You may all congratulate me! I live in the second most stressed out city in America according to Forbes magazine! In honor of this list, which came out today, I’d like to give you my list the of the times I have been most stressed out.

5. 11th Grade

I had to write five essays every week in my AP US History class, which I naturally waited until the last minute to do. I had to apply for colleges and was so overwhelmed that I only applied to ONE (my mom made me send in applications to a few others, but I really half-assed ‘em). I was still getting used to driving a car. Did I mention AP US History? Man that class sucked.

4. 1997- Forced Ropes Course

On the seventh grade class trip to a ropes course in the canyons of Malibu, the counselors pointed at this hanging, decrepit rope mess high up in a couple of pine trees and said: “We’re all going to do the zip line! Line up to get your helmets and harnesses!” What I heard was “What we have here is some unstable and rotting string that we’d like you to put your faith in. This is required for your grade, so grab your useless safety equipment and start praying.”

3. 1985- This:

I don’t actually know why I was so stressed out here, but it looks like my Uncle Clint and I were caught exchanging soviet launch codes or something.

2. 2006- First Post-College Job

Now, I don’t want to name names, because I’m sure I signed some crap that made it illegal for me to do that, but Holy Balls, you guys, have you ever hated a job so much that the very act of arriving in the morning gives you a sense of relief because at least you’re already one step closer to being able to go home?

1. Summer 2009: When My Dad Told Me He Had Played In A Chicago Coverband

We always have a lot of questions for my dad about his youth, because we’ve only ever known him as a well-groomed health professional who drives working vehicles and knows how to carve a turkey. We are fascinated by the notion that at one point my dad may have been as close to falling over the Cliffs of Failure as we are! “Dad! Tell us about the class you hated the most! Tell us about how you made Uncle Jeff break his arm! Tell us again about that time you drank a conservative number of beers, yet puked all night long, like a damn baby!”

I almost fainted, actually. I can’t even remember what he said about why, or when, or how. I was at once overjoyed at the idea, enraged I hadn’t heard about this sooner, and freaked out by the possibility that there may have, for some reason, been leather pants.

Los Angeles is one of the most stressful cities in the nation and I have consistently been one of its most stressed out citizens.

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With the exception of the occasional devil squirrel, or murderous feline, animals love me. They do. I’m like a damned Disney princess. Dogs, miniature donkeys, chipmunks, manta rays– they all want to flock to me as I sing soprano in a forest (yes, even the rays).

You want some proof? Check out this picture of Paul’s sister’s guinea pig, Ollie.

Shortly after this photo was taken, he set up camp by my ankles and ate grass for about seven solid minutes.

So, obviously, I’m loved by pretty much all animals.

So you can imagine how jarring it was to come upon a critter at The Living Desert Wildlife Park in Palm Springs that absolutely freaking HATED me. Like, wanted to rip parts of my face off and scatter them across the California landscape.

Behold the Owl:

Everywhere I went, it swiveled its terrible head around and narrowed its horrible eyes, as if to say, “I grow tired of voles; I’ll give this new walking meat a whirl.” I probably didn’t help matters, because I laughed aloud at it, and stared right into its freaky bird eyes and said “Hey, jerk! What’s up?”

Paul read somewhere that if you keep an owl, even from infancy, it hates you. You are its mortal enemy, and it spends its days, ripping the mice you feed it to shreds, imagining that they are your vital organs. It plots its revenge, each soft hoot its solemn vow to end your life. If you let it out of the cage, even for a second, it will flap its mite-laden wings, and descend upon you immediately.

Which brings me to my point: I think this owl has focused its intense cage wrath on me. It sees me as the person who is responsible for its captivity. So, if you or anyone you know happens to be affiliated with the Living Desert Wildlife Park, I am begging you right now, never let that owl out of its cage.

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Never, EVER, in my entire life did I think I would be swimming laps at dawn.

