Cheer Up, for God's Sake

I admit, I've been pretty down the past few days.

I lost my job and the freaking Gators threw away the game in the Elite Eight. Gotta dwell on that for a minute. We were playing badly and still beating Butler. We let them back in the game, got frustrated about it and BLEW IT. Blew the last second shot with some off-balanced crap and handed them overtime. I cried. In the middle of the bar. Then I proceeded to embarrass my sweet friends by threatening to lecture every person in said bar who wasn't crying about being a real fan. Thankfully, I was forcibly removed from the situation. (Shout-out to Griff, Tori, Alayna, Daugherty and Yost.) Not to mention that my bracket was completely ruined. You may say, "but who's wasn't?" This guy.

Anyway, it is time to buck up.

I've compiled a list of happy things going on in my life and the rest of the world. Step back from the ledge and enjoy.

• Lean Pockets. I just discovered these. Besides the occasional one I used to drunkenly steal from Cody when we were roommates, they just weren't on my grocery list. But now, I'm borderline obsessed. I am accepting suggestions on which varieties I should buy. I can't just blindly buy them anymore, I ain't got no job.
  

• The Man Repeller. My favorite blog. The MR highlights the elements of fashion that will scare the hard-on out of even the hardest man. The definition of a "man repeller":

  outfitting oneself in a sartorially offensive way that will result in repelling members of the opposite sex. Such garments include but are not limited to harem pants, boyfriend jeans, overalls (see: human repelling), shoulder pads, full length jumpsuits, jewelry that resembles violent weaponry and clogs.

I am proud to say I have worked to become more man-repelling myself. Top knots, red lips, everything leopard. I had to force myself with the leopard thing...

Just kidding. Cue the leopard montage.

But seriously, look at these sick leopard nails.

• Jesus M. Christ. If you're on Twitter, you have to follow Jesus. He is the funniest, most irreverent son of God on the whole internet. Some of my favorite tweets:
  

Left a door open this morning & Dad says "Were you born in a barn?!" & I say "Yes, as a matter of fact, I fucking was!" Dick.

Eating Cadbury Eggs around Easter make my crucifixion worth it.

I was born to a single mother, had a posse and was murdered. Are you guys REALLY surprised to find out that I was black?!

Remember, everyone: Halloween is a pagan holiday, and as true Christians, you should... LOL JK go get drunk and eat candy.

It's pretty nice being all-knowing. I never forget my mom's birthday, September 8th--OH MY DAD THAT'S TODAY

If you don’t to follow Jesus in real life, the least you can do is follow me on Twitter.

Nobody fucks with Jesus.

• Tangled. This movie comes out on DVD today. It is a must see. I laughed, I cried, I FREAKING LOVED IT. Here is my favorite song from the movie, featuring everyone's least favorite Romano brother. Sidenote: Another song from the movie was nominated for an Oscar and lost to Randy You-Got-A-Friend-In-Me Newman. I hate Randy Newman's voice. My dad likes to torture me with his music. And he sings a song about how short people should kill themselves.

Are you feeling happier yet?

Start the Blog Back Up

Yes, friends. I am back. I am yet again unemployed.

Laid off. I know, bummer. But as many of my friends could tell you (or anyone who monitors my Facebook activity), my former job was walking the line between dull and mind-numbing. Everything happens for a reason, right?*

Anyway, getting to write this blog again is certainly a silver lining. Here are a few others I came up with:

• Getting back that unemployed glow. Being in a office all day really got in the way of my tan.
• Watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Oh yeah, I will be nerding out at 1 o'clock every day. The problem here is that "Maury" comes on at the same time. Luckily, if you only watch "Maury" in the commercials, you are usually about to piece together who is actually the father. They do a lot of recapping.
• Sleeping in. An obvious one. I haven't lost my college ability to sleep until afternoon.
• Free time. "Hey Mari, do you want to [insert activity here] at [random time]?" Rude, that is a pretty inappropriate way to fill in the blanks. But besides that, I am available!**
• Saying, "Bitch, I ain't got no job." So far, I've really been enjoying this. Try it. But only once, because you don't have the credentials.

I am obviously looking for a new job. If anyone has any tips or leads, I'll give you a blog shout-out in exchange for them. I know, what a cool deal!1!! In the mean time, I'm promise to keep you updated on the boring totally exciting things I do. For example, I Google image searched "silver lining" and found that t-shirt. $26.95. Maybe they're hiring in the world of overpriced, nerdy t-shirt making...

*Psych. I hate the saying "everything happens for a reason," and I can almost say I hate anyone who says it. Read this insightful/scathing piece on that irritating bit of "inspiration." But my last job did give me a chance to read a LOT of Cracked, one of my favorites. It's like a hilarious Jeopardy! study guide.
**As long as said activity is free. C'mon bitch, I ain't got no job.

Become a Princess

In the past few months, I've applied for lots of jobs. Probably the most bizarre job hunt experience I've had occurred when I went to a casting call for Princesses at Disney World.

