Don't Call it V-Day

I really don't like the term "V-Day". It sounds like:

1. Everyone pretend to be a lesbian day!
2. Let's go to the gynecologist day!
3. Angry militant vaginas marching in solidarity to stage a hostile take over.

So for the one day of winter that I feel obligated to shave both my legs, (I'll shave 1 leg for a boyfriend and none for a husband...It's cold outside!) Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you’re spending this day with the one you love and if you’re one of those people who detest February the 14^th, at least do something that you love. Try not to be disgusted with all the red and pink décor and heart shaped balloons you have to push through to find the register at CVS. Just buy your Redbull in peace, knowing that tomorrow everything will be a mix of glittery gold and shamrock green for St. Patrick’s day. Yep, I already coped my Shamrock shake™from McDonald's!

I definitely had a little trouble deciding on what to write about for this hallmark holiday. Through my blog I’m desperately trying to impress you with my witty anecdotes and my uncanny storytelling ability but as far as the holiday of love goes I’ve got no good stories to tell.

No one has ever taken me on a romantic hot air balloon ride, showered me with diamonds or a proposed to me via jumbo-tron at a basketball game. The best I’ve gotten gift wise were some homemade chocolate covered strawberries. 

Two years in a row. 

From the same guy. 

You may be thinking, “Aww how sweet, he cooked for you,” and at first I thought the same thing. But after giving me the same high calorie, semi healthy treat for a second time, he could have at least paired it with an Ikea flute of moscato (yeah, I’m classy) and used Godiva chocolate instead of the supermarket brand chocolate chips.

Honestly I haven’t had a Valentine’s day that has been memorable. Le sigh. But don’t cry for me. I haven't had any horrible ones either. This year I would like to dedicate Valentine's day 2013 to my faithful love: Chicago.

I moved to Chicago from Charlotte, NC 4 years ago after watching the movie What Women Want. You know the movie where Mel Gibson is a womanizer that has some freaky Friday shit happen and he can hear what women are thinking. The movie is based in Chicago and makes the city look really glamourous. I desperately wanted to move out of the south, the west coast was too far away and since I  was born in New York/have family there NYC was a no go. 

After saving up some cash, securing a freelance gig and finding an apartment online I made the move! More accurately after moving back home with my parents and wanting to poison them everyday, I became frugal and determined to live on my own again.

I heart Chicago even in the winter because of population control. Its so cold here that my family won't come visit me for 5 months out of the year. I can't say that I like when it's -356° outside and I fear my eyeballs freezing/falling out or encountering a cold blast of soul-reaping air on the way to the train. The good part about the cold however, is that I have time to stay inside and learn how to bake things. Additionally in the spring/fall when it rains nobody carries umbrellas because the wind turns them inside out so obviously I've saved tons on not having to buy umbrellas over the past 4 years. 

Chicago also has street festivals every day of the summer from the Armenian knife throwing competition to Polish Sausage fest. There's also a strong warm breeze in the summer that will either blow throw you into oncoming traffic or blow your skirt up. You live, you learn, you start wearing biker shorts under skirts. And during the summer everyone knows they have a limited amount of time to enjoy the weather so they all flock to Lake Michigan to hang out at "the beach" half naked.

My friend Tosh (Left) and I at a street festival this summer

I love Chicago because its the perfect blend of southern hospitality, big city charm and bad accents. It's amazing how every neighborhood has a different personality. Where I live in Rogers Park, you've got everything from college students, a large Jewish population, lots of Hispanics, middle class white families and fresh off the boat Indians. Plus Tina Fey used to live here and take the same train that I take! Thats how I know i'm going to be famous one day.

This cultural melting pot makes for some great restaurants which of course leads to weight gain. 

I also feel pressure to frequent all of these ethnic eateries because if I didn't someone might call me a racist. I've got a samosa spot, a matzoh ball soup shop and a enchilada stand that has the best horchata. I like the mixed ethnicity of the area, but truthfully there are some ugly people in Rogers Park. I'm probably one of the  prettiest  people in my neighborhood. 

If you want to find the cuties you gotta go to Lakeview, West town or Ravenswood and if you're a retired homosexual you'll want to put down roots in Andersonville. Generally speaking you have your rich hipsters in Wicker Park, true hipsters in Logan Square, buppies in Hyde Park and Blacks/Hispanics on the Southside and Westside. 

Even though I lived in a big city in the South, I never could have imagined how segregated Chicago would be. On the Northside (mostly in Lincoln Park) I often get looks like, Are you lost? Or if I'm eating at an open air pub with some friends, How nice, I'm glad someone is feeding that poor black girl. Of course when I work on the Westside or Southside everyone is so helpful and accepting of me. By accepting I mean I get hollered at by Mexicans. 

Despite this I still love Chi-Town. Sometimes I want to set it on fire when I get an unavoidable parking ticket. Oh today it's raining, you can't park here. Enjoy this $150 ticket. When I recently got a parking ticket for $10 in another city I was like, damn, give me two more. I can actually afford these! 

