remember that one time we were on a low-carb diet and robbed a dunkin donuts?

first, the (big gay) elephant in the room: i kind of (read: totally) fell off the face of the earth for a minute. i told you about holly’s short sweatpants back in march and then i left you hanging for months.

• was she still wearing the sweatpants?
• did she cut them into shorts for the summer?
• did she forgive me for encouraging her to buy them in petite when she clearly should have bought them in regular, thus saving her from the type of shame that only comes from wearing any kind of pants that are obviously too short for you?

the short answers to all of these are a. no (it’s been too warm for sweatpants) b. no (they are still whole and intact plus holly would never wear cut-offs; i’m not saying this is the right way to be but this is how she is) c. yes, she forgave me but i have yet to forgive myself. they’re pretty damn short.

where did i go? well mainly i was working. (if you’re self-employed the way i am, being busy is a good thing) and also life just wasn’t seeming all that funny. i mean, there have been many many funny moments, but it just wasn’t feeling funny enough to sit down and write about things, which is a major bummer for many reasons. if this blog has a purpose, it’s to make you laugh. to help you forget about whatever you’re dealing with in life and just sit back and have a good ol friggin laugh.

so now that i’m back, let’s just launch right back into things, shall we?

here’s what’s been going on since march:

we went on a low-carb diet and robbed a dunkin donuts.
the details are fuzzy because i was so weak from low blood-sugar. all i remember is waking up  covered in crumbs (old-fashioned cake: my fave), vanilla cream (cream-filled: holly’s fave), and raspberry jelly (jelly-filled: mutual fave). i had bite marks on my arm, which, if i remember correctly, i had tried gnawing off the day before. i realize that my arm would be considered “low-carb,” but i  hallucinated that it was a hot dog bun, so i tried to eat it.

(no seriously: it was “phase 1” of the south beach diet. it went well but…yeah, after 10 days we totally fell off the wagon. however, it was a good learning experience. like, a good way to learn how to creep out of dunkin donuts on your hands and knees after you have no idea how you got there. also we learned how to make cauliflower pizza, an odd but strangely addictive low-carb delicacy.)

i got in a fight with the sushi guy at whole foods and can never get sushi there again.
it sucks but look: i don’t need to be buying overpriced sushi from whole foods anyway. it’s kind of awkward now, but whatever! don’t try to charge me $4 for single sheet of soy paper! so i don’t like seaweed! do you really need to punish me for that? jews don’t like seaweed. it reminds our collective subconscious of crossing the red sea, which you know was uncomfortable for everyone involved, especially us jewish women because, hello, our hair. anyway. next!

i brought more natural disasters to under armour.
last time i contracted on-site at under armour, there was an earthquake and i split my pants right down the middle. this time i brought a tornado. well it was actually a “waterspout.” either way it scared the sh*t outta me and i hid in the basement until it was over, where, oddly enough, i learned there was a much better snack machine than the one on the third floor where i was working. holla!

i accidentally gave holly caffeinated coffee for like two weeks.
she kept saying she felt nervous but we couldn’t figure out why. i think i switched the bags or something? or labeled them wrong? oh i don’t even remember how i did it. honey, i am so sorry!

i got a retainer.
well actually it’s a night guard but it’s funnier to say retainer. apparently, when i sleep my jaw clamps down like a vice, resulting in phenomenally bad headaches. i finally relented to the idea of a mouthguard, which i imagined would be this big behemoth of a thing, like the kind of mouthguards football players wear, and i was concerned that, you know, instead of helping me, it might choke me while i slept. but when i went to go pick it up, it was this cute, teeny-tiny, dainty clear thing. like, it should have an english accent or something.

going in to get it molded at the dentist wasn’t as bad i thought it might be. to avert a new-jersey-jewish-control-freak panic attack, i kept telling holly “THLLLL MAA AH NNNLK,” my mouth full of this weird kind of…blue goo? and a big plastic mold-type thing.

“babe, i can’t…i can’t understand you,” holly said, laughing, while the dental assistant shot us weird looks trying, but failing, to smile.