And yet today I was there at the exact moment that whoever controls the lights at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center said, “Yup. It’s bright enough to turn the lights OFF.”

OFF. I’ve been there at dusk a billion times, watching the water around me getting darker and darker until it prompted the management to turn the lights ON. But OFF??

What is happening to me?

I am a person who gets up at 5:00 am now, that’s what.

Paul and I have jobs that require us to be in very early. This means that, if my call time is 8:30, but his is 6:30, we wake up at 5:00. I can’t bring myself to go back to sleep after the alarm clock has gone off, because then I feel all guilty and have to make up for it later in the day with some other kind of punishment. (Yesterday, for example, I slept until 7:00, but I had salad at dinner instead of a bread item. I felt deeply punished– success!)

It was not easy to go, what with the time of day and the post-op inertia (it was the first day I’ve been able to exercise since my appendectomy). I thought, as I was getting ready, I should take a photo of this. Naturally I forgot. So I’ve drawn a picture of how I looked and photographed that instead:

*Note: That is a “beauty mark” on my face. It is NOT a rat poop.

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A couple of weeks ago, before my own guts turned on me, my friend Christy took me to a play to celebrate my birthday (we scheduled this ON my birthday; we just had to wait until we could get tickets). The Lieutenant of Inishmore was an unforgettable play. There was swearing and blood and guns and romance and shooting and dead cats and Irishmen. It doesn’t get more memorable than that.

However.

Because I’m me, the thing that  I will most remember from the evening is — you guessed it! — a stupid picture that I found in the program.

Here’s a simple advertisement for a store specializing in plus-sized women’s clothing. Why they’ve selected clothing that looks like a tent, I’ll never know. But, it’s not too bad. Girl. Clothes. Done.

Quick question, though: If you ran a business that clothed and shod portly chicks, what would you call your store in order to attract the maximum number of patrons?

The correct answer, according to this ad is:

ABUNDANCE.

I say again: ABUNDANCE.

What!? You might as well have called it “Roundy’s Pants n’ Things.”

Are you near any women? If you are, look at one of them. You are looking at a person who is, at that moment, actively thinking about at least one part of their anatomy that they absolutely HATE. Why would any of them even walk into a store whose very name seems to say “Hey, lard ass. Why don’t you come on in and get something to hide those love handles you’re always fretting about?”

Here’s a tip, Abundance: Your store provides a decent enough service. But no one’s going near it if it makes them feel crappy about themselves.

Also, go see that play. You’re going to love it.

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ATTENTION: I now have no appendix. Please forward all correspondence intended for my appendix to my large intestine. It will be taking over all former duties. This was a cost-cutting maneuver only, and we hope the aforementioned organ will not take it personally.

So, I had it in my head that I would write a big, hilarious post about The Time My Appendix Turned On Me, but in reality all that happened was I woke up at 5:00 AM last Monday in horrendous pain, sensed something was wrong, tried to be a hero and go into work anyway, was told by my dad that I should go to the ER, and I did. The End.

There’s really not a whole lot that’s funny about that, unless you saw me trying to maintain a pleasant façade at work. I had tears in my eyes, and was engaging in a version of “walking” that was equal parts Quasimodo and Bubs from The Wire.

I did learn some things, though. I’d like to share them:

-Lifetime Original Movies are soothing. Especially ones starring Scott Bakula.

-Three Lifetime Original Movies in a row is my limit.

-Skin Care infomercials are also soothing. Apparently. Paul and my parents were trying to get me comfortable before they left for the night, and I guess I was insisting they leave the TV on to some weird anti-aging lotion commercial. Not far off from what I like to watch when I’m not post-op, actually.

-A friend who can make you laugh so hard that your appendix hurts MORE is a very valuable thing. Thanks, David Malloy. You are the best!

-A good mantra when you are freaking out over early-morning abdominal pain is Deep breaths, idiot. I kept repeating that to myself over and over, and it help me get an entire TEN MINUTES of sleep.

