Tag California

7 Ways I Know I’m Married To A Californian

Heather Christena Schmidt 13 Comments

My husband was born and raised in California. I know, puke. He went to college in California. He works in California’s biggest industry. Except for a couple of family vacations and bro-rific Vegas trips (double puke), he’s hardly been anywhere else.

On a daily basis, I am reminded just how much of a Californian he is. From his superior sense of self, all the way down to the way he talks. So at the risk of eliciting anonymous comments from his family and friends about how my husband needs to ditch me because I clearly don’t love him (which couldn’t be any further from the truth), allow me to share with you the seven most damning ways I know this…

1383888_707753983733_1884274450_n

1. My Husband Is Too Cool For Everything

Cute family photos while we’re out to eat? They deserve a smirk. Expressing condolences to a loved one that recently got divorced or experienced a death in the family? Pft, I don’t want to deal with that shit. You need me to help out around the house by watering the plants? Err, umm… I guess I can, but you know I’ve got a lot on my plate, what with the last season of Breaking Bad being added to Netflix and apps to update on my smartphone. There’s a new Oxygen Bar in town, did you hear? Oxygen bar? Oh… I was going to Oxygen Bars way before they were cool. You don’t even know…

On all sides of life, my husband, as well as many of the other California natives I know, carries himself with a sense of superiority, a sense of trying way too hard to be cool. It’s why we are known for our tofu-grilling hipsters, and our milk and cereal bars down in Venice.

You just wouldn’t understand.

2. My Husband Uses The Word “Like” At Least Five Times a Sentence

That’s an understatement. Sometimes I can’t even understand what my husband is talking about because he uses the term “like” so frequently.

I used to think it was that he was nervous, or awkward. Or that he just didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, so instead decided to riddle his sentences with nonsensical words so that no one caught on. (God knows I ramble when I’m wielding bullshit.)

Then I realized it happens more frequently when he’s been at the office and a lot of people have been there. Because they, like many in the film industry, are native Californians who love their Valley Girl Speak.

Like, oh my God, whatever…

3. My Husband Wears a Sweater and Flip Flops When It’s Cold Out

There are two ways that Californians dress in the winter: warm clothes with flip flops, or skank shorts with Uggs.

My husband wears flip flops frequently when it’s cold out. Then when it’s about 110 degrees, he’ll wear some heavy socks with tennis shoes and shorts. It’s quite the dress code he’s got going on, much like the rest of this state of weirdos that cannot tolerate anything less than 40 degrees.

Unless, of course, they are going to the mountains to ski in the artificial snow. Then they are truly embracing the cold. Because Californians are hardcore like that.

4. My Husband Thinks His Shit Don’t Stink

Have you ever heard the saying “oh, he thinks his shit don’t stink”? It’s poor English, to say the least, but it applies to Californians everywhere. Though different than the saying (which means he thinks he can do no wrong), I mean it literally. My husband literally thinks his shit don’t stink.

What I mean to say is that they (Californians) are unapologetic about their bowel movements. The most popular book in every Urban Outfitters around here is “What Does Your Poop Say About You.” My husband, as with many people I know from this area, may as well drop his drawers and take a shit right in front of me, continuing on about his business as though it’s standard protocol – that is how unrelentingly unapologetic he is about his ass and everything that comes out of it.

But everyone does it! It’s natural! Sure, that’s great. Everyone picks their nose too, but that doesn’t mean they do it in front of others and write books about what the colors, shapes, and sizes of their boogers mean about them.

5. My Husband Has Little To No Knowledge Of Mike Ditka

If you are from anywhere but the Los Angeles area or the planet Mars, you understand the importance of professional football and Mike Ditka.

I’m pretty sure my husband knows of Mike Ditka, but he certainly doesn’t understand the seriousness and infallibility – the essence, if you will – of Ditka the former Bears coach.

When we were watching Silverlining Playbook, my husband had his first encounter with tailgating outside of an NFL football game. I use the term “encounter” very loosely (I mean it was just on the television screen, and we were sitting in the living room), but I think the word is appropriate because of the shock and horror on my husband’s face as he saw how intense football as a sport can be to fans.