(if i could have spoken i would have told that assistant to mind her own bees-wax and that if she didn’t look away i would punch her in the throat.)

“THHLLLL. MAA. AHH. NNNLK!” i kept saying.

this, of course, meant “tell me a joke.” which holly never did, as she couldn’t understand me. the exchange was ridiculous enough to avert anxiety, and now when i go to bed, i’m super sexy. i put in my mouthguard and it mathhes me tawlk like thiithhh. nicethhhhhhh.

i got fever & we almost missed jamie & jamie’s wedding.
i came down with a mean 36-hour flu on friday, may 31st. the day before our friends’ jamie and jamie’s wedding. (yes, they’re both named jamie. i know. the gays, constantly throwing you for loops and destroying the universe.) it came on in the span of like 10 minutes. i swear my body felt like it was shutting down. holly was irritated because the wedding was going to be fun and she didn’t want to miss it. (hello, i didn’t want to miss it either!) she also said i was complaining a lot. however, i couldn’t hear her because i was under three layers of blankets, shaking so bad from how cold i was because i had a 101.7 fever.

(holly, you’re mean. if you weren’t so cute i’d punch you in the throat, too.) 

i tried dry shampoo.
total bullsh*t. i felt like i had lice for like four hours and it made me smell like old lady.

i made a short-lived decision to become a charm city rollergirl.
i announced this in the car last week. it was a sudden decision but seemed like a sound one at the time.

“i mean, i’m not really athletic enough. right now. but i could, like, train to be,” i said, twirling my hair thinking of my cool future rollerderby name (Jersey J.? Jess The Jerk?) and all the tattoos i’d get and then have to hide from my parents.

 “i’d also need to learn how to skate backwards. and learn how to stop.” 

“you’re not tough enough to be a rollergirl,”  holly said.

“yes i –”

then she poked me in the arm.

“OW! HEY! THAT HURT! THAT WAS LIKE, A PRESSURE POINT OR SOMETHING.”

“see? you’re not tough enough. you can’t be a rollergirl.”

“yes i am!” i said, rubbing the spot she just poked. “that’s going to leave a mark.”

and then, just to emphasize how i upset i was, i added the clincher:

“i’m going to blog about this.”

and so, here i am. blogging. again. gettin fevers. robbin dunkins. cussin at whole foods. makin tornados waterspouts. pullin out weaves. cuttin b*tches who be frontin me. wearin pajama t-shirts in public.
(note: i only did one of the last three things listed here.) (you’d never even know. it’s like, a regular t-shirt.)
(we also never actually robbed a dunkin donuts.)
(i’ll tell you what: if we did ever rob a store, it’d definitely be whole foods. and i’d rob the sh*t outta their sushi bar.)

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we tried sushi again last night. big mistake. (“not a big mistake,” holly just said. “we’re gettin’ there.” yeah. not me. notsomuch.)

i'm so cool now b/c i ate this. well kind of. almost.

sushi. everybody talks about it. everybody looooooves sushi. holly and i have tried it and yeah, notsomuch.

me, i prefer my sushi the jewish way: smoked and salted. yes, folks, lox. on a bagel. with cream cheese. and maybe a cup of coffee. maybe a little piece of cheese danish on the side…but i digress. my–and holly’s–main issues with sushi are the following: the seaweed. the raw fish. we both don’t like seaweed. and fish we both prefer cooked.

the one and only time i tried sushi was a couple years ago with a then-work friend. i was a little scared. i settled that it was the seaweed that was my big issue, since i decided beforehand to order salmon. it resembles lox, i reasoned, and lox isn’t cooked anyway. 

