Yellow Mustard Blog

Anybody there?
Hello??

(tumble weed rolls by)

I have moved to a new site. If you are interested. Its not much yet and I can't promise anything exciting. But still, new shiny site!

http://yellowmustardgirl.wordpress.com/

# posted by yellow_mustard_girl : 1:27 PM  2 comments

Well, hello, gentle readers! I'm back after a self-imposed spiritual hiatus (ie moving into a new place). And now that I'm back, I'm madder than hell, and I'm not going to TAKE it any more!!!

What am I mad about? Maxim magazine.

Now don't get me wrong. Maxim and me go waaaaay back. I used to giggle with glee when one of my college guy friends would have it on the coffee table. I spent countless hours laughing my head off at their $250 Joke of the Month or articles like, "How to Make Prison Hooch" and "How to Remove Your Arm from A Bear Trap".

When one of those sheisty door-to-door magazine salespeople came to our door (and we stupidly bought TWO magazine subscriptions so little Johnny FuckFace could rasie enough "points" to join the rest of his sales team on their spring break to Cancun) I encouraged my husband to get a Maxim subscription.

And when they came in our mailbox, I was the first to read it, cover to cover. So what ended up pissing me off?

Well, it wasn't the hot tail featured on every cover. I know that if I was greased up with salad dressing and airbrushed to hell and back, I too would look as hot as Heidi Klum*
What got me in the end were those AWFUL, insipid interviews they had, in which the girl and the interviewer work in concert to make the reader believe that this particular girl is JUST LIKE A GUY, except that she has boobs, YAY! Not only is she just like a guy, but she also will have sex with ANYBODY, including....no, especially the fat virgin slobs that read the magazine.

The interviews are always full of leading, idiotic tidbits like:
"I love football. I especially love to watch it while shotgunning Pabst and eating buffalo chicken dip, naked."

"Did I ever tell you about the time I won my sororities Banana eating contest? I did it with my hands tied behind my back, naked."

"Likes: letting strangers rub oil on me, naked!!
Dislikes: guys that don't like gangbangs!"

And it doesn't matter WHAT profession this girl is, what she is doing with her life, her 'likes and dislikes and interests and influences are all the same. She could be a world-famous concert cellist and she'd say,

"Musical influences: Shaggy and that guy that did the soundtrack for "Coed Cumbucket 4"

Ugh.

So anyway, I've sworn off Maxim. Luckily, my husband seems content to ogle the specs of Popular Mechanics. And I'm going back to my roots....I just renewed my subscription to Jugs.
















*this is an enormous lie.

Yes, that's me.

Have you ever had one of those days/weeks/months/moon cycle's where you just feel a bit off your rocker?

I mean, more than usual?

I am on the tail-end of a massive sinus infection (i.e. the same sinus infection/t-cell genocide I experience EVERY TIME I am subjected to deadlines and stress) and I haven't been sleeping very well/much and I'm doped up on all kinds of white pills and I STILL have like, a bajillion assignments and other crap even though there are only 5 days of school left.

And anyway, I'm feeling unstable. Oh, did I mention I'm somewhere in the murky depths of a menstrual cycle? What? You didn't want to know that? TOO BAD DOUCHE MONKEYS! Here at YMB I hide NOTHING.

Evidence of my instability:
-Upon learning that I have to take anatomy *gasp* next semester and then shortly thereafter learning it is cadaver dissection, I feel it is imperative that I get comfortable with the idea of dead bodies, and start visiting terrible sites like cadaver.org and such to get acclaimated to the slab. What a terrible, terrible idea.

-Googling things like, "Cadaver" will take you to all kinds of morbid sites, like www.findadeath.com , which I spent many hours perusing, realizing that I have a definite fascination with death. Great, that's a cute little bullet point for the resume.

