with real people feelings, not just robots generating responses. But honestly, the day they invent customizable robot boyfriends will be my favorite day in the world of online dating.

The Before Breakfast Club

The number one risk factor of hypothyroidism is listed as “Being a woman.” So, the odds were stacked against me from the beginning. And once again my vagina is just another useless and pesky factor in my life. *Loudest of sighs.* Anyway, it’s been over a month (!) since I had my dead, disease ridden thyroid removed. And I say GOOD RIDDANCE BITCH with your 3/4 dead tissue and protruding tumor that was ruining my selfie game; you were NO USE TO ME ANYWAY.

What I find most interesting about getting sick is how every person thinks they’re suddenly an expert in your gd disease. I was diagnosed with a thyroid tumor last March and I hardly claim to be an expert on anything thyroid related. If anything I’m like the least educated person on it. I’ve looked at the wikipedia page maybe twice and for the most part just ask my doctor questions if any arise. Most of the time I just nod politely while he says a bunch of medicine words I don’t understand and pets my face. He really pets my face. It’s cute, trust me.

In the weeks approaching my surgery I was feeling really stressed out, but wasn’t acting any differently than I normally do when I’m feeling stressed. I was eating my normal amount of stress oreos and taking my normal amount of stress naps. When I expressed my feelings to one of my friends she said “That’s the thyroid talking. It’s making you emotional.” Which, first of all, I wish that thing could talk. It could have told me a year ago it needed to go elsewhere and I wouldn’t have waited until it ballooned to the size of an ORANGE growing under my collarbone to go under the knife. Second of all, my thyroid had been dead for at least a year so I’ve been this crabby/emotional for a LONG ASS TIME. You don’t know how I feel so please don’t project onto my useless-as-a-potato* thyroid. I just want to stop being told what to do with/ think about/ feel about my own body. Thyroids and vaginas have a few things in common. The first being the number one risk factor of “being a woman” and the second being that everyone has an opinion on how it is affecting your mood, life, and choices.

Yesterday, I was put on a medication that I forgot the name of and googled wrong a minute ago so I just won’t even try to type it here. It’s a man made TSC hormone replacement (not to be confused with THC which is found in weed.) If you feel like doing your research there you go. It’s a lifelong drug that a lot of us UNFORTUNATE VAGINA HAVERS are on. I did take the time to do some real research on this because if I’m going to be putting something into my body everyday until the day I die I want to know what exactly it is. Except for frozen pizza. All I want to know about that is how goooood it tastes going into my mouth. The pill is VERY STRICTLY supposed to be taken 45 minutes before breakfast every morning with an ENTIRE glass of water and cannot be taken with any other medications which really fucks with my birth control routine. Just one more hardship of being a woman. Anyway, I guess I’m not the only person who has a hard time doing literally anything in the morning because the pill has an entire support group called The Before Breakfast Club. I haven’t signed up, although maybe I should. I just hope all of the question forums are middle aged women discussing how hard it is to take the pill before getting little Jimmy his morning eggs. Or maybe they’re all just women like me who are like FUCK BEING A WOMAN, MAN. I CAN’T MANAGE TAKING TWO FREAKING PILLS EVERY MORNING AT TWO DIFFERENT TIMES. AND BEFORE BREAKFAST? WHEN WILL PEOPLE STOP TELLING ME I AM TOO EMOTIONAL? ARE THEY GOING TO BLAME IT ON MY THYROID OR MY VAGINA THIS TIME?

It’s day two and both days I either waited too little or too much time to eat breakfast after taking it. I will keep you updated on any side effects that arise from this, which are not already documented online.

*As in a cold, hard, molded potato. Potatoes are so useful! French fries, mashed, croquettes, chips, wedges, hash browns, something to throw at your enemies.

Some stuff I would print if I had a 3d printer

1. Mac n cheese
2. A chair anytime I’m at a party and I want to sit down and there are no more seats available. I’d just whip that portable 3d printer bad boy out of my high waisted jean pocket and print myself a lounger.
3. A bowl anytime my roomies haven’t done dishes and I just don’t have the patience today
4. A ladder from my bedroom window to the ground outside. This one would come in handy especially during a fire.
5. Sunglasses
6. A special third arm that is long enough to reach the light switch from my bed
7. A lil’ hammock on wheels that I could roll myself around my apartment in
8. Those handheld grocery baskets so I can stop spending the first ten god forsaken minutes of shopping ducking under cash registers trying to find just one. I don’t know, it can’t be that hard to just store them all by the front door so that by the time I make it to the produce aisle not every single edible honeycrisp apple is gone. Just a thought.
9. An electric blanket (this is the first item I’ve stopped to think might actually not be possible to 3d print.)
10. New thyroid (mine doesn’t work.) On second thought, that would probably take a lot of math on my end.

Why he’s (probably) not texting me back

1. He’s busy
2. His phone has been dead for the last week (hah)
3. His ex girlfriend (probably named something cool and classy like Tulip or Bethany) showed up on his doorstep the other night while we were deep in conversation and begged for him to take her back and she probably brought along like some kind of fruit pie that she made from scratch and was naked under the Burberry trench coat she was wearing all while I was laying in my bed in a pair of long johns and a sweatshirt, eating a bowl of ramen that was slightly undercooked and looking at google images of mouth herpes
4. He saw that picture of me in an ill fitting turtleneck holding a PBR that my best friend posted on Facebook and realized I probably wasn’t the one
5. He saw almost any picture of me on the internet, excluding the handful I carefully picked for my online profile
6. He found my Twitter
7. or Instagram
8. Gay
9. He realized that dick joke I made actually was in poor taste
10. He’s a dude
11. Internet dating culture (really, you can blame pretty much anything on modern technology)
12. He’s a manchild (ugh, aren’t they all, though)
13. He has been abducted by aliens
14. Or kidnapped by the drug lord he owes money for and as much as he begs, they won’t give him his phone, even just to send ONE DAMN TEXT
15. He dropped his phone because he was so deep in thought about me that he wasn’t paying enough attention while trying to write a text about how infatuated he had become while peeing, and even now, right at this very moment, five days later, he is sitting in front of his soggy, wet phone crying and trying to come up with a different way to get in touch with me again (Facebook would work, but we will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he hasn’t thought of that yet)
16. He simply lost interest, and no longer finds it necessary to reply to me, which would be totally acceptable if I wasn’t a crazy, obsessive lady bitch who had already dreamed up the next twenty years together
17. LoloOloLol lol dudes just suck