Don't Drink the Water Eat the Queso

I've been back from my vacay for a couple of weeks now, and while I don't want to turn my whole blog into a travelog, I had two pictures I wanted to show you. Be warned that they depict the Best Thing That Happened...and the Worst Thing That Happened. I'm gonna do the Worst Thing first, so take a moment to brace yourselves:

DON'T LOOK AWAY! We have to confront these things.

Sigh. I had Mexican food for lunch one day every day. And on the day when I ate at this place...I mean, I'm not gonna name it because the people were incredibly nice and the margaritas were the best I've had, but...but...

THERE ARE ROOT VEGETABLES IN THE QUESO! WHAT? Seriously! I ordered queso, and I got queso...plus carrots and radishes. RADISHES! Is this a Mexican restaurant, or a Beatrix Potter story? As you can well imagine, I was appalled. And naturally, I got up and stormed out immediately. *OR* I only ate some of it and just ordered another margarita and wouldn't have been able to "storm" anywhere without falling over. Who can remember?

OK, deep breaths. Let's switch to happier thoughts, shall we?

What are you doing...the reeeeeesssst of your life? North and South and East and West of your liiiife....

My Dream Vacation Fridge. See, I bought this bottle of wine because what'm I supposed to do? NOT have a glass of wine no further than 6 feet from my bed? But it's a rosé (oh shut up you snobs), which meant it had to be chilled. I figured this was going to be a pain in the ass, so I was so happy I nearly burst into tears when I found that my room fridge had a custom-made wine slot! Right there in the door! Not only that, but as you can see in the picture, there is also a dispensing slot for fermented liquid yeast drinks, if you wanted to drink those for some unfathomable reason. At this point, I'm seriously starting to question the footprint and energy use of my massive 2-door fridge/freezer. What is it all for? All I need is this tiny booze-slot fridge. I guess what I'm saying is: I've finally found love. Happy March everybody!

[REDACTED]: More Than a Book Review

As some of you may know, I recently took a week-long vacation. And it. Was. Awesome! I learned a little history, a little geography, a little about myself, and a lot about terrible horrible writing for which the author should be tried at The Hague.

You see, when I take a relaxing vacation, I like to bring along a book that's set in the city I'm visiting. It's fun to be able to see the actual settings of specific scenes and it helps bring the story to life...if the story has any life in it to begin with. This brings me to the book I read on my trip, [REDACTED]. I've decided not to actually name [REDACTED] here because, as a person who has attempted all kinds of different writing myself, I can appreciate the blood, sweat and tears that went into writing it, and I'd hate for the author to Google his or her "book" and find what I have to say about it.

I can't say it was the most awful thing I've ever read, because that honor will always, always belong to Pierre Drieu de la Rochelle's les Chiens de Paille, unless I someday decide to read something by Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly. Actually - no, scratch that, because if I ever find myself confronted with reading anything by one of those two, I really will literally kill myself. So yeah, it's always gonna be les Chiens de Paille. But this "book" is easily the second worst thing I've ever read. And I've read The Fountainhead too, so that's saying something!

The story was OK. It was a murder mystery, and I didn't know whodunit til the big reveal, which is something. Of course, that might be because I got so little actual information that I had no basis on which to hazard a guess. Or maybe it's because I did not care one iota about any of the characters, so I never bothered to wonder who did the murdering, though I did kinda wish the murderer would just randomly take everybody out with an M-16 so the last 100 pages or so could just be pictures of kittens. That would've been better.

You might be wondering why I bothered to finish the thing, and believe me, it's a question I often asked myself during that week. There were 2 reasons:
#1: I paid $2.99 for it and I couldn't get my money back.
#2: It was so badly written that it was hilarious.

I want to be very clear about the phrase "badly written", because this is important. I'm not talking about the plot, or the dialogue being unrealistic (even though a lot it TOTALLY WAS), or anything like that. I'm primarily talking about an author who couldn't be bothered to write any kind of transition whatsoever, so that everything in the book "seemed to happen suddenly". There were sentences like: "Suddenly she realized she no longer wanted to dust in the study, so she went to bed." Translation: "I AM BORED WITH THIS SCENE AND I ALREADY TOLD YOU WHAT I NEEDED YOU TO KNOW SO IT HAS SERVED ITS PURPOSE AND I'M GOING TO BED." My absolute favorite was the phrase: "Later she would wonder why she did what she did next, as there was no logic to her actions." SERIOUSLY? Translation: "I CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO THINK UP AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS EVEN THOUGH THAT IS THE VERY ESSENCE OF MY JOB AS A STORYTELLER AND BESIDES 'MURDER SHE WROTE' IS ON SO LET'S WRAP THIS UP!" When I read that sentence, I was thirty five thousand feet above Arkansas, and it was all I could do not to hit the Flight Attendant Call button and say, "Yeah, I need you to show me how to open the emergency exit door because I do not want to live in a world where I've paid $2.99 to read this sentence."

Thankfully I'd had the forethought to pay $11.99 (well spent!) on a Margaret Atwood novel before takeoff, so the second I finished [REDACTED], I could crack that one open and be reminded how English is supposed to work. And hopefully it will only take another week or two to heal all the welts on my head from banging it on cafe tables, park benches, walls, and passing seagulls in frustration as I plodded through that God-awful book. So please, people, learn from my experience: don't buy [REDACTED] ($2.99 on Kindle).

Up in the Air

I like travelling, but I don't get to do it very much. And when I do get to travel, I find that I am generally doing so in the company of my parents. I love my parents, but there's an age at which you start to think it *might* be pathetic to have your parents as your sole travel companions. And when you reach that age (33), you have some choices:

Option #1: Meet an awesome member of the sex to whom you are attracted, who finds you irresistible, and get married! Now you have someone to travel with and you'll get a tax break! This option is favored by my mother, my married friends, and the more meddlesome members of my extended family. And to them, I say: OF COURSE! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?!?!? *irritated glare* Next.

Option #2: Travel with a friend! This is a perfectly legitimate option, provided you have a friend who meets all the crucial Travel Buddy Requirements and is interested in going to the same place you want to go and can get the time off from work and has no outstanding warrants in your country of origin or destination. That's a pretty tall order. And it gets a lot tougher when your best Travel Buddy options start going with Option #1.

Option #3: Travel alone! This can get pricey, as there's no one to share costs. And it might get lonely. It might even get boring. On the other hand, no one else gets a vote on what you do with your day, no one will know if you choose to have ice cream sundaes for all three meals every day of your trip, you can spend your whole trip in character as your alter ego (Mitzi Wong, international plus-size model and wine reviewer), and you don't have to go to a *single* modern art museum if you don't want to. WHERE DO I SIGN?

So this year, for the first time ever in my whole entire life, I am opting for #3. I have booked plane tickets and a hotel room. I've also booked a day tour, but I think I'm going to leave the rest of my itinerary open and see where the days take me. I expect it'll be something like this...

9AM: "I have deduced that these important cultural and historical landmarks are all in the same neighborhood, so I'll walk over there and spend the day enriching my brain!"

9:45AM: "There's a IHOP here? Hmmm. My brain won't get very enriched if I don't at least feed it first..."

Noon: "Crap! It's noon! I gotta stop reading Twitter and get up to that other neighborhood."

Noon 15: "Wait - there's a Little Italy here? Is there a Little Italy in every city? I can't believe I didn't know there was a Little Italy! HEY PIZZA!"

4:30PM: "Screw it."

6PM: Back in my hotel room with a bottle of wine and my leftover pizza.

Solo vacations are awesome. Also: I've just checked, and apparently there really is an IHOP less than a block from my hotel, so every day of my trip may literally go exactly as I have described above. Except Little Italy won't surprise me anymore after the first day.

So I'm pretty stoked, and I'm open to any suggestions or ideas anyone has. I'm not going to tell you where I'm going, because I don't want to be followed around by mobs of adoring fans and/or angry creditors. Let's just say that this place where I'm going has more than one modern art museum (WHY?), and I will not be setting foot in any of them!

Oh - and let's also just say that I'm not leaving for another 13 days, so it's not like I'm leaving immediately. Not that you could tell whether I'm home or not, since I've been so bad about blogging lately. Who knows? Maybe I'll think of something worth telling you in the next thirteen days! But just in case I don't...

Ciao!

Mitzi

This Pepsi Brought to You by Coke

Good news, everybody! Internet advertising is still insanely creepy! Case in point: I decided a few weeks ago that I might like to take a little vacay in sunny (not really) San Francisco. So whenever I've had a little down time on the ol' laptop, I've been playing around with airfares, hotel selections, etc., trying to decide if/when I might want to go. I figure that's probably why I saw this ad on one of my favorite not-my-blogs:

Firstly, this irritates me because I am still such a naive moron that when I first saw it, I thought, "Oh wow! It's kismet! I want to go to San Francisco, and here's Delta, practically TELLING me to go to San Francisco!" Then I remembered that The Internet (aka multinational internet and software corporation Google) is always watching my every move, and has essentially done away with kismet and coincidence in the 21st century. Nothing is ever "a sign" anymore. It's just "proof that Delta paid Google some money so Google would slip them a sheet of paper in a back alley that said 'Kimberly Welsh wants to go to San Francisco'". How depressing.

It also irritates me because HELLO?!?! What is being advertised? When I see a tailor-made ad, I expect to see some sort of special offer or discount! Is it really supposed to be news to me that Delta flies to San Francisco, bearing in mind that I have recently searched the Delta website on more than one occasion to ascertain the departure times and airfares for said flights? I already know you go to San Francisco, people. I'm not going with you until you give me a good reason.

But my absolute favorite part is the tiny tiny print at the bottom. You could enlarge the screenshot to see it, or you could just take my word that it says "Travel may be on other airlines". Obviously they're referring to codesharing here, and in 2012, I doubt anyone is surprised by this clause. I just enjoy the contrast between that and the much larger font at the top. It reads "FLY DELTA TO SAN FRANCISCO", but what it really means is "FLY WHOEVER YOU WANT TO SAN FRANCISCO, BUT BE SURE TO PAY US!"

Note to Self: How To Vacate The Premises

It is now mid-July, the traditional time of year for getting the hell out of Dodge, and I have so far made not one but two failed attempts to do so. In both cases, I  did technically leave, but that's about the only thing I did right. If it had only happened once, I'd say fair enough, we all make mistakes. Now that I've done it twice, it's time for some tough love. I need to spell this out for myself, as if I were 5.

#1: LEAVE.
The much-vaunted "staycation", so often cited as a wonderful option in the current economic climate, is a myth. It does not exist. If you "stay", you will not manage to "cation". Period. Ants will appear in the cat food bowl and you'll lose a whole day to "staying", certainly, but also "waiting for the pest control man to show up between 8 and 5". That is not a "cation", by any definition of that half-word. Or maybe you don't have a cat, which is why your car battery will die. Or maybe you don't drive, in which case: I hope you get over that nasty case of strep throat quickly! Or maybe you are the picture of health. Congratulations! You have a week off and you're ready to take on the world! Oh - except that you had to tell some little white lies to a few people so you could get out of certain social obligations, and now you get to think twice (or many more times than that) before leaving the house, visiting favorite haunts, or saying anything on social media that might make it clear that you aren't, in fact, at a funeral. Enjoy!

All I'm saying is I've done the research in my own lab, and the only way you will manage to forget all the crap that irritates you on a daily basis is to put as much physical distance between it and yourself as humanly possible. And don't stay with friends or family either. Go somewhere with a housekeeping staff, for God's sake.

#2. Travel with no more than one (1) other person with whom you share no DNA.
I have a great family, I really do. They're funny and smart and supportive and amazing. But I don't need to bring 32 years of love, heartache, resentments, arguments, losses, triumphs, memories, and other assorted drama on vacation; that's what Christmas is for. What I need to bring on vacation is my Kindle, my iPod, and a valid ID for booze acquisition. Of course, it can sometimes be fun to travel with a friend or significant other, but it's important to do your due diligence before buying those non-refundable tickets! To help you out, I've made a handy-dandy flowchart. Follow teal lines to answer yes, maroon lines to answer no.

(click to enlarge)

I've had some major successes and minor flops following the above advice, but at least you know it will prevent any major flops. Of course, you'll still have issues of mix tapes and how much Mexican food constitutes "too much Mexican food", but you'll just have to use your common sense to resolve those. Alternatively, you could...

#3. Go alone.
I've never traveled solo, but it seems like a more attractive option with each passing year. And since my latest return from a frazzled, nonstop, crammed-car FAILcation, I've taken an interest in the corner of the travel market geared toward people like me - hip, happening, childless thirtysomethings who need to unwind! From what I've seen, the places that cater to my niche fall into three categories:
a) Healthy Low-Fat Spa Retreats on beaches or, more commonly, in deserts. If you care about this category, you're reading the wrong blog. Eating twigs in the desert is NOT a vacation. Next!
b) Couples-friendly Resorts. Ugh. As you might have guessed by the name, this place is basically aimed at baby-talking kissy-faced couples. They have a wide variety of accommodations, and they all have names like "Romeo & Juliet Suite", "Tristan & Isolde Suite", "Harry & Sally Suite", or "Cupid's Poison Arrow Lovesick Vomitorium". I mean, I probably could enjoy myself at one of these places...provided I plucked my eyeballs out with thumbtacks and crammed whole quilts into my ears before the plane made its final descent.
c) Singles-friendly Resorts. OH DEAR GOD. Judging by their websites, these places are built on the premise that all single adults have the following things in common:

• We are exhibitionist nymphomaniacs who want to spend our evenings playing live game shows with names like "America's Next Top Anal Porn Star"
• We don't much care about food, so long as there is a LOT of booze around
• When we aren't having casual sex, we need a wide variety of clichéd vacation activities like parasailing and mountain biking, presumably so we never have a moment to feel old and alone (which is the only thing we really have in common, or so think the PR people)
• We still think we're on MTV's Spring Break 1991

As with the second category, you might think I could go to one of these places and just refrain from participating in that which does not interest me. But every time I try to envision it, I see a week's worth of me sitting at a beach or by a pool, reading a book while being interrupted every 5 minutes by some person or group of persons propositioning me either for sex or to round out an Ultimate Frisbee Team, both of which sound equally unappealing. Then I would go back to my room in the evening and be kept up all night by the strange and disturbing sounds in literally every adjoining room. No thanks. 

Why isn't there a 4th category? Like The Quiet, Child-Free Resort for People Who Just Want to Read, Sleep, Get Drunk, and Be Left The Hell Alone? Instead of a name like "Hedonism", you could call it "Retired Librarians"! I guarantee you I would go there every year for a month.

Sketch Challenge, 3rd Set: "Ack"

I'm applying the "Accountability" label here, even though it doesn't really fit. Because I am completely letting myself off scot-free.

According the various and constant warning alarms on my iPhone, iPod, and laptop, tomorrow is the deadline for the 3rd set of sketches. And John Finnemore blogged about having a show at the Albany tomorrow night, which is basically like a backup alarm for same. So what's my progress looking like?

Nothing. Not a single sketch. Please don't steal my terrible ideas, but this is what the current set looks like, compared with the last set:

Oops.

Wha' Ha' Happen' Was...

*Clears throat* I spent a day visiting my brother in Augusta and when I came back I found a stray dog and he kept me up all night and I didn't get rid of him until the next day and then I was supposed to leave town but my cat sitter went AWOL 12 hours before departure and I had to take an extra day off work to hunt her down or find a new one and I drove all over Buckhead to drop off a key and then I went to Florida with my family so there was no way I could concentrate and when I came back I was too sunburned to move and then I had to go back to work and apparently we're being bought so I had to go to a bunch of special meetings and I was going to write after rehearsal on Wednesday but it was the Summer of Fun so we had a surprise party and I stayed out til 11 and came home too drunk to focus and then I got cast in a show last night and now I have less than 24 hours to write 60 pages of sketches!!!!
(end of excuses)

I barely even scribbled down any ideas for sketches in my trusty notebook. It's been a real setback. And my initial intention when I got up this morning was to power through and try to finish on time, but I've had a realization, and it is as follows: The major problem was being out of town for 4 days. The other things were largely out of my control (with the exception of the sunburn and the drinking) and genuinely prevented me from writing. The perfectionist voice in my head feels very strongly that I have to adhere to the original schedule because the whole point was to write on exactly the same schedule as John Finnemore's Sketch Night. But just between you and me, I rather suspect that JF had some warning about this whole thing and could move his travel plans accordingly. Whereas I literally just woke up one morning and said, "Hey! I know what would be a good idea!" So the 3rd set is hereby postponed, and an additional fortnight of sketch-writing is hereby tacked onto the tail end of Kimberly Welsh's Agonizingly Slow Sketch Suicide, Currently With No Sketches About Coffee, Screaming Children, Or Anything Else For That Matter.

The focus for the next two days will now be internet writing (since I've only written one pitiful little blog post this week, and that was interrupted FIVE TIMES by lengthy phone calls). But it might interest you to know about the one thing I did manage to accomplish: I updated the photos and captions on the home page slideshow AND stashed 4 "pages" (which are not the same thing as "posts") around the blog. Secretly. Like Easter Eggs. Happy hunting!

A Very American Half-Birthday

You almost certainly don't know this about me, but July 4th is my half-birthday! That's right! This year I turned 32.5, and the entire country got a day off work to celebrate! People were even setting off fireworks! For a modest gal like me, all the attention is really kind of embarrassing.

This time of year also seems to coincide with an annual nationwide seizure of patriotism (unrelated). It's always a little awkward for me, not because I don't heart my country - I do  - but I import virtually all of my news and entertainment from across the pond. As a result, I'm somewhat out of step with the current cultural norms around here - I was embarrassingly late to the Modern Family party, I have no idea which sports season we're in, and for the life of me I don't know if I "realized" my blind date was a serial killer, or if I "realised" it. THEY BOTH LOOK RIGHT!

Upon realiz/sing that I was losