Desiré Tries To Do Stuff: Paleo

I've hit plenty of lows in my adult life. There was the time my dad tried to set me up with a Harry Potter look-a-like ("What's wrong? I thought you liked Harry Potter!"), the summer I was so broke that I strongly considered working on the Tumblebus (a child's gym on wheels -- AKA a death trap), and the time I went to a concert with my mom and every college aged male around us proceeded to hit on her while I took long, sorrowful sips of my strawberry margarita out of an extra large guitar-shaped sippy cup.

But it was the new low I hit when I was visiting my friends Patrick and Chad at my alma mater in Charlottesville last month that made me realize I should probably reevaluate my life. There are only two things to do when you return to Charlottesville: eat and drink. So after a hearty dinner of enchiladas and a night of bar hopping, I was determined to hit up my favorite late night eateries from undergrad. Since the Last Call Dogs food truck was nowhere in sight, my options were narrowed down to two: The White Spot, home of the famous "Gus Burger" topped with a fried egg, or Christian's Pizza, the best pizza in all the land. Patrick and I opted to go to Christian's while Chad and Cari went to The White Spot.

Me, Julia, Nick, and Laura flashing the "extra mozz" hand signal.

The Christian's run down is that they have a variety of pizzas already made and you simply go down the line, pick the slice you want and they warm it up in the oven for you. But one life-changing night in undergrad, my friends and I discovered that the pizza maestro would smother your slice in extra mozzarella if you asked nicely. This wasn't a secret everybody was privy to, so it didn't take long for us to establish the "extra mozz" hand signal to flash to the maestro when we ordered our slices. With one flick of the wrist, we were like elite members of a speakeasy for late-night cuisine.


So while waiting in line with Patrick, I decided it was time to bring the "extra mozz" hand signal out of retirement. Sure, it's pretty much a creepy claw in which you wiggle your fingers, but it got the job done. While waiting in line with Patrick, I also thought it was a good idea to text Chad over at The White Spot, "Git me a Gus Burg," which is how I wound up eating both a slice of pizza and an egg-topped burger at 3 a.m.

I woke up full (but not too full to eat brunch, of course) and decided that maybe it would be in my best interest to start eating healthier. I settled on the Whole30 Challenge -- a Paleo-based 30 day cleanse. This wasn't an easy decision. After all, I had only used my Wendy's Free-Frostys-For-A-Year card twice and the Whole30 meant no dairy, no wheat, no processed food, no sugar, no alcohol. I had tried Paleo before and two hours in I caved and ate a cupcake, so I knew the odds were against me.

I started out slowly. Eggs and fruit for breakfast, a salad tossed in oil and vinegar for lunch, a meat paired with a veggie for dinner. "This isn't too bad," I thought. And then I tried to switch it up and start cooking. The words "creative" and "kitchen" don't jive well with me, so I'm not sure why I thought I could pull any of this off.

YUM BURN.

First I tried to cook sweet potato fries.

























Next, I tried to make turkey wraps without the wrap...

But they creeped me out, so I added lettuce...

And then I made "garlic mayo" which was the consistency of what I imagine breast milk to be. Needless to say, that's still sitting uneaten in  the back of my fridge.

Next I tried to make an apple cobbler for dessert.

Facing the fact that I simply cannot cook, I went back to making my boring old eggs.

But look closely. Yes, that is a rather large bubble protruding from that yolk.



















A few nights later, I actually succeeded in making Megan's Jalapeno Kale Miracle, but not without some trouble. I washed my hands at least three times after slicing the jalapenos. Approximately four hours later, I went to take my contacts out before bed. I pulled my contact out of my right eye and my eye immediately started burning. "WHYYY?!!" I threw my contact down on the counter. I took my contact out of my left eye and it started burning "WHAT IS HAPPENING?!!" I threw that contact down on the counter. I turned the faucet on and used my fingers to splash water in my already burning eyes, only to be met with more burn. "AHHH!" It was like the outtakes from Home Alone in my bathroom. The next day, I ended up putting my contacts in the opposite eyes because I mixed them up during my jalapeno eye fiasco.

Maybe I should quit trying to do stuff.

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Here I Am

Hi friends,

So it's been a while (oops). Here's what I've been up to for the past year and a half:

I resigned from my job in Charlottesville and moved to Washington, D.C. to begin a Journalism Master's program at Georgetown. In true city fashion, I rented a studio apartment in the heart of downtown. It had a single window, which featured a prime view of this parking lot and banana mobile.

While I unpacked and tried to settle into the new apartment, my demon cat, Roux, did this.

Always looking for new things to do, I went to the "drive-in" near my apartment, which was a movie projected onto the side of a renovated warehouse. But I forgot the wine key...

I explored new restaurants with friends and when gratuity was included, if our server did a good job, we tipped them a little sumthin' extra.

I joined a pretty serious band. Clanky D & Tha Whistlas, anyone?

And a hip-hop duo. Dr. Dray and Kimbaland dropping beats in a city near you.

I drank copious amounts of coffee, but only poured my cream out of a Tupac shot glass.

 In D.C., they sound it out.

Tired of sitting with Roux and staring out of my one window at the banana mobile, I moved into a bigger apartment with a roommate. My roommate got tired of staring at my apartment troll garb and bought a nice pair of satin pajamas for me.

I picked up new hobbies, like collecting novelty salt and pepper shakers.

I went out to dinner with Sarah, and she ordered a platter of Fancy Feast cat food. Or Spam. You decide.

Halloween came and I dressed up as Roux.

And drank some beer.

Most of the time I took the metro, but if I had to drive anywhere, I let Roux take the wheel.

A year ago today, I started my dream internship at NPR Music. I showed up in black dress slacks and heels. But instead of casual Fridays, the music team opted for casual Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and - if anyone remembered - dressy Friday, which meant that Stephen wore his jeans that only had one hole in them. And then there was the one Friday that Jacob actually wore blue suede shoes...
What an amazing bunch.

I took a stab at being healthy and started running outside. But weird bumps popped up on my shins, proving I'm allergic to exercise and giving me permission to binge marathon Orange Is The New Black and Pretty Little Liars on my couch. Because I'm a hypochondriac, I decided to have my bumpy legs inspected at the orthopedic surgeon and the kind doctor gave me these awesome shorts to wear. 

My fashionable medical accessories didn't stop there. I had to have all four of my wisdom teeth removed and I spent the last two weeks of 2013 looking like this.

But it's okay, because I had the golden ticket to a solid toothless diet. This baby guarantees me free frosties for the rest of the year.

And last, but not least, I casually drank wine in a field with the musician whose concerts I've been structuring my life around since I was 15 years old. He put his arm around me and his face touched my face. That is all.

Published!

My first music write-up came out yesterday with Drawl Magazine!  I'm very excited so please head on over and check it out!

TP Trauma

I rely on two techniques to ensure that my butt doesn't come into physical contact with the toilet seat when using public restrooms.  Like most normal women, my method of choice is squatting.  However, if there is something preventing me from properly executing the squat (ie: laziness, inebriation, or loss of balance due to wearing heels), then I turn to option number 2, which is to line the seat with toilet paper before sitting down.  These two strategies have pretty much served me well during my 23 years of life (24 years, as of Saturday!).  That is, up until that fateful weekend in September.

It was a big weekend.  The Avett Brothers were playing two nights in a row at the Charlottesville Pavilion and one of my best friends, Julia, was coming to visit from Baton Rouge.  After a day of wine-tasting, a group of about 8 of us decided to go out to dinner at Michael's Bistro on the Corner.  After we finished eating, I ran to the restroom before we left the restaurant.