That’s what happens when you went to a school without a football team, and live in a city where the closest thing to football is that the Cowboys practice for two weeks in the field outside the local Residence Inn every summer. Big whoop to that noise.

6. His Job Is In ‘The Industry’ and His Entire Life Revolves Around It

Does anyone outside of California even know what ‘The Industry’ is? I mean there are a lot of industries that do a lot more important shit than the one Californians refer to it as – medical industry, government industry, computer industry…

In California, it’s movies.

Out here, it is not uncommon to know someone that works in The Industry. Sometimes that means that the person waits tables at the local Denny’s by day, and tries out for bit extra parts on weekends. In the case of my husband, it’s actually working for a company that does film-type stuff.

And as with the majority of film industry people, or even just generally Californians engrained in the work-is-life culture, the job eats up my husband’s entire life. If things are slow at work, my husband is slow at home. If things are busy at work, it’s an excuse to shirk off other responsibilities. At parties, we talk about his job. In bed, we answer calls at all hours.

7. My Husband Likes His Hint Of Asiago Cheese

When I was growing up in the Midwest, if people had a party they threw some hot dogs on the grill, some potato chips in a bowl, some mostacholli in the oven, and then called it good. And it was good – nothing needed to be special. Nothing needed a side of cream sauce or a hint of asiago cheese. Shit didn’t need to be smothered in whatever the hipster flavor of the month was. And no one put out little placards that gave the entire description of what was in the food.

A few weeks ago we were out to eat and got ready to order our food. When it came to my husband’s turn, he ordered “the roasted peach and braised quinoa salad with tofu dill mustard dressing … yes, I’ll have a hint of asiago.” I couldn’t even control myself and said (probably louder than I should have): “are you fucking kidding me?” Order a goddamned garden salad with ranch and move on with your life!

The waitress looked at me from behind her attitude glasses, snubbed her head in the air and asked through her nose if that was all. Then she sauntered off to turn in our order and stand by the bar, texting on her iPhone in her Cheap Trick t-shirt (as if she even knows who Cheap Trick is).

Some of these are vaguely reminiscent of knowing I’m married to a man (especially the stuff about the bowels); but in California, it’s so much harsher. It’s more noticeable. Are you married to a Californian? Maybe you’re married to a Californian and you aren’t even there…

Advertisements

From California

Heather Christena Schmidt 6 Comments

1044165_681930020163_1975405431_n

I take it pretty offensively when people refer to me as “from California.” First and foremost, I don’t really like California. It’s nothing personal against anyone that does – I just don’t gel with it. Secondly, though, I’m just not from there. I’m from Chicago. Get over it. Just because I happen to live in California right now doesn’t mean anything.

I would get just as annoyed anywhere said besides where I’m actually from. It’s linguistically wrong.

But then there is the added insult that comes when someone says that you are from California, because they don’t just say that. That you are from California. In the last few days, I’ve witnessed quite a few embellishments on the statement.

“You talk like you’re from California…”

You don’t say. What exactly does that mean? For someone to talk like they’re from California?

Is it the accent? I don’t really have an accent, in fact if I do it’s still a Midwestern one. My ‘a’s are always hard, and on occasion I get that Northern ‘you know’ that you find in Minnesota.

People say all the time in Chicago that I talk like I’m from California, and I’m not entirely sure what they mean by that. I didn’t think that I said words such as ‘like’ or ‘oh my God’ or ‘rad waves dude,’ but perhaps I’ve become so much from California that I don’t even notice it anymore.

“You’re from California… you must want brown rice, tofu, and vegetables…”

It is true that in California we often eat very light food. Brown rice. Tofu. Salads. California style food is supposed to be fusion, but a lot of the time it’s just shit. Shit with shit piled on top. Add some asiago cheese to make it sound slightly more appealing, and that about sums it up.

We were at Panda Express today and I was talking with the guy behind us in line about how we were visiting from where we live – in California. When we got to our turn in line, the guy slopping the faux-Chinese food onto the plates said “oh you’re from California… you must want brown rice and vegetables.”

Kiss my hairy ballsack, you minimum wage employee. What a horrific stereotype.

