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I’m Good at Complaining

This post is basically the 2010 equivalent of the practice I had as a child of bi-annually scribbling down my incoherent and frustrated thoughts in whatever journal I had received as a gift that year. Now that I’ve gained a modicum of self control, some technological wherewithal, and about 60lbs (I was HOT), I no longer have a warren of notebooks with a few of their pages marred by a jagged, tear-blurred script extolling the hardships of having an unbearable younger brother (you know which one), or a stressed out Papa, or a caustic and derisive exoskeleton, braces, glasses, a headgear…

While the problems of today pale in comparison with those of my t(w)eenage years, I feel that the relative improbability of such high density irritations merits recording. I’m going to make a list, for clarity, and to slake my obsessive compulsion for order. And because lists take up more space and are therefore more impressive.

1. Another proof of the “monkeys on typewriters” theory, I won my lab’s March Madness pool. Here is my technique: choose your winning teams based on if you a) recognize the name of the school, or failing that, the state or b) like the sound of the state/school and c) if the state/school sounds rich. This is a balancing act, because if they’re TOO rich they’ll be too snooty to have lots of…the kind of guys who are good at basketball there. Too poor and all those guys will be…locked up… in other commitments. I won free lunch. This is the grad student equivalent of, say, getting laid (for horny teens) or a raise (for parents). Horny teens and parents being, obviously, my target audience. Smugly victorious, I wore a pretty dress (the Marc Jacobs of “walking through the lunch room with it tucked into my panties fame, for all those who knew me in 2005) and rubbed my achievement in everyone’s face. We went for all you can eat sushi on trendy Queen West. Having an ungulate’s affinity for salt, I filled my little boat-thing to the brim with full-sodium soy sauce and wasabi. Blah blah blah, the entire thing ended up on my dress. I walked around the rest of the day smelling like I would pair well with raw fish…um, sex joke.

2. After sushi, the only other girl in my lab and I went SHOPPING! At LULULEMON! I was in a change room trying on a super-cute orange sports bra, contemplating back fat, when my glasses just fell off my face. Not all of my glasses- one of the arms stayed hooked to my ear, drooping pathetically, an expression of my disappointment in the chicken cutlet escaping from its too-small orange coop. Luckily, the only tape Lululemon has is double sided, so my hair kept sticking to it, like a slutty top to side boob. That night at the symphony the damn arm kept falling off whenever I got emotionally engaged and leaned forwards (I was seeing Sibelius symphonies you guys, so you know that was happening ALOT), like they didn’t know I was at the symphony and not the opera.

3. Three years ago I bought a pair of open toed Steve Madden flats, and then proceeded to wear them constantly, especially while bartending at the Queen’s Pub, where most of the time the floor is lubricated with a thin layer of alcohol or putrid mop water. LIKE YOUR MOM’S etc. The glue chose that day to finally give up on holding the sole to the bottom of the shoe, so I walked around for half the day in purgatory, sounding like a sad castanet. This is exactly as annoying as it seems it would be, so one of the post docs in my lab baptized the sole in superglue and clipped it with one of those black paper clamps so I could get home without tripping on the piece (some more).

So that’s it. Oh, and I told my Papa about the trifecta the next day and he laughed and said I must have boys falling over each other to woo me.

xoxo
V-ness
(like Venus)
(the goddess of beauty)

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