Some useful background information: I also had laryngitis at the time and had spent 15 minutes in the bathroom blowing my nose at one of the vineyards earlier in the day.  You can imagine the kind of jokes this warranted.

With this in mind, I was determined to pee as quickly as possible and haul ass (literally) out of the bathroom.  As I was facing every squatting obstacle possible, I lined the seat with toilet paper, did my thing, and rushed out.  I didn't notice anything unusual and no one else seemed to, as we put on our coats and descended, single-file, down the long staircase that dumped us out onto the sidewalk.  

My friend, Margaret, had followed me down the stairs and when we finally stepped outside, I heard her say, rather loudly and not so covertly, " Desire'!!! Is that...TOILET PAPER?"

Naturally, I looked down at my boots and started inspecting the bottom of my heels.  I didn't see anything. "Nope! I don't know what you mean...there's nothing!"  That was when I realized it.  Margaret was pointing between my legs.  I looked down, and there it was: a long trail of toilet paper peeking out from beneath my skirt.  The toilet paper that lined the seat must have stuck to my butt when I stood up, and was now secured on one end by my tights, allowing the other end to billow in the wind behind me as I walked, like a kite tail.

Suddenly, I felt a tugging, and there was my friend, Kim, taking one for the team and pulling the toilet paper out.  However, it wasn't going anywhere without a fight and it didn't take long for Kim to scream, "There's resistance!!"  When the toilet paper decided to give, Kim kept pulling and pulling.  Everyone gasped and awed, as the squares of toilet paper multiplied.  Kim promptly threw it on the ground and we all glared at it, gleaming against the stone walkway.  Everyone burst out laughing (including a random couple who had stood nearby to watch the spectacle) as I tried to explain my seat-lining method.  But it was no use.

At the end of the night, we were standing on the same street corner, trying to hail a cab, when an ambulance pulled up the area where my strip of toilet paper had been abandoned just hours earlier.  "I'll bet there was a bar fight or something," I surmised.  "No, no, no.  Let's be honest here," my friend Patrick responded.  "Someone obviously tripped on your toilet paper."

A couple weeks later, I received this card in the mail from Julia:

There I am.

Things That Amuse Me

I knew that today was going to be a good day when I awoke to a facebook message from my friend that said:

"i spent tonight at a weird work dinner entertaining a CREEP named GORDON. then i had to take him and his boring friends out for drinks and then i got home and had a package and it was something i ordered friday night while not in a proper state of mind (like now) and it is a box of 50 owl finger puppets! why would i order that?!"

Here's some other things that are keeping me entertained today:

Gadhafi had a secret Condoleezza Rice scrapbook?!

Literal "Look At Me Now"

My Cat Ate My Doctor's Note

My Dog Cat Ate My Homework Doctor's Note.

Yep.  That's right.  My cat has struck again.  As I've mentioned before, I had gall bladder surgery a few months ago.  Having a major organ ripped out through your belly button doesn't really leave your body in the best condition to go to Zumba or Cycling.  In order to get my money back for my gym membership, I had my Doctor write a note explaining my situation.  All I had to do was fax the letter to the Scary Gym Lady (see below):

and hope that, having already ruined enough lives that day, she would spare a little mercy and honor my request.

But once again my laziness prevailed and the Doctor's note sat under a pink magnet on my fridge for approximately a month and a half.  It wasn't until I needed to use that pink magnet to hold something way more important (tickets to two Avett Brothers concerts in September) that I decided I should do something about the note.  I'll take it to work with me in the morning and fax it from there, I thought.  Apparently, the note caught my cat, Roux's, attention at the same time.  (I'm not going to lie, there are times when I think Roux can read my mind...she really freaks me out...)  Except Roux didn't wait until the morning to take action.  She decided to do something about it in the middle of the night.