“Coming from California, you must be spoiled from the weather…”

People’s response when I say that I want to move back to Chicago from California is always one of horror. How could you not love laying on the beaches in the sunny, 70 degree weather every day? Basking in the glow of the warmth that showers down on the Golden State literally every day of the blissfully perfect year?

How dare you insult us as we sit in the snow, or the muggy heat? How dare you insult us with such a suggestion that the perfect climate in California is not something you would give up everything for?

Coming from California, you must be spoiled from the weather… you must have forgotten what it’s like.

Actually, no. I haven’t forgotten what it’s like because it still gets cold and it still gets super hot, and we still have really muggy days and the times that it is legitimately 70, sunny, and perfect are so few and far between that we don’t really know how that California stereotype came about.

What’s worse about California weather too isn’t just that it isn’t what everyone thinks it is, but we’re not equipped for it. When it rains, we have massive flooding. And mudslides. When it’s hot we have disastrous fires. When it’s hot we have no air conditioning. When it’s humid, our houses get demolished by mold.

And even when it’s nice in California, the air is so filled with the pollutants and pollens that you can barely breath without choking and getting a migraine.

From California…

Being on vacation – this vacation in particular – is hard enough without having to deal with that kind of stereotypical bullshit. It just goes to show that everyone is judgmental, or has their opinions on what it means to be this or that.

If people are proud to be from California, kudos to them. For me, it’s just not who I am. Daily I struggle with the influence that the California culture has had over me. I feel guilty for eating anything beyond air. I can’t go out without making sure my hair, my makeup, my accessories, and my clothes are just right. When you’re from California, this is the kind of crap you do; you do more – I do more – but that is just the tip of the iceberg that is my daily struggle.

Really it’s all of our daily struggles, though, when we find ourselves in a place that is not conducive to who we are. It doesn’t matter if you are from the Midwest, from the East Coast, from another country, or from California. The ongoing crisis identity is not reserved for the alleys of high school hallways, nor people that go somewhere new to reinvent themselves. Wherever you go, people will notice that you are not from there. Or maybe they just assume when they hear it that you are different.

STFU Fridays: The Letter Of The Day Is F

Heather Christena Schmidt 2 Comments

I have had a really horrible week. Really awful. Everyone around me seems to be acting like an ungrateful asshole. My spaghetti sauce in the crockpot yesterday got ruined because it was sitting by the sink cooling and someone – somehow – splashed rotten milk into it. And our city is burning to the ground in this massive California fire. So for this STFU Fridays, the letter of the day truly is F.

But is it the F you’re all expecting?

Fires

So we’ve been staying with my dad after his hip replacement, about 12 miles away from where our apartment is. Just about every day we run home to check on our guinea pig and fish; get the mail; make sure the neighbors have not vandalized our front patio. The usual. Yesterday we had to go out that way for the twice a year dentist visit. As we drove into the city, a huge plum of smoke was seen rising above the west end of town. Yet again, our city was on fire.

For those of you unfamiliar with California’s climate, it’s warm and dry. When the wind picks up, particularly the winds from the East (called the Santa Anas) it isn’t just warm – it’s fucking hot. Yesterday it was 98 degrees with wind gusts up to 60 mph. When those winds blow, all the crazy little fuckers with their pyromaniac tendencies come out with their Zippos and some area of California gets torched. Our community has a lot of small fires every year. This one was not small.

So far over 10,000 acres have burned. That’s getting close to about 15 square miles of forest, homes, a farm, and part of the highway that runs along the ocean. We’ve made national news – woopty doo – and there’s smoke fucking everywhere.

37041_671502531933_1816517963_n

And as with all things, everywhere you turn someone is taking advantage of the situation. After the dentist’s appointment, and before my dad’s doctor’s appointment, we went to The Burger Barn for lunch. While there, person after person could be heard calling into work on their cellphones, claiming they couldn’t get back to work because of the fires. Bullshit. One guy got up and ordered another Animal Style burger, yelling “yeah, I don’t have to go back to work – I can eat all day!!!” Shut the fuck up, you fucking pig. Have some fucking self-respect, and stop being such a lazy shit.