-In perusing findadeath, I came across a little entry for Jonathan Brandis, and I am plunged (once again) into an inexplicable sadness about the fact that my boy-crush from Seaquest DSV killed himself. I remember hearing about it a few years ago and just being so shocked. I don't really know why I was then....or why I am STILL sad about it ... several days after remembering it??? Latent realization of mortality, much?

-A bunch of old Coldplay songs keep popping up on my iTunes shuffle and they keep plunging me into one of those stupid saccharine nostalgic stupors....you know, when you think "Oh my GOD, I miss college so much..." because when "The Scientist" is playing, its hard to remember that college involved a lot of bad stuff too....
....like the time you played beer pong with Red Bull and Stoli's and ended up passing out mid-sentence at Mad Mex and having to be dragged to a taxi cab only to vomit in it 5 minutes later and thereby forcing one of your friends to clean it up while the other staggers down the street with you thrown over his shoulder, trying to figure out where the hell your apartment is and you wake up the next morning with vomit in your hair and missing your favorite pair of sandals....


Not that anything like that ever happened to me. It's just an example. But that gives me an idea...I think I'm going to mix myself a cocktail and think happy, stable thoughs.

Hope everyone is in good mental health!

Do you hear that sound?


Listen closely; it sounds very much like a heavy-set bearded man is pacing back and forth in a pair of enormous hiking boots over a large pile of Grape Nuts cereal.

That's right...that sound is a CRUNCH.

It's CRUNCH TIME. Aahahahahaha!!

Wow, how could a joke with that kind of elaborate set up turn out so un-funny?


Aaaanyway, it's that fantastic time in the semester, where all my professor's look at their calendar's and say:

"Hmmm, looks like three weeks till the end of the semester. These kids are fried. And they still have to prepare for the CUMULATIVE FINAL that I am forcing them to take for 60 PERCENT of their grade. I get stressed just thinking about how stressed they must be.
You know what would make me feel better? Assigning an endless stream of trivial papers, take-home assignments, labs, lab quizzes, journals, portfolios and other crap. Oh, and I'll make it all due in the weeks following up to the final. That will take their mind off the ENORMOUS, GRADE-DETERMINING (THEREFORE CAREER DETERMINING) FINAL that is coming up."

What vegan douches!!!!!!!!!!!!


Anyway, I've had over a dozen different things due in the past two weeks. Right now I am "working" on a take-home assignment involving Mendelian genetics (with a heavy emphasis on the sex-linked traits of fruit flies. Woo-pee.)

But its ok. Just a few more weeks. I think I'm perfecting the art of converting stomach acid into actual sustenance. It burns, but it's also filling.

Talk to you in a few weeks....





P.S. Everyone go to Jen's blog and read about what she is going to be doing in Africa!!! It is so cool!! Then pry open your tight, miserly fists and donate a few dollars to her cause. If you don't, we are so not friends anymore.

I'd just like to put out a public apology to any "vegan douchebags" that I may have offended in the preceding post.

I love vegans. I love douchebags.

Please don't stop reading my blog!

I have been an on and off vegetarian since freshman year of high school. I think the first time I did it was just as one of those requisite teenage phases. You know, like how Greg Brady decided to become a hippie and started wearing beaded headbands and lived up in the attic? That kind of phase.

Only instead of doing that I gave up meat. (I did experiment with beaded headbands though...)

But at some point I began to develop a true aversion to the way most meat tastes and looks. To this day I can't pull meat off a cooked chicken. It turns my stomach. And ground beef?! I still have nightmares about that stuff...

My school cafeteria used to serve it on "Nacho Day" and there was always this one really fat kid we all gave our beef cups to and then dare him to eat it and he would and it was disgusting. (Not the fat kid persay, but the river of orange grease that would flow from his chin and form a pool on the collar of his shirt. That was pretty gross.)

Anyway, I eventually adopted a bizarre quasi-vegetarianism that I keep to this day, one in which I eat eggs, fish and occasionally some deli turkey. In moments of extreme protein crisis I've been known to consume "meats", the stuff that through virtue of their over-processing barely resembled actual animal at all. ie, Chef-boy-R-dee meatballs, Steak-ums, McDonalds beef-flavored sandwiches...

I'll fall off the wagon every once in awhile, usually due to extreme laziness. But inevitably, I'll have some ghastly encounter with a meat product and run back screaming to the Land of Broccoli. (Like for instance, when I found pieces of shell in my canned tuna, or when my package of deli turkey came enveloped in a thick film of slime).

My point to all of this is that I am a vegetarian because I don't like the taste of meat. I have never, EVER been a vegetarian because I care about animals. Unlike some people, I don't think "animals are people too." No, you vegan douches, they're ANIMALS.

Look, I am not promoting purposely being cruel to animals...unless it's doing something really funny you can put on YouTube. (I'm kidding!!) It's just....why do some vegetarians claim they don't eat animals because "meat is murder?" In all seriousness I do think the meat-producing industry could be more humane and more sanitary. Sure, I'll sign a petition for that. But after that, meat still isn't murder. It's called a form of sustenance.

C'mon people. We aren't at the top of the food chain because we are snazzy dressers.

And really, what I find the most baffling is that MANY OTHER ANIMALS EAT OTHER ANIMALS. Do you think lions are sitting around going, "God, I'm starting to feel like a big fatty every time I eat an antelope. All those hip urban humans aren't eating meat anymore. Maybe I should give up eons worth of vital evolution and instinct and start eating this dry, tasteless grass."

Because really folks, what's next? After we've converted all the cruel human carnivores of the world into plant eaters, are we going to start going after the grizzly bears? The great white sharks?

And are you PETA-ers even aware that the very creatures you are trying to save from being eaten would kill you in less time than it takes to hand out one of your informative, graphic pamplets???? No smart-ass; I'm not talking about lions or tigers or bears. Those are obvious.

I'm saying: cows, chickens, Atlantic salmon, rabitts, boneless baby-backed calves, all of them...they want you to die. They are plotting against you AS I TYPE. You wanna know why most people eat meat? To quell the violent uprising of the herbivores!!!

That's right, fellow vegetarians. The meat-eating folk don't want to tell us that because they're hoping that us tofu-eaters will be turned on first, and potentially sate the farm animal blood-lust long enough for them to escape to their underground bunkers.

Conspiracy theory, you say?

Ok, carrot-munchers, you can believe that if it helps you sleep at night.

Labels: cows are going to kill us all, the typical rambling YMG rant

Further proof that I am a sick, sick individual:

Labels: ad gaffs, genital warts

Hello, friends.

I'm still working my rosier perspective, which is a challenge. I literally WOKE UP in mid-gripe about my Biology class this morning. My solution? SKIP THE CLASS ALL TOGETHER!!
Oh, sure, this is the last Bio lecture before our exam on Thursday and he's 95% likely to be handing out the example short essay questions he will use on the test and it's pretty risky to assume that I will run into my Bio partner Wednesday and she will let me copy the questions and I may have very well put the final coffin nail into my poor grade.

BUT I'M SMILING!!! AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHHHAHAAHAHHAHAH!


Erm, to continue...
This semester has been a killer. I won't bore you with the typical rant about the pitfalls and perils of going to grad school full-time AND working. What has been the most frustrating for me is that I'm trying to dip my toe into the icy kiddie pool of published writing.

I'd really love for some of my meaningless drivel to get into a magazine somewhere. But how can I spend any time writing when I'm too busy memorizing molecular geometry and hybridized orbitals?! Or processing 25 broker applications? Or scouring eBay for the perfect vintage dress to wear to an upcoming wedding only to be thwarted at the last second by some Aussie tart who had the nerve to wait until the last second and then add like 10 cents to my bid so that she could win?? BITCH! Doesn't she know that is MY move????

My point is, it's hard. Given that I have the attention span of a hyperactive, caffeinated hummingbird...








...sorry, I heard a weird chirping sound outside and had to investigate it. It was a squeaky toy my dog was chewing on....