When I woke up in the morning, I saw it.  My Doctor's note was on the floor with a bite taken out of it.  And not just any bite.  The most crucial bite that could have been taken.  If this were a cinnamon bun, Roux had eaten the moist center, where the spiral ends and all the cinnamon-y goodness is contained.  Let's just say that Roux knows how to eat her paper.  She managed to take the most bland dish and find a way to savor it.  She had eaten the date.  Desire' had surgery on ------.  Without a date, I had nothing!  No proof of when the surgery actually took place.  I could have had this surgery 3 years ago for all they knew.  How Roux even got the note down is a question I'd rather not know the answer to.  How inconvenient!  Just when I had decided to be slightly motivated, Roux foiled my plans!

Aftermath:

Thanks, Roux.

Dez Vs. Nature

I've always had a complicated relationship with the outdoors--the complication being that I like nature, but I suck at it.  It all started when I was 12 years old and I went to a week-long summer camp in West Virginia with my best friend, Kristen.  Despite a variety of mishaps that indicated otherwise (including having a boy cast his fishing hook into my chest), I actually thought I was cut-out for camp life.  It wasn't until we embarked on our 3-day backpacking journey into the woods that I realized there was a problem.

We had partners for the hike that we shared a backpack with.  I'm not talking the latest neon-green JanSport that I had bought for my inauguration into middle school.  I'm talking one of those heavy-duty cross-country beasts.  A backpack of myths...something I had only heard about but certainly had never seen before.  Kristen, who has always been far more nature-inclined, offered to carry the backpack first so that I would take over at the half-way point.  After 4.5 miles, the time had come.

I've decided that it's best to convey what happened next in cartoon-format.

(Forewarning: I also have a complicated relationship with "Paintbrush for Macs")

I tried not to be intimidated:

But it was easily 3 times my size.  The camp counselor slung the beast onto my back and my body immediately started shaking.  The top of the backpack caved beneath the weight and formed a hat on the top of my head, covering my eyes.  It took all my strength to lift my right leg.  As I tried to find my footing for that first step, I kicked a tree root and it was game over.

I fell face-first into the dirt and couldn't get up.  I was being smothered by the backpack.  This is it, I thought.  This is how I'm going to die.  

Instead, the counselor made Kristen carry the backpack the rest of the way, allowing my traumatized self to enjoy a breezy 9-mile hike.

Fast forward to the present.  Now, I only camp during music festivals.  And even then, I cheat.  Refer to these loving portraits of me and my fan from our recent trip to Floydfest as proof:

How I do camping

It's the only way to go

While I've admitted to myself that camping isn't for me, I refuse to give up on hiking...but perhaps I should.  A couple of weeks ago, I went hiking in Shenandoah National Park with my friends Patrick and Chad.  The only thing funnier than going hiking when you suck at it is going hiking with people who are worse at it than you are.  This is what Patrick looked like the entire time:

Pretty much sums up Patrick's feelings about the hike

When Chad asked one of us to carry the backpack, I promptly fled and hid behind a rock.  I wasn't going there again.  On the way back, we were all pouring sweat and fed up.  The "gorgeous waterfall view" we were hiking to ended up being a tiny rock peeing way in the distance.  Chad had a grand idea of taking a short-cut that he knew oh so well...even though he had never been on this hike in his life.  Patrick and I were in the middle of smacking him (there was no way this was actually a short-cut) when we heard it.

A loud rustling in the trees.  What could it be?!!  It was getting closer.  Was it a bear?!  A wolf?!  A crazed lumberjack?!


We grabbed onto each other for dear life.   
SHHH!! 
DON'T MOVE.
DON'T SPEAK. 
DON'T BREATHE.

Huddled on an edge of this dirt path looking like a downtrodden version of Dorothy, The Lion, and The Tin Man, we waited anxiously.

A deer came into view.  It stopped to graze just before hopping onto the path about 10 feet from where we were standing.
   
Do deer hurt you?? 
They can!! If she has a baby around, she will attack us!!
We're dead.
Shhh!
I started pinching Chad on the arm.  This is all your fault!