Worse than that, right before we left, this group of guys from the local college came in. The school had been shut down earlier in the day and evacuated because of its proximity to the fire. They were meeting some other guys that were already there, and one of them shouted from across the restaurant to this skinny little shit, standing in a loose tank top and his disturbingly long mullet. He was being asked if he had finished his poli sci paper, or if the fire had given him an extra day. The kid yelled in response:

“Naw, man … I’m bummed because I finished it last night while I was doing a number two.”

Fucking gross!! Who says something like that?! Shut the fuck up, you mullet-headed punk. People are trying to eat and not get burned alive here.

Family Meeting

And then I hosted a family meeting last night. I really have started to feel like everyone in our family is disrespecting each other (me), being ungrateful for what we (I) do for each other (I do for them), and causing problems that do not need to be caused (I don’t want to deal with). I even printed out an agenda for everyone, and for the most part it was well-received.

My agenda items were:

1. Mom’s purse (not rifling through it without asking, or digging everything out of it and leaving it all over the floor

2. Being grateful for what people do for us (and expressing that)

3. Listening to mom when she talks and not lying

4. Reiterating that homeschooling, not Barbie dolls, is the #1 priority

5. The new TV rule (no TV before 6 pm, even on weekends)

6. Technology free hour.

Lastly, I raised the complaint jar to 50 cents a complaint, and I added a dollar penalty for every time someone violates the family guidelines. We hung them on the fridge and my dad accrued a 50 cent fine, and my husband a dollar one, before the night was even over. But then after a week of no one getting anything put in the jar, the reward is the jar gets emptied and we use it together as a family – to go out for ice cream, mini golf, whatever.

All seemed reasonable, right? At the end of the family meeting, we went around and everyone got to share their thoughts. My dad expressed full support for me and my feelings. We all seemed pretty excited that this would facilitate more time as a family. My husband’s only comment, though, was “fine.”

When I went to sleep last night, and when I woke up this morning, the weight of that “fine” was hanging over my head. Fuck that. Shut the fuck up with that “fine” bullshit. When we talked about the technology free hour every night (from 8 to 9), Pookie piped up and said that it was really important to her. Lately she has been complaining that my husband spends next to zero time with her. He shows no interest in the things that are important to her. And he spends all the time with her just telling her to do chores or go to bed. God forbid Nick have to put his phone down for an hour, or actually make it home by 8:00 pm to spend time with his family. God forbid we actually have to make commitments to each other. I cannot remember the last time we spent time together as a family. Not running errands. Not dicking around on the phone or computer. But actually spent time together.

946331_671523345223_1012318993_n

Our family has become like the fire in our city. It’s out of control. Everything is being threatened and destroyed because of the gross neglect that has been going on for some time now. It’s true that we’ve been trying to juggle from one tragedy to the next these last six months or so, but that is no excuse for our family to have fallen apart. When a person says that his hobbies are work, your family is in danger. When a family spends all its time apart and doing their own things, your family is at risk of destruction. When everyone’s treating each other like shit, lying to each other, ignoring everyone, and taking everything anyone does for each other for granted, your family is about as fucked as the trees in the path of the fire that continues to burn west of our home.

Well I, for one, am not going to tolerate it anymore. Like all those people at The Burger Barn, I’m taking advantage of the situation this fire has created. Maybe after having to pay for a shitty attitude enough times into the complaint jar, we will all be forced to do something like go to a movie together, or go out for pizza as a family (instead of what we currently do, which is all eat at separate times). Maybe then the fire will be quelled.

So the letter of the day is F. F is for fuck. As in shut the fuck up, motherfucker. F is also for fire, fire fighter, and fire eater. But most importantly, F is for family. That’s pretty much the only important F there is.

Can I Have Your Autograph?

Heather Christena Schmidt 10 Comments

When my husband and I first got married, his bosses gave us a pair of their season tickets to a Lakers game. Sure, I fucking hate the Lakers and anything-Los Angeles, but they were two rows behind court-side, so I figured – what the hell?

What they failed to tell us was that their tickets were seated directly behind those idiotic Kardashian whore-faces. This was when Lamar was still on the team, so the whole time we had to sit there and listen to the mom, Khloe, and one of the pig bitch teenage twins talk on their fucking cellphones about how much they hated basketball. It was horrible, only made worse when Khloe fanned her nappy hair out and spilled dandruff into my goddamned nachos.