-If they tell you you are getting a CT Scan with rectal contrast, buckle the fuck up. That’s all I’m sayin’.

-Those little girls at the orphanage in the children’s book, Madeline, who all get jealous that Madeline got to have her appendix out? They’re dopes.

-Jody Feder is an excellent emergency golf-cart driver.

-I’m allergic to band-aid glue!

-Appendicitis can easily be mistaken for gas or “feminine discomfort.” What a terrible bodily mechanism. People with a tough mental resolve can be severely damaged by this. (Me, for example! If my dad hadn’t told me to get to the damn hospital, I would’ve just hung out at work all day until the stupid thing ruptured and killed me.)

-My family takes “Liz isn’t hungry” as a sign that something is seriously wrong.

I hope you’ve found this as educational as I have.

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I saw an ad on Facebook for a Beautiful Kid contest. They’re looking for ONLY the cutest kids money can buy.  Well, I don’t have a child, and if I did, I certainly wouldn’t enter it into this contest. But, I DO have a picture of the cutest kid of all time: My mom.

This is a picture of her in 1955. She was coming down with the measles. Doesn’t she look profoundly forlorn? That’s her bear there, under the tray. His name is Willard and he has a hard plastic nose. He still lives in her bedroom.

Aside from her expression and messy hair, my favorite part of this picture is how it looks like she’s consuming her tea with a spoon, like it’s soup, because it’s so hot. That is exactly what I used to do when I had tea.

Aww. Mama.

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I’m having a great time exploring Korean cuisine lately. In doing so, I’ve been Googling a lot of restaurants. I came across the website for Keumsan Samgyetang, a restaurant that began in Korea and has since moved over here. They specialize in Samgyetang, a kind of soup made with whole young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice and boiled in ginseng and other junk.

Now, you could always just go to the website yourself, but I’d really like to point out a couple of things.

A good place to start is the menu bar across the top, which includes such categories as “Keumsan Story,” “Delicious Service,” and “Know How.” Keumsan Story tells the reader about the Taste of Samgyetang, and how the recipe came to be. The “legendary taste handed down for 20 years” is the result of “endless trials to keep the taste of Samgyetang. While running the business of chickens for 15 years,” the site continues, “to pray for the repose of mercilessly sacrificed chickens’ souls and to bloom of their youth, we will keep developing the better taste.” Appetizing, no? The story goes on…

“I have given so much torment to chickens. I have burnt over 300 chickens before,” confesses the chef. But he’s confident that Samgyetang is what he was put on this earth for and wants to pass down its secrets to his son. But: “I don’t know whether he really likes this job or he is just thinking this job position as his escape from studying. Anyhow, I am cool there is someone who wants to inherit mrecipe.” And we, dear chef, are cool that you are telling us so much about the world of boiled chickens! For further reading, I recommend you check out the bottom of the page, which explains how the two primary menu items are made. (Hint: One involves a green marsh snail that can cure your liver.)

The Delicious Service section lists the menu items (the aforementioned stews, as well as fried gizzard, spicy marsh snail sashimi, and the ever-popular “chicken cooked in an electric oven” to name a few) and explains the delivery service (”Picnics, Sports meetings, or any events, you are more than welcome.”) It is here that we also get some insight into the ingredient selection process. “It is difficult to choose delicious chickens weighing of about 420g with tender and juicy meat since they are rare,” the Chef explains. “We use chickens … making no more than 20 eggs per month. … On behalf of a farm, they must be just useless beings for the farm since they cannot make enough eggs.” I take this to mean that, while they don’t want to rob the farmer of good egg-producing stock, they have no problem abusing the “useless” chickens by insulting them before they hack them up and boil them. How bold, Korea.

But the two highlights of this section are easily: “If Korea gets united, I will deliver to the top of Mt. Baekdu!” (Here’s hopin’, man!) and the 10% discount offered on “Chicken’s Day.” Whatever that is.