...sorry! I had to itch my elbow and then I realized how dry my skin is so I went to put on moisturizer but then I realized that's only covering up the problem so I figured I should exfoliate first, but why stop at my elbow? so i took a shower and loofah-ed up real good and then applied moisturizer but at that point my hair was wet so I might as well put in a deep conditioner treatment right? and that takes like, 30 minutes so.....

DO YOU SEE?!?!?! This is what my life is like CONSTANTLY. Just getting through one post is a vast internal struggle akin to Moby Dick. (I'm Ahab, the blog is the white whale, get it? Or...would I be Ishmael? What was that Indian guys name? Maybe he was an Eskimo. Wait, have I ever even read Moby Dick?)

But don't worry, my intent is not to complain about what is. It is to celebrate the anticipation of what will be.

You see, come June 5th, I am done with classes for the summer. DONE!!
And summer will be a slip n slide of joy leading into a splash pool of fun and relaxation. Sure, maybe there will be a rock or two under the slide (the rocks being work and ... work). But for the most part, it will be awesome.

I'm going back to Pittsburgh for a few days in June, celebrating my one year anniversary at a Julian B&B, my birthday is in July, my parents are coming to visit (finally) in August and I'm going to Cabo San Lucas for an entire week!!! But the most exciting part is that I'm taking another writing class, "Personal Narrative Writing" at UCSD. That's an actual university! Unlike the DeVry College where I am currently taking my writing class. (I kid, I kid!! I love Mesa College!) And I've fully committed myself to doing some writing EVERY DAY.** (**Offer void on days when I have a hangover).

So, in conclusion......














SORRY! Dammit! I needed more coffee but then I thought maybe I should drink some juice instead. I ended up with water. Anyway, woohoo summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Labels: excited-ness, the typical rambling YMG rant

**I want to apologize to Helen in advance for stealing the link below as well as pretty much echoing her recent sentiment about not taking stuff for granted. I usually try to avoid grabbing briliant ideas from someone else's post and passing them off as my own, I swear! But I was just so moved by what she had to say, and I was so touched by Yen's site, I wanted to make sure that the three people that visit yellow mustard blog get to experience it, too. So please consider this merely a conduit to other, more eloquent people on the inter nets.
Thank you.






Huh.

I had intended to post a quick little ditty about how baffled I am by the fact that Mesa College has bathroom stalls that are enclosed by shower curtains and all the social protocol, etiquette and psychological trauma therein. And I will post it, eventually!


But, before I sat down to write I did my usual perusing of some of my favorite blogs and came upon the latest post from Helen. First of all, her post alone is excellent and worthy of reading, as is. But she also put in a link to a blog about a guy named Yen and his relationship with his boyfriend Jesse, who was battling cancer. So I went to Yen's weblog and was just utterly captivated. I read pretty much all of it in one sitting, crying and smiling the whole time.


Anyway, I really think you should take a minute to just go and check out what Yen and Jesse had to say. Because at the core of it, it's not about being a gay couple, it's not even about dealing with cancer. It's about their strength and grace and just loving another person in general. I think everybody needs moments in life where you are re-calibrated; when you realize just how freakin' good you have it and how blessed you are to just be right where you are, right now, with the people that love you at your best and your worst.


Anyway, even if you don't go to the site, just humor me: take a second to get up and go find a person or animal or plant that you love. And hug the bejebus out of him/her/it. Say thanks. Breathe in some air. Unclench your fists. Whatever. You will be amazed, trust me.


Because I know, personally, that after a day of stressing out over school, bitching about exams, bemoaning my job, cursing my bad skin, shrieking at the incompetence of the President, the Mesa Science department, the guy driving in front of me and generally being a pissed off, whiney, self-involved brat, reading Yen's story and hugging my husband and dog made me feel like a new human. Even if it only lasts a little while, it was worth it.







But even grateful people can be appalled by shower curtains on bathroom stalls!!

Labels: a mushy YMG moment