We shared some panicked glances with the deer before she sprinted off.

What actually happened?

Peaceful deer stopping to graze right next to us, creating a gorgeous scene to end our hike.

What we saw?

Blood-thirsty savage

(My laziness outweighs my capacity for embarrassment, so instead of actually putting forth any effort on revising these cartoons, I posted them in their original glory.)

In light of this recent adventure, I think it's time to give up on my battle with nature.  I never stood a chance.

Summa Tiiime

What I've been doing this past month, which has lead to my MIA status in the blogosphere:

Drowning

Starry Night at Veritas Vineyard featuring the Hackensaw Boys

Lake times

DMB Caravan in Atlantic City!!

Floyd Fandango!

Floyd Fandango!

Hope everyone's having a glorious summer so far!  
More to come this weekend! (That is, after I see Harry Potter 7.2 and my whole childhood comes to an end).

Letter To My Upstairs Neighbors

Dear Heels and Man-Heels,


Let me start off by saying that I appreciate your need to exaggerate your height (someone once asked me if I was even 5 feet tall...DISCLAIMER: my Driver's License says I'm 5' 2" and we all know you can't lie on those forms...).  But when you are in the vicinity of your own home, are you for real (fast forward to 1 min. 53 sec).  I don't need to hear you stomping around in 6-inch wooden stilettos at all times like a pirate with two peg legs who's trying to find his way back to the ship.  And why would you even begin to start dancing??


Those cozy, fabric slippers that were left outside of your door circa Christmas time were NOT from St. Nick.  They were from a lesser-known, more pissed off St. Dez, who intended that they be put to good use.  Guess you were too tall for that.  I can only imagine that Man-Heels used them to mop up the excess of hair product that he slung all over the bathroom while getting ready in the morning (this isn't the Jersey Shore, dbag...and wearing a popped collar...on a sweater, while carrying an open Coors Light on the sidewalk doesn't make you cool).


Remember that time you were nursing a Rain Forest in your living room and all the water overflowed out of the pots and dripped through the floor?  Well, thanks for watering my brand-new TV.  With the proper amount of sunlight, I was able to ruin not one, but two, input ports.


Just so you know, no level of OCD makes it okay to vacuum at 7am or 1am for that matter.  And when I awoke to the loud crooning of your awful country music at 6am and screamed "shut up motherf#@*$!!!," it actually was not an invitation for you to turn the music up louder.


When you were showing your apartment to a potential subletter and they asked about noise level and you told them that you "knew a little bit too much about the girl downstairs," what exactly did you mean by that?  I should probably remind you that when you're in the middle of a domestic dispute or referring to your potential jail sentence, that it would be a good idea to whisper.


Regards,


The girl who's about to call the cops on you

Three Gold Coins

Last weekend I received a flyer in the mail from a local car dealership advertising a sale they were having.  But this wasn't just any flyer.  This flyer came with a key and a lottery.  There were three different scratch-able columns on the back and if one of column's numbers matched the group of bold numbers above it, then you won.  Shockingly, (although, as I was to find out later, not so shockingly) my second column of numbers matched!!  I opened up my flyer to see my prize options:

1. $25,000****

2. 2011 Toyota Camry***

3. $100**

4. Three Gold Coins*

I needed to go down to the car dealership sale to claim my prize.  Obviously this was just a ploy to get me to come and buy a new car, and every prize had an asterisk next to it.  So what?  I had won!  In all of my excitement, I didn't bother to read the fine print, but if I did, I'm sure it would have translated to something like this:

****Nah, this prize isn't real.

***Good luck with that.

**1 in 45,000 people win this (direct quote)

*And by Gold we mean Brass

It was only 6 o'clock on a Friday, I was fresh off of work and didn't have anything going on until later in the evening, so I thought it was the perfect time to collect my winnings.  Sure, my odds weren't great, but maybe I was the only person who would go claim their prize so they would have to give me the big prize by default.  Regardless, they owed me something.  I drug my friend, Margaret, along, and we headed towards the mall, where this dealership had temporarily camped out in the parking lot.  We walked up to the deserted tent and were greeted by a downtrodden girl with the voice/personality of Daria.