Finally, the Know How section. It’s really more of a Samgyetang FAQ page. He firsts asks himself “Have a secret of the recipe?” and answers himself thusly: “Of course, yes. We have it.” But don’t worry, folks, “I am not going to keep it under my coffin.” I’m unclear on why What the hell does that mean? isn’t the very next FAQ.

He closes with the basic steps for creating his famous Samgyetang. This includes such delightful phrases as “after cleaning of the chosen chickens,” “if it is stored without ice, even a dog can’t eat it,” and “If you make broth roughly, you will get the roughNready taste broth.”

There are more sections of this site that I haven’t even begun to look at. So please, visit Keumsan Samgyetang and see its wonder for yourself.

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You remember my review the bathrooms at work a couple of months ago? Well, now that we’ve been picked up, we’ve moved into fancy new offices, which mean new bathrooms to review. And boy, do I have a LOT to say about these ones. This time, though, I am going to be positive, because I realize that I do complain a lot. So here you go, my happy review of the shiny new bathrooms:

There are three single-stall bathrooms in the hallway. This is great, because the entire building is made of balsa wood, and without the usual bonus bathroom foyer that multi-stall potties have, no sounds are left to the imagination. Though the doors are securely bolted, there is something about the hallway of bathroom “suites” that makes it feel as though one is peeing in someone else’s office. It’s hard to describe, but it’s terrific!

The first “pee pee suite” is the smallest of the three and features a small corner into which the designer has crammed both the trash receptacle AND the toilet. This offers the seated user a nice view of the wastebasket. Additionally, someone shrewdly placed the flush handle pointing at the wall, providing the would-be flusher with a fun Brain Challenge: “How will I flush the toilet with my foot without falling into the bowl, or with my hand, without getting a face full of splash back?” After you realize there is no correct answer, you are treated to the loudest freaking toilet flush you’ve ever heard. Really, it’s a great way to wake yourself up.

Then there’s bathroom two. If you like a gaping hole in the ceiling large enough to fit a peeping Tom’s head directly over where you are relieving yourself, this is the place for you! And, as we always strive for energy efficiency, the automatic light won’t turn on unless you really, really move around a lot. Plus, sometimes it just turns off whenever it feels like it, leaving you in calming, quiet darkness. This is also a good mental exercise: did you pay attention to where the sink and paper towels are? Can you find the door handle? Can you correctly identify that moisture? How about that moisture? Personally, I love this bathroom because you have to flush it at least three times to get it to work, which is a great quad workout.

And finally, Can Three. This suite boasts a super creaky door, which plays off the paper thin walls, allowing you to enter the restroom AND announce to the entire office that you’re taking a leak, all in one easy step! I don’t know about you, but I love it when everyone knows that I’ve had too much iced tea. Additionally, as a nice daily gift, one of my coworkers enjoys leaving their pee in and around the toilet bowl. It’s very freeing to work with people who don’t feel they need to observe basic social customs, like hygiene and consideration for other people.

So come on down! Pee in (and on) our toilets! I guarantee you’ll be a changed person afterward.

See? Much more positive!

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I got an email last night from our class secretary. She’s the one who’s supposed to ask us alumni what we’re up to, write it up, and then publish it in our alumni magazine. The idea behind it, obviously, is to alert the world as to what the brilliant and shiny graduates from Occidental College are achieving with their expensive educations. “Lookit here!” says the magazine. “Our former students do enviable things now that they’re out in the world!” They want to hear updates like “Doug Bleefdram (’05) just got a job as the head of Citibank! And his dog (’09) had puppies!” The pressure to come up with an impressive statement is like the pressure one feels when they’re trying to sign the high school quarterback’s yearbook, only one thousand times worse.