So during the halftime, they had a security guard set up right there to stop people from coming down, although once Mother Hubbard and the Pig Bitch left, Khloe allowed her fans to come ask for autographs. The number of desperate and pathetic young women that approached the overweight, acne-ridden, dandruff-fanning cow was astounding.

There are few celebrities that I despise more than her after that whole dandruff incident. And while I would offer to have Derrick Rose’s babies while asking him for a signature, I would never ask these celebutants for anything other than to get out of my way. Here they are, in no particular order:

#1 The Queen Pig Bitch: Kimmie Kardash

This woman’s ass is so fucking horrifying. Sometimes when I see the emphasis placed on it in photos or magazines, I feel like asking her fan club if it’s got it’s own zip code. And now someone has allowed her to breed? Yeah, let’s see how fucked up that kid comes out. It’ll have a big ass, be just as much of a pig bitch as the rest of those Kardashians, and will likely carry itself with the shameless sense of entitlement the entire family has.

kim-kardashian-fail

#2 The Walking STD: the Biebs

I don’t mean to imply that Justin Bieber is a slut or anything, but I do sometimes wonder about a 17 year old that let the papparazzi photograph him dry-humping his girlfriend on a beach in Hawaii. Two years later, the Biebs has turned 19 and in celebration, the media has made his news story about said birthday more popular and of importance than the country’s fiscal crisis. Worse, Justin apparently has spat in the face of all fashion sense at this point, because he’s walking around with no shirt on, wearing tight blue pants, with his ass hanging so far out, if you look close enough you can probably see his teeny-weiney hanging down.

reg_634.JBeiber.ms.022813_copy

#3 Shit-faced Stewart

Something that really irks me every time I see Kristin Stewart is that she always looks like ever-living shit. And yet still ghads of teenage boys and middle-aged lesbians are wanking off to her nightly. I look like shit all the time and you don’t see people wanking to my illustrious debacle of an appearance! She doesn’t just look like shit, though – Kristen Stewart has got to have the worst attitude on the entire planet. She’s always bored. She’s constantly agitated. And her hair looks like it hasn’t been washed in forever.

kristen-stewart-annoyed

Those are my big three. Do you have any celebrities you can’t stand? Or do you salivate at the sight of any of them? The big thing for me (I think) is that I don’t watch much TV and am particularly unimpressed by stardom. Or maybe it’s because I live near Hollywood – the land of the fruits, nuts, and celebrity weirdos.

The Worst Part About California

Heather Christena Schmidt 32 Comments

Don’t believe anything the tourist ads, or the hipsters with their million dollar trust funds, tell you. California has a lot of downsides.

Sure, the weather is typically pretty nice; although, there are even some bad parts to that. For one, you no longer have much change to the seasons, which is sort of depressing. There is something very beautiful about the fall of leaves; about the first snowfall; and, about the beginning of spring and of summer. You don’t get that in California. But it also rains a lot here during the winter, and California is entirely ill-prepared for it. We don’t have proper drainage, no matter how many floods there are. Despite all the landslides of mud and water, which kill people every year, we do nothing to put up proper drainage walls. And don’t get me started on the lack of fire protection.

The bad things about California go well beyond that, though. There’s the cost of living, which is exponentially higher than most of the country. The $27 cake at Whole Foods down the street from our apartment is only $8 at the Whole Foods just outside Chicago. Our electric bills are higher. Our water bills are through the roof (despite the fact that we live right along a body of water). And our rents are almost double what they would be in other, equally as nice, areas of the country.

The hipsters are overruling California, making the environment a terribly narcissistic and pretentious place to live. Every weekend there are local, hippy fests wreaking havoc on traffic and the peace and quiet some of us enjoy – crappy music festivals, art walks where people sell paintings of local scenery, farmer’s markets with absolutely no health standards at all. The last time we went to the farmer’s market, I bought strawberries and the guy put down his macaroni salad and licked his fingers, then grabbed my bushel of strawberries and got macaroni and mayonnaise all over the bag.