Anyway, I know I’m going to see tons of Valentine’s inspired twitter and instagram posts today and that’s okay because it’s only one day of saccharin social sharing. I don’t mind the occasional kissy face pictures and photos of fancy food from your date night. But I honestly want to gag every time I see a FaceBook couple make status updates to each other like,

Her: “My husband cleared the snow off the car this morning. Love you babe XOXOXOXOXO.”

Him: “I love you   T       H         I         S    much sugar foot.”

Can’t you send a text message? I mean I guess I would be impressed if SNOWmageddon had just dumped 15ft of snow on your Cavalier and your dude blow torched the snow off your whip and heated up the seats in the process. Otherwise your over share just makes me want to throw snowballs at you. Heart shaped ones of course.

  

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TMI

*Just a word of caution, this post is a little racy*
A couple of nights ago I was in Uptown, a Chicago neighborhood with reasonable rents, a few good restaurants and nice people if you stay away from the Lawrence red line stop. While there I met up with some friends at Bar on Buena. Actually “friends” is probably a strong word. I should say that that I met up with a group people that I occasionally work with and don’t hate enough to not go out with. After a few drinks the conversation turned to relationships.

There are certain topics of discussion that are either fair game or off limits depending on if it’s a gang of guys, a harem of girls or co-ed frat party. Honestly I don’t know what guys talk about when they get together. Perhaps it's Beyonce, interior decorating and 401K's or if it's a group of straight guys I would assume it's a combination of sports, SNL and T and A? I'm pretty sure both gay and straight guys talk about Men's Health magazine.

Usually when I’m hanging out with my girl friends we talk about guys (who we’re doing, who we want to be doing, who we did) or bitches we hate. Most often though we talk about random everyday stuff, like recipes, skin care and in my case how long it took me to conquer the last level of Super Mario Galaxy 2. Let me tell you, that shit is hard. Those Japanese game developers deserve a Nobel Peace prize for their imagination and engineering. Who else could have thought up two mushroom eating Italian brothers with connections to royalty (Princess Peach) whose best friend is a dinosaur? Unless I had some mushrooms too, not this girl. 

Anyway, I know some ladies like to be the center of attention and I get it, I want to be noticed too. But there is a line that you’re not supposed to cross if both ladies and gents are present. I’m not even talking about openly discussing cramping, breast tenderness and discharge. That’s common sense.  But I cannot stand when I’m in a mixed group of men and woman and a chick just has to mention how much she loves to give blow jobs. What kind of childhood did you have?

Really, I think I've heard it all. From statements like “I always swallow because semen tastes so good” Was your mom a bad cook? 

To “It’s cold in here and my nipples are so hard right now, does anybody have any lotion?” Did your parents only let you watch TV shows on Cinemax? 

The women will sit there looking disgusted while the guys are like, “Is that so?”

What I want to know is, "Who are you trying to impress?" Skank.

Obviously not the women at the table because we are all horrified that you would say something like that. Maybe you’re trying to entice a guy or flirt with someone’s boyfriend? I’m not sure how guys feel when girls say things like, “I never need lube because I’m always so moist and ready to go,” but I am really hoping some guy will read this and give me some insight. In my mind:

A decent guy would respond like this

A not so decent guy might respond like this 

Maybe I'm an old fashioned prude. If guys do dig us talking about our lady parts, the next time we go out I’ll mention that my pores are sooooo small whenever I get out of the shower. Not enough?

But you should know, the girls in the group will all hate you forever, probably talk about you behind your back and make sure not to invite you out to things if their boyfriends are going to be around. You will probably marry some guy that fell in love with you when you told him the color of your areolas on the first date and you’re going to end up with no bridesmaids and you deserve it. 

I’m not trying to tell people how to live, I’m just saying don’t be that girl. 

Super Bowl House of Horror

For those of you who don’t care about football or the Super Bowl go to number 1. For those of you who are preparing to watch the Baltimore Ravens take on the San Francisco 49er’s in Super Bowl XLVII this upcoming Sunday night, go to number 2.

       1.     You are so un-American. Go to number 2

                            

       2.     This is the true story... of a bunch strangers and a couple of friends... who signed up to live in a house...  work together and have their lives change ... who found out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real...

Last year I had the pleasure of working at Super Bowl 46 in Indianapolis, IN. (I hate roman numerals and I’m guessing the NFL uses them because they think it looks cool on NFL merchandise.) Indy is only about 3 hours away from the only Mid-western city worth living in, Chicago, so most of my promotional industry friends took the short drive down to be apart of history. And that they were!

For an entire week before the big game you can participate in various events in a makeshift town called  Super Bowl Village and another one called the NFL Experience. You can see how far you can throw a football for a prize (most likely a Super Bowl koozie or a bag of Doritos (NFL Sponsor), you can stick your head in one of those cardboard cut outs of your favorite player from your favorite NFL team or even go zip lining over the entire city. A lot of people fly across the country and spend thousands of dollars renting hotels, cars and hookers just to watch a 3 hour game of football with other boozed up fans on a cold Sunday night.