My reasoning was simple: if I can't find a real job, why not be a princess? I could see it...
"So I see you graduated in May. What have you been doing since then?"
"I'm Snow White at Disney World."
"That's sick. Hired."

They have open casting calls every other Thursday. The website was pretty cryptic as to what to expect. I got dressed in my best impression of princess casual. I wore a white bubble dress with big black polka dots and a black belt, navy blue ballet flats for a pop of color, and curled my hair. A real royal vibe if I do say so myself.

Anyway, I walked into a huge room with a ton of chicks and a few dudes sitting on benches lining the walls. I walked up to the check-in table, where they immediately made me take off my shoes to measure me.

"62. Remember that. Write it by your name."

62??? 62 inches? That's 5'2". To be a princess, you have to be between 5'3" and 5'7". Shorter than that, you can only be a fairy. A godforsaken fairy. I am 5'3"! Do you think I wouldn't know how tall I am?

So I'm having a silent panic attack as I'm writing my name on the clipboard. I think about writing 63. Who's gonna know? I see the woman who took my height mere feet from me, staring.

God damn it.

I get a sticker with my number in line, 121, on it and walk my midget-sized body across the room to find a seat.

I try to read my book, the sci-fi classic, "The Man Who Fell To Earth," but can't help but do some people watching. Apparently, many of the other princess-hopefuls did not interpret casual in the same way as me. There were girls in ratty t-shirts. Jean shorts. Sweatpants. Sneakers. Leggings as pants.

courtesy of www.styleatplay.com

The woman next to me fills me in on what's going down. She came to accompany her friend, who has already been called into the casting room. They called the first 50 people in at once.

When her gorgeous friend came out (looking pissed), she gave me the scoop. They brought 50 people in at a time and had them stand in lines. Then two Disney staffers stared at them line by line for a good fifteen minutes. They called three numbers to stay, everybody else sayonara.

Wow. At this point, I'm not really too worried about the whole thing. Just 3 out of 50? Pressure is totally off. The losers are the reigning majority.

When it was finally my turn, I found it was just like the girl said but undeniably Disney-fied. While they scrutinized our faces, they smiled and bopped to "High School Musical 3." I was standing next to a handsome, flamboyant boy that I suspect saw himself as the next Prince Eric. He seemed the most comfortable with being viewed as a piece of meat, smiling and grooving and whispering witty comments to me.

They only picked three people, Prince Eric and I excluded. The rest of us left, all wondering what the next stage of the casting even included...

Prince Eric and I were parked next to each other. We gave one another a parting glance, as if saying, "Buck up, baby. You're still a princess."

Damn right.

Me last Halloween. Poser princess that I am.

Watch Too Much TV

Since childhood, I have been a TV addict. Always. Ask any person I have ever lived with. My longtime roommate Alyssia blames me for her TV addiction. I'll accept blame for that. (She also blames me for a plethora of other idiosyncrasies she's picked up which I refuse to acknowledge. It is not my fault you don't trust milk.)

Moving home meant moving away from my DVR. I agreed to pay the approximately $8 for the comfort of recording my shows as soon as I got a job. Well. Two months later, I am still allowing the television schedule to run my basically non-existent life. This has put me in the position to watch a lot of random daytime TV shows, which isn't all bad. It has also forced me to watch a ton of commercials, most annoyingly the same commercials a ton.

I'm not even anti-commercial. I'm an unemployed copywriter, for God's sake. I plan on paying for my 3 beautiful childrens' college tuition and my long-anticipated laser eye surgery with TV spots. But these commercials just fail.


This is absolutely nonsensical. If they're racing "home," I can only assume that the kids are neighbors. It's pretty obvious they aren't brothers by the way the mom straight ignores the other kids. Totally blows them off. It looks a lot more likely that those boys want to beat the shit out of the little guy. If that is the case, sticking out his tongue at the end was probably the worst decision he could have made. Have fun at school tomorrow, champ.


Share the cookie.


That phallic carrot. That giggle. Almost hypnotized into buying the ringtone.

And finally, I planned on closing with the winner for The "Somebody Wrote This And I Still Don't Have a Job" Award. But I can't even remember the product in the spot I wanted to show. Ultimate waste of time and money FAIL.

I'm sure you've seen it. Its a commercial for going back to get a degree at some University of Phoenix-style college because your job is undeniably crappy. They sing the theme to "The Brady Bunch" but with all the words changed.

I actually remembered quite a bit. "Here's the story of a girl named -insert name here-, who was laid off from the only job she's known." blah blah blah "That's the way they all became a learning bunch!"

Even with these exceptional memory skills, I could not find the video. I Googled and Googled and Googled. I scoured YouTube. I actually spend an embarrassing amount of time looking this up. Nothing. I did find this entertaining article on college commercial cliches.

So, yeah. I apologize for that.

Learn to Cook

This year for Christmas, my aunt bought me "The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook." It's based on the PBS show. They treat cooking like science: they prepare each recipe over and over with slight variations to determine the absolute best, easiest way to make the most delicious recipes.