Then there is the overwhelming hillbilly population, leftover from all the Okies that came over during the Great Depression to pick fruit. They have racetracks in almost every city it seems. Every county has a fair, and it isn’t a classy fair; it’s an “eat fried butter and wrestle with pigs” kind of event. The streets are lined with trucks covered in mud from their most recent four-bying excursion. Guns are big. Overalls are big. Beating you wife is huge.

Everyone is trying to break into the film industry, which is an awful industry (to say the least). It uses people for everything it can, and then spits them out quicker than you can say “this was a mistake.” The people that actually keep a job for a while are expected to sacrifice everything. My husband is one of them, who sacrifices lunch breaks, weekends with his family, and night after night after night of just a little bit of quality time to satisfy his bosses. He doesn’t even know how many personal days he gets every year, it’s been so long since he took them. And when confronted with the low wages and high demands, the only response is: “most people in the film industry don’t have families.”

The lifestyle in California – even if you are not in the film industry – is so ridiculously fast-paced and high stress, everyone is always rushing. Everyone is always on the go. No one has time to be nice, or to say “hello” to a stranger. That’s considered rude. People cut you off, flip you off, and feel entitled to take your place in line because they are in a hurry. At the grocery store the other day, a woman cut in line in front of us at the deli because she said her daughter was waiting for her. Really bitch? The grocery workers just let it happen, because in California it isn’t what is fair or what is common courtesy, it’s who has the biggest voice.

It isn’t just all this, though, that is the worst part about California. And there are other miscellaneous nuances that make the place miserable. The traffic. The cost of doing anything besides breathe. The horrible public transportation. The jobs. The education. The public schools. The corrupt politicians. The union stranglehold. The homeless. The way people treat the homeless. The beaches with warnings that hypodermic needles could be buried in the sand.

All this and more is not, and never will be, the worst part about California.

No, faihtful blog followers. No there is a much different thing that is the worst part about California. None of this will ever top it, either. “What in God’s name could be so awful, so heinous, to top all of that?” I’m sure you are asking yourself.

Simple answer: the ghetto trash.

Yesterday I went to pick up some soup, because we’re all sick and I wanted something spicy to clear out my sinuses. I parked my car, went in to get my soup, and came out to find that a car had been parked next to mine, and it was completely blocking me from getting into my car.

The drivers of said car were standing outside of it, two of them making out and one of them smoking a cigarette. Clearly a gang bang was about to happen.

For a brief second I thought about trying to squeeze in, but when I saw that their mirror had been smashed down by my driver’s side door, I decided to just politely ask them to move the car.

I was very nice. They were kids – clearly teenagers, driving their parent’s car. I was very, very nice.

“Is this your car?”

The girl making out put her gum back into her mouth, looked me up and down and said “yeah, what’s it to you?”

Really?

“Ok, well I can’t get into my car without scratching up yours … do you think you could move your car just a little?”

The guy smoking said “sure, sorry about that ma’am.” Then the girl piped up again, “you don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”

The guy had already moved his car by then. I got in my car and drove off.

This is the worst part of California. It’s the medical assistant who acts like you’ve morally offended her because you called to schedule an appointment with your doctor. It’s the cashier at Starbucks who gives you attitude because you point out that she gave you the wrong change. It’s the waitress that acts like she’s doing you a favor to let you pay to eat in her establishment. It’s the girls in the bathroom at Target that tell you you’d better “watch your back” wearing clothing that people don’t like. It’s the trashy kids sitting on cars in the parking lot, making out and dressing like total skanks. It’s the people that are constantly on guard, totally abrassive, and ready to call people out for something they have not even done.

California is filled with it. It’s in even the nicest of communities – which ours is fabled to be. This ghetto trash, these bottom-feeders, are what make California intolerable. Because while the weather issues are annoying, the cost of living sucks, and the hipsters and film industry get under your skin, they don’t get in your face like ghetto trash does.

Ironies in My Home

Heather Christena Schmidt 7 Comments

Friday I ranted on STFU Fridays about hipsters, which is very close to home for me because I’m married to someone that wishes with every breath in his body that he were a hipster. From his belief that he has a superior taste in music, to the douchey Fedora and neon green-rimmed sunglasses he hasn’t worn since he came back from Coachella a few years ago, my husband is infatuated with the idea that he is ironically cool.

