Insert joke about my mental health, yeah yeah, but really: I need help.
I’m meant to turn in a 50+ page dissertation for my master’s degree next year. I also plan on delivering a baby, moving back to the US and buying a house in Philadelphia in the same time period. I’m drawing blanks on what to cover in my dissertation.
If you can fill in the following sentence, you will win a prize:
“Naomi, you should write your dissertation on ____________”

That’s not a mad-lib opportunity, by the way.

I like to eat anything doused in vinegar right now. My chips swim in the stuff, and I even found crisps with more vinegar flavour than Salt & Vinegar could ever muster:

PICKLED ONION MONSTER MUNCH! How did I forget about these?

I have four pairs of pants.

I used to have three pairs, which were all bought at the same time during my teenage years. They’re ideal pants because they, like me, have no hips to speak of, and the stiff cotton has long since worn into feeling like jersey knit. When you just have three pairs of pants, you tend to wear them so much that they expire sooner than they might if you had more pants to rotate between. Thus, it came as no surprise when my favourite pair irreparably exploded. I tried to have a back-up pair (I had my mum call the shop I got them from with the pants’ serial number – turns out they stopped making those pants four years ago) and when that failed, I settled for a semi-similar pair I found online that just don’t cut it. For some reason, even though I can’t figure out how to repair my Dream Pants, I can’t seem to throw them away either. Hence me owning four pairs of pants but you having only ever seen me in three. Keeping irreparable pants doesn’t really make sense because I’m nothing of a pack rat. I’m quite the opposite. I delight in chucking away unnecessary junk. I’d like to think that I’m hanging on to my torn pants so I can pull something of a Cindarella when I go home. I’ll take them around every shop I visit over the Summer, and when I find a new pair of 97% cotton 3% lycra pants with the exact same template, I’ll know I’ve found a winner (I hate trying things on). And then I’ll probably buy nine pairs of them in the same colour.

I can’t shop in Utah. I don’t know if anyone can, if they’re past the Pukka Shells and Roxy stage. The cuts are all wrong, and the price tags far too hefty for anything that does fit correctly. That’s precisely why I’m still wearing t-shirts from 1999 and a dress I bought when I was almost seventeen. It’s a surprise that the latter still fits, but I figured I must have just been a chunky seventeen year old. Or I just bought it a size up, which I may have done since the adage used for the majority of my shopping has been “leave room to get fat/grow into it”. I know that maxim doesn’t really apply to anyone over the age of ten, but old habits die hard and I’ve been buying my own clothes for years (my parents had this smart system where I worked for and spent my own money).

The only items remaining in my current wardrobe were sent over the Atlantic for me by my mum, who felt bad for me and my six year old floral-print dress. And a hoodie, Cooper let me get at wholesale price. The other 90% of my wardrobe that doesn’t fit anymore/has holes in it/is going to be burned on a pyre of Office-Wear this Summer, is useless. And so I’m going to buy some new clothes when I go home this Summer. I’m looking forward to it, actually. Especially because Manchester means spending a sunny afternoon pinballing between high-street shops instead of being within the stifling confines of a scummy mall.

So far I have “JEANS” and “PANTS” and “T-SHIRTS?” on my wishlist. To get an idea of what’s even being sold back home (somehow England cycles through at least three trends for every one that Utah glimpses, which really effects me because me and my four pairs of pants really care about buying up-to-date clothes) I hopped on a few websites. A common denominator for 2009 beachwear seems to be floor-length dresses (you heard it here first). Websites list them as ‘maxi-dresses’ which somehow makes me feel wrong because the name reminds me of feminine hygiene products somehow. Unsavoury at best. Anyway, here’s to owning some new clothes.

I also want to buy some books (I’m just made of money right now… bahaha). I’ll be on at least six flights this Summer, a ton of train rides and some car trips, which sounds like prime reading time to me. I have a hard time buying “contemporary” fiction because honestly, you can only read about dysfunctional junkies so many times. Saying that, there’s only so many times you can read social commentaries on the provincial/bourgeoisie existence of peasants discussing farm life/dignitaries complaining about the lack of Devonshire teas.

I’m looking for something I can get my teeth into. Long books, or short books with substance. I really just dislike collections of short stories (read: David Sedaris). Other than that, I think I’ll give anything a try. No wait. Nicola asked me if I’d read The Scarlet Pimpernel. I can’t engage with the whole frilly-cuffs and mincing thing so that classic novel is out. I need books with stronger protagonists, like in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabuttz.
But yeah, I’ll give most things a try and would be grateful for any book recommendations. The worst feeling in the world, (right up there with thinking your water-cup is made of glass, but its really made of plastic, so you mis-anticipate it’s weight and pick it up with enough gusto to chuck water all over yourself), is buying a ‘random’ book, cracking it open and hating your life for wasting $5 on an amazon.com recommended read. Not that I’ve ever done either of those things.

Religious texts aside, I’ll be re-reading Lord of the Rings (can’t really go wrong there, if you just speed-read through the hobbit genealogy) and I just started John Lennon’s biography (mainly because I like Philip Norman (forget John Lennon)) but those will be read before I leave Provo, and then I’ll be in dire need of good reads. Crystal recommended Paradise (by Toni Morrison) which is a promising start to the Summer . If you can recommend anything, go ahead. My only request is that no one recommends Lolita. I’d rather gag on a bowling pin.

Ordinarily I would think that the only way to improve upon a delicious Cheeseburger fast-food meal would be to super-super size it (I love cheeseburgers). But since I love improperly sized things (oversized chairs, novelty sized pencils, miniscule teapots) and am particularly fond of miniature anything, I was very pleased to find this:

For reference:

I was disappointed when this tauntaun sleeping bag turned out to be an April Fools joke.

Photos from ThinkGeek

MTV picture. Probably.

Andy and I have made some successful attempts at escapism lately. We’ve both had so much to do that we feel immobilized, so we’ve been doing dumb stuff instead. Like going to see Knowing. I mean “Know1ng”.
We’ve also been watching Rob Dyrdek’s “Fantasy Factory” because he has a warehouse that houses a blob, a foam pit, a zip line, an indoor street skate affair, and a tiny bulldog pup. Somehow, watching people flip into a giant foam pit or smash each other with tennis ball projectiles makes us feel incrementally better.

Photo from Zen77990.

When Andy was in PA without me, he went touring around little towns with his friend (Tim Padalino) who has a crazy job working with a type of environmental department studying all manner of things. They drove as far as Maryland for Tim’s research, and picked up two items which have improved the quality of my life.

• Somerset Pennsylvania Maple Syrup
• Honey (the packaging hints that a bumble bee brought the honey to me straight from a flower).

I even put that blasted syrup on bacon, which was something I never thought I’d do.

I stopped being productive around 7pm. Since then, I’ve just been downing the pear juice my boss gave me for Christmas, listening to sombre music, and trying to draw something. It’s hard to sleep without Andy.