It is the perfect book for novice chefs like myself. Personally, I love ramen noodles. Chef Boyardee and Campbell's soup could hire me as a spokeswoman. My number one source of food is Schwann's. If you have not yet discovered the wonder of fully prepared frozen food that is delivered to your house, I pity you. But I figured since I don't have much else to do, I might as well hone my culinary skills while I have people to pay for my groceries.

I've made quite a few successful recipes from the book so far. Yesterday, I tried out 4 new ones. The main course was a Light Fettuccine Alfredo. It turned out really well, definitely surpassed my expectations. The hardest part was the insane amount of cheese I had to grate. On the side, I made Sauteed Plum Tomatoes and Broiled Asparagus with Soy-Ginger Sauce. Sounds fancy, eh? Way simple in reality. Truthfully, I only picked that asparagus recipe because I have the palate of an elementary schooler and it looked like it would cover up the icky veggie taste the best. Success.

For dessert, I made a Pineapple Kiwi Salad with Mint and Lime. The best part of the cookbook is the authors assume that you not only know absolutely nothing about cooking, you're borderline uncomfortable around food. There are pictures and step-by-step instructions for EVERYTHING. There were three pictures just on how to cut a pineapple. Two pictures on peeling kiwi. Did you know the best way is to trim the ends of the kiwi, then stick a spoon in there and slide it around? Try it, I was amazed. I would have liked to watch the footage of me, giddily peeling kiwi after kiwi. Maybe there's a restaurant that could use my very specific expertise in kiwi peeling...





Not like this knife-wielding jackass.

Catch Up on "Project Runway"

"Project Runway" has been one of my top shows since Season 2. If you've never seen it, it's all about aspiring fashion designers competing against each other in difficult, often bizarre challenges, one designer eliminated each episode. I love it. We're smack dab in the middle of Season 8 right now, every Thursday night on Lifetime.

Sidenote: I gotta say, I like being forced to watch commercials for terrible upcoming Lifetime movies. This week premieres "The 19th Wife," a drama starring Meredith Grey's little sister about moral dilemma and murder in a polygamist community. Here's a clip. I will most certainly be tuning in. Last week, I watched the classic "The Boy She Met Online." Cinematic gold.

Today on Bravo, the former home of "Project Runway," they are showing a marathon of Season 5. This is the one with Leanne, Korto, and Kenley in the finale. Kenley was the whiny, rude bitch of the year, going so far as to be assert her beluga whale-sized attitude on Tim Gunn, the show's resident mentor/father-figure/just wanna make him proud nice guy.

Jerell was totally my favorite of the season. I wanted him to make me a crazy ensemble, then come to the party with me as my flamboyant sidekick.

So I did some research. Where are they now?

Leanne Marshall: She's put out one collection since PR, bridal collection catalog on the way. A lot of focus on sustainable textiles. Looks like from her website, you can buy a single blue dress. What else could one need?

Kenley Collins: Kenley Kenley Kenley, everywhere you look. The homepage is a slideshow of her, and she is modeling a good deal of the styles in her shop. Her bio doesn't even mention "Project Runway." What an ingrate. I was reminded of the fact that she attended Florida State University, my sworn rival. (Good, we didn't want her anyway.) Oh, and she was arrested for attacking her sleeping fiance with apples, a computer, and her CAT. Too bad she ruined that fairytale romance; her fiance's last name is Penley. Yes, you read that right. Kenley Penley.

Korto Momolu: Looks like she's been working with Dillard's on an accessory collection.

Jerell Scott: Here's a link to his Photobucket, lots of pieces. Want this.

I can't wait until next week for the new episode of "Project Runway" Season 8! I predict Mondo's weird ass to win. He put a mustache on his model for literally no reason. You can't out crazy that. And I think maybe Gretchen and Ivy should contact Kenley, they can start a "Bitchiest Project Runway Losers Club."

Start a Blog

Future generations will read about me in their history books. One of the unfortunate many who graduated college to find that no jobs were waiting for them with open arms. We find strength in blaming the economy and Facebook stalking our colleagues in miserableness.

"Grandma, did you really move back in with Great Grandma and Grandpa when you were 22? That's, like, a grown-up."

Yes, dear. I packed up my cozy Gainesville apartment and moved back into my bubble-gum toned bedroom. I left my friends, most of which were still in undergrad (lucky bastards), to live amongst the St. Cloud folk. It's not so bad for the most part. My roommates are pretty cool. They go to bed early and work most of the day. My dad and I watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation" every night at 8 pm, a highlight of my days.

So basically, I apply for jobs and stare at the boob tube all day. I peruse Craigslist, pretending to look at the vague, sketchy descriptions that pass for "job openings" but usually getting sidetracked on "best of" and "missed connections." I'm sure that hot emo kitty from the Taco Bell drive-through thought about you all day too!

I've been planning on starting this blog for quite a while now. Today is the day. GET EXCITED*.


*"get excited" is a sorority mantra repeated often, often when talking about something not terribly exciting but that everybody has to show up to. Although I am officially in the oh-so-sad category of sorority alumna, this phrase has been too hammered into my vocabulary to eliminate just yet. But this really is exciting. Cross my heart.