I should mention working the Super Bowl is a great opportunity to meet people from all over the nation, hang out with people you already know in a new town and possibly meet some celebrities or professional athletes. My fingers were crossed the entire time, but no dice on meeting anyone that could pay off my student loans because they were drunk, rich and I showed them some nip.

However one experience that will stay with me forever is paying $1500 to rent out a house for 10 days and the craziness that ensued afterwards. I know $1500 sounds like a lot of money for the rental but believe me it was not. Most people who lived in Indy were taking advantage of the lack of hotel rooms and charging $1500 a night!

               
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Enter the Super Bowl House of Horrors. This house had 3 bedrooms, one bathroom and a thick animal/marijuana smell upon arrival. My two friends and I took it upon ourselves to thoroughly clean the place up and air it out before the other guests arrived. Some of the people in the house were friends, some were recommended by friends and some I had never met. We were to split the rent based on how many people stayed each night. The smallest amount of people we had at one time was 2, the largest amount, 18.

I slept in the master bedroom on a king-sized bed with 2 of my friends while 3 more people slept on the floor in sleeping bags. At one point we had various people in the other 2 bedrooms, 7 people in the living room, one on the couch, the rest taking up any space they could find on the floor. There were people on an air mattress in the kitchen, hanging from chandeliers, sleeping in the bathtub and there may have even been a baby sleeping in the stove. You get the picture. If not, it looked something like this:

Honestly everything went well for the first 3 nights. We took turns using the bathroom, cooking dinner, watching TV and then one by one we'd go to sleep. Then on the 4th night some of the roommates decided to go to a bar and that’s when all hell broke loose. My friend and I called this episode, D-day, D standing for drunk. 

Everyone in the house was jolted awake at 3 in the morning when housemate Tammy came home drunk and fighting with 2 housemates. I heard yelling, someone talking about calling Pookie and then scuffling. One guy got up and broke up the cat fight. Apparently once everything had settled down, Tammy decided to vacate the house in the middle of the night leaving the front door unlocked with everyone sleeping inside. She never texted, emailed or called to tell me if she was coming back, or when she was going to pay her rent. Not only did I have to track her down and stalk her at work to get the rest of our money but this inconsiderate slut bucket had put other people’s lives in danger to boot.

Then early one morning after D-day, one of the housemates was taking out the trash and caught housemate Allison throwing her belongings out of her bedroom window and fleeing to her car. We had to track that bitch down for the rest of her money and I only ended up getting a portion of it because I couldn’t leave work to harass her for the rest of it.

The last straw was when Lindsey Jo, a self entitled broad in need of a trip to the hair salon, told me she didn’t think she should have to pay as much as she was being charged because she slept on the floor and not in a bed. Whore please, you knew the deal before you even got to the house. Not only did we have a verbal contract, we had a written one too. She avoided me and some of the other housemates like the plague and literally ran through the streets of downtown Indianapolis trying to skip town after I caught her at work! I hate to say it but I would expect this sort of thing from low down dirty shameful ratchet folk, not from supposedly well-raised middle class white bitches*.

When I think of all the BS I had to put up with I wish I had stayed home and watched the hilarious commercials and the horrible half time show that I wait for all year long. This year I will do just that, but in salute to those low class hussies that skipped out on us, I’m dedicating these Super Bowl delicacies in their honor.

For Allison who tried to dip out on us in the wee hours of the morning through a bedroom window – Avocado Ranch Dip. This creamy concoction can be eaten with chips, chicken wings or southwestern egg rolls.

For Tammy who bragged about how she's so high class and how much money her daddy gives her for an allowance at 27 years old – White Trash Chex Mix. I should have known something was up with this girl when she read us hate mail her best friend had sent her. Then she tried to put her pale, lumpy T and A in my guy friend's face. Don’t nobody want to see that.

It was a toss up for this last recipe. I thought about a cheesy seven layer dip since Lindsey Jo is from Wisconsin (cheese head) and has a whole bunch of mess going on below that greasy top layer. But in the end, for the two-faced, flat-chested, cowboy boot wearing, hillbilly bimbo who had me running after her through the streets of Indianapolis – Rum Runner Punch, an alcoholic delight that all of your Super Bowl guests can enjoy!

Let me know what you end up doing/cooking/eating for Super Bowl 47 this year! I would love to see some photos and get some recipes from you all. Hopefully your experience will be a lot more savory than mine was last year!

*As a disclaimer for my SuperBowl House of Horrors post I want my readers to know I'm not racist. I wrote "supposedly well-raised middle class white bitches" and someone said I sound racist and that "People think it's ok to be racist with white people. Well It's not!" That's right, it isn't right to be racist to anyone and that was not my intention. I hope I have not offended anyone. I meant that these girls who called me trash from the wrong side of the tracks went out of their way to disrespect me. I never would have expected that from people who claimed they came from rich families and had the best opportunities in life. It really doesn't matter that they happen to be white.