“try the sashimi,” she offered helpfully. “it doesn’t have any seaweed. you’ll probably like it.”

so i hesitantly put it in my mouth and it was all i could do not to gag: it looked like lox. felt like lox. except it was on this bed of sticky rice. and tasted like…nothing. i don’t remember if i swallowed it or not, but i definitely couldn’t have another bite.

fast forward a couple years to last night. we went to a really nice japanese restaurant for a close friend’s birthday get together. holly and i were intrigued by this “bento box” thing, where you basically order four different things from columns a, b, c and d, and it’s presented in a cute little box. b, c and d all had cooked options, so we decided aw hell, this place is so fun, this box thing seems so cool, let’s just, omg let’s order some sushi from column a.

i order a spicy tuna roll “crispy” since that seems to be popular and after all, i’m trying to be part of the crowd here. i figure, i love tuna, and i’ve had it fairly rare–how different could it be?  i told holly to order something different so that way we could share. we agree a california roll would be a safe bet, since we thought it was vegetarian.

so the food comes and these boxes, they are so pretty. and there’s the sushi, looking so cute and i’m actually kind of excited about getting into this sushi thing. i can totally do this, i think to myself. totally.

we are taught how to combine the soy sauce and the wasabi, and holly’s like, wait, what’s this? this doesn’t look like avocado or cucumber. the waiter informs us it’s imitation crab meat. say “crab meat” even “imitation crab meat” to us and alarms go off.

i’m kosher, don’t touch crab. holly’s twice removed from crab (another story for another day; let’s just say she doesn’t eat it). everyone at the table starts buzzing that it’s definitely not crab, definitely not. definitely fish. probably cooked. holly eyes it suspiciously.

i go first. i dip the pretty roll into the soy sauce/wasabi mixture and, clueless dork that i am, bite into half of it and try to get the rest out of my mouth, and i’m having a helluva time of it b/c the seaweed’s so tough. i basically have to rip it apart with my teeth and the other half plops down into the sauce. and i surprise myself by…liking it!

“oh my GOSH i LIKE this!” i exclaim.

amy, who’s teaching us how to do the whole sushi thing, is like “good!! that’s awesome!”

“but man, it’s tough to bite through!”

amy, probably the world’s most non-judgmental sushi teacher, is like, “well, you’re actually supposed to put the whole thing in your mouth.”

“ohh,” i say.

i take the other half, drowning in the sauce by now, and pop it in my mouth. it’s good, i decide. right on. i’m cool now. i can tell ppl i eat sushi ! i think. i am suddenly feeling like one of the “in” kids.

meanwhile holly’s staring at her sushi, trying to decide if she’s going to eat it or not, since it’s associated with crabmeat, even tho there’s not a licka crab meat in the thing. we’re informed that it’s an avocado roll that’s vegetarian. not a california roll. oh. well, live and learn, we figure.

holly, unlike me, manages to get the whole thing down in one bite. doesn’t really like it. chases it with a beer. ok, it was actually fried chicken, she’s informing me now, as she reads this post over my shoulder. but she did have a beer, too, which probably also helped.  

“it’s not that bad,” she says. “but i definitely needed the chaser,” she tells me.

meanwhile, i’m trying to figure out this whole pop-the-whole-piece-of-sushi-in-your-mouth thing. i decide to go for it. i dip it in the sauce mixture and pop it in my mouth.

ohmygoshi’mgoingtothrowup, i think. i immediatley panic. what does one do in these sorts of situations?? when you’re at a birthday party at a nice restaurant and the special birthday girl is sitting directly across from you and your mouth is full of raw fish, seaweed and rice and you’re gonna barf if you don’t spit it out and there’s nothing but cloth friggin napkins. i’ll tell you what you do: you grab the teenytiny paper napkin under your iced tea, wait til no one’s looking, spit it in there, secretly shove it in your bento box and cover the whole thing with pickled ginger. that’s what you do. then you order a cocktail even tho you barely ever drink (captain & coke) to calm your nerves b/c you’re about to get an anxiety attack b/c you’re a huge dork.

even tho the flavor was ok, something about having the whole thing in my mouth–all the textures, the rice and the seaweed and the squishy fish. it was just too much to take. and i have a fairly strong stomach. holly says we’re going to try it again, and try to like it doggone it. but i say aw hell no. seaweed can stay in the ocean and anything that was once living needs to cooked. or at least smoked. and served over cream cheese.