I’m not sure if there is a correlation, but in our home we have a lot of ironies too. It likely has nothing to do with the fact that my husband loves expensive vintage-looking things and dumpster diving to save the world of being wasteful (while using twenty napkins at every meal); still the same they are there too.

Hypochondriacs that ignore being sick

Whenever someone in this house starts to feel sick, there is a barrage of questions that come along with it. Whenever I have a stomachache, I overanalyze it until I’ve diagnosed myself with some horrible, life-threatening condition. Within 30 seconds of saying something is awry (cramps, headache, stuffy nose, choking), my husband asks the very same question “are you going to take something for that?”

But then when we are actually sick, we ignore it. We’ve all had head colds since sometime last week. It hasn’t been bad at all – in fact, I wish every cold was like this. Runny nose, scratchy throat, and that’s about it. Yesterday, as my husband’s nose was literally dripping onto the couch, I suggested he call in sick and just rest all day to get rid of it so it doesn’t develop into something worse. “I’m not sick,” he responded.

You don’t say?

Well if you aren’t sick, then I’m clearly not sick either, despite the fact that my voice sounds like my throat got gang-banged by a gaggle of horny frogs. I guess doing my wine-salsa-spicy-soup blow out yesterday, followed by a gallon of OJ today, will all be for naught too since I’m “not sick.”

Californians that do nothing but work

When we got up this morning, Pookie said to me perhaps the most depressing thing I have ever heard come out of her sweet, little mouth. She asked if my husband’s bosses forced him to hate us and love working more than spending time with his family. I had to walk into the bathroom and cry over that one.

It’s true though: we never stop working. My husband is never off the clock. Every evening, every weekend, is interrupted with emails after text messages after thirty minute phone calls sitting outside with work. I started technology-free hour every night a few weeks ago and over three-quarters of them have been missed. He doesn’t even remember how many personal days he is supposed to get every year since he never takes them.

But it isn’t just my husband working like a crazy person all the time. Our house is pretty high-energy. We are always moving; I am always cleaning something or cooking something or picking up after people, because I have a terribly unhealthy fear of the cleaning situation getting out of control (as well as how depressed I will get if I sit down and look at what’s happened to my life). My husband can never sit still when he’s home either, which means that we are the Californians that are supposed to be all relaxed and laid back and chilled out, smoking weed and shit on our way to surfing and lying on the beach; and yet “relax” is not really in our vocabulary. At all. The closest thing I’ve come to relaxing was weeks ago when I put my feet up on the back of the seat at the movie theatre.

Way to let loose, Heather.

A cook that hates cooking

Have I mentioned before that I hate cooking? Fucking hate it. I don’t know what it is. The high cost of cooking? The patience required that I just don’t have? The sweating over a steaming stove? The look and feel of things that I realize gross me out while cooking them – like raw chicken or ground turkey, mashed in my hands? Kind of makes a girl lose her appetite to wash blood and guts off tonight’s dinner.

And yet I cook all the fucking time. I cook breakfast every morning. I make lunch sometimes (maybe 1/2 of the week). I cook dinner almost every night. I bake constantly, so we’ve always got cookies or cake coming out our ears and assholes.

I’ve recently gotten into making things and sending them out for people to try too. I was on that canning kick for awhile and have now moved onto this homemade, low-fat pumpkin bread that I just threw together the recipe for. After my cold is gone I’m baking 10 more loaves of it and sending them out to friends.

But I will hate it the entire time I’m doing it. And afterwards I will collapse on the couch and whine about how my feet hurt; shoveling pumpkin bread in my own mouth to deal with how depressing this kitchen slave life is. Then I’ll get up a little later to cook another meal, willingly.

So these are just a few of the ironies in our home. There are a lot others. So many that the statement “those people are so ironic” makes you almost think it should really say “those people are such hypocrites.” I suppose it depends on how you look at it. On STFU Fridays last week I ranted about hypocrites too, since hipsters are like the gods and goddesses of the hypocrites. Perhaps I’m the authority because that too is so close to home.