Until today, the only other time I’ve sent anything to them was right around when I had just been promoted at my last job from “answering machine with legs” to “executive answering machine with legs.” This time it took me over 15 hours to come up with something. What I gave her was mundane and pleasant. Started a new job, been hanging out with other alumni friends. Bla bla. What I wanted to write, though, was:

Well, after nearly an entire year of unemployment, I worked a three month stint on a pilot, which, if you’ve never done that, is terrifying work because you’re not sure if all these late nights and heavily-salted catered lunches are actually going to lead to a show that anyone will watch. Luckily, we were picked up. But while I waited for the news I had to go on unemployment again, which elicited several calls and letters from various inefficient government departments requiring that I attend – wait for it – a seminar designed to help me become a better employee. You see, on paper it looks like no one wanted hire me for a year, and then, when someone actually did, they realized what an error they had made and fired me after three months. Also, because of all the bureaucratic hemming and hawing, I still haven’t received any of my unemployment checks, so I’ve been eating a lot of frozen corn while I wait for some money. Plus, have any of you guys ever been on COBRA?

But it’s not all so bad. I can still pay my own rent. I just don’t live in the fanciest area. That’s really not too terrible, as long as you don’t mind living next to the kind of people who shoot off faulty Mexican fireworks next to your car at two in the morning on the 8th of July. And, in other good news, I finally got my lost social security card reissued.

I hope you’re all having wonderful lives!

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Oh, East Coast, you poor, poor bastards. I’m so sorry about your heat wave. What an awful time you all must be having. I spent the Fourth of July wearing a scarf by a lake in Seattle. To me, that’s how life should be all the time. But, alas…

Heat changes everything. I’m generally a pretty nice, relaxed person. My default attitude is to love everyone and everything. In the late Fall, the Winter, and the Spring, I can often be heard positively hyperbolizing: “I love that guy! He’s the best!”or “Hey, let’s sit outside for dinner tonight- I love patios!” or “Have you ever had kimchi? It’s AWESOME.” However, when it gets above 80, I turn into a sweaty jerk: “That guy looks like he’d be an idiot.” or “How come all the movies out look like crap?” or “I only like ice. Everything else can go to hell.”

But Liz, you all say, don’t you  love those balmy summer nights? And the lazy days spent on your porch drinking lemonade?

To you I say, Shut up, Norman Rockwell. Let me finish.

My entire world is turned upside down when it’s hot. The light down comforter, which during the wintertime I’ve actually considered proposing to, becomes a hated foe. “What are you looking at, blanket?” I find myself thinking  when I pass it, wearing shorts. SHORTS. I hate shorts. If I were tall and had beautiful legs, summer would at least be more tolerable in the garment department. But no. I’m 5′3″ on a good day and have bruised shins from climbing out of the pool. Shorts make me look stumpy and abused.

And, oh god, housework. Now, let’s not kid ourselves. It doesn’t matter what temperature it is, chores suck. But have you tried to do the dishes when it’s over 90 degrees in your apartment? Have you lugged 48 pounds of clothing to and from the laundry room in 100 degree weather? Housework in the summer makes me sweat from the strangest places. For instance, the crooks of my elbows. I’ll be hauling a basket of clean clothes and suddenly feel as though something is crawling on me. Looking down, I will be enchanted to find that it is in fact a substantial amount of perspiration, dripping from my bent elbow, right onto one of Paul’s freshly washed polo shirts. Poetry.

Not to mention how all of my toiletries warm up and melt, and how I can’t cook anything because it heats up the house. Once I tried to subsist for a summer on only refrigerated cucumbers. It was a nightmare that lasted all of two hours before I broke down and went to Souplantation. SOUPLANTATION, PEOPLE.

We aren’t friends, summer and I.

Which is why I am trying to tip-toe quietly around the fact that it’s drizzly and 65 and is supposed to be cool all week. But don’t make a big deal about it, or you’ll attract the attention of the Sun. I’m serious you guys. Keep it down, or he’s gonna come back from the East Coast and then we’re totally screwed. Just act natural. Just for a couple months.

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