Daria: How may I help you?  Are you interested in buying a car today?

Me: (I wanted to play it cool.  There was no way I could let her know that we had driven all the way there in the hopes of attaining random scam mail lottery glory.) Um, yeah, we were...uh...chilling at the mall and then I remembered that I got this random thing in the mail and decided to come over here and claim my prize.

It was the least-cool thing I could have said.  "I was watching Star Trek alone in my room and decided to get out of the house" would have probably sounded better.  Telling her about my fake adventures at the mall on a Friday night led her to ask me if I was 16.  No wonder.

Daria: Do you go to the University?

Me: We did.  We already graduated

Daria: Oh.  Well, actually, I thought you were in High School.  Don't worry, though, I get that all the time.  Everyone always thinks I'm 16, but I'm actually in my twenties.  We'll appreciate it once we're older.

Me: Yeah, I'm also in my twenties...

I had suddenly lost interest.  I shoved my lottery flyer and accompanying key in Daria's face, as if to say, Let's get this over with, give me my shiz so I can go home.

Daria escorted me over to a car.  Alright, you can try your key to see if it fits.  But I doubt it will.

How encouraging.  I tried to coax my key ever so gently into the keyhole.  I wanted to prove her wrong but I knew it was useless...my key looked like a Fischer Price reject.

Defeated, I followed Daria into the tent and over to a Dry-Erase board, displaying a 7-digit code.  If your code matches this one, you win $100, Daria said mechanically.  I had 3 out of the 7 numbers.  I hung my head once again, but Daria seemed slightly encouraged.  I’ve never seen someone have so many matching numbers! She declared with a tone that suggested that she had just been told that her goldfish had died.  This was a step-up for her.


Lastly, she led me over to a table and made me sit down in a rickety folding chair while she fetched a scratcher card for me.  The card had about 20 boxes and I was only allowed to scratch 6 of them.  I had to scratch 6 different pictures of keys to win $25, 000.  The different types of keys were pictured to the side.  I knew that I was probably going to scratch a bunch of the same keys and get confused but I still had a glimmer of hope.  This was it.  My last chance.  For all the marbles (marbz).  I took a deep breath and scratched a box at random.  I unveiled a picture of a pair of scissors.

Crap.  I didn’t see that coming.

So does that mean I’m out already?!! I screamed desperately at Daria.

Yep.  Hold on, let me go get your coins.

While Daria went searching in the depths of the tent, I began feverishly scratching the other boxes to see if there were even any keys on my card.  All I revealed were random pictures of airplanes, flashlights, and batteries.  What was this mind-game?!

That’s when I saw it.  A cardboard box stashed behind a printer.  It was full of “winning” flyers.  So all of the flyers were winners, but they were distributed randomly.  All of my dreams were crushed.

photo cred

Daria returned with three $1 coins with creepy faces of Abe Lincoln giving me the stank-eye on the back.  These weren’t even real gold!!  I was hoping that I could at least do Cash-For-Gold, but nooo.  So this was the consolation prize they gave all the poor suckers who drove all the way up here just for this (or, who happened to be hanging out at the mall and then wandered across the parking lot, like me…)  I was debating in my head if it was worth the gas money to get there to win $3, or if I had actually lost money in the process.

What kind of car do you drive? Daria interrupted my thought-process.

A Mazda Protégé.

Ohh okay.  Daria was clearly judging me.  I wondered what my car said about me.  Probably just that I’m a gullible teeny-bopper who likes to chill at the mall on Friday nights and waste her time claiming meaningless prizes.

I used my “Gold Coins” to buy a giant Slushee from 7-11 the next afternoon.  At least I still have my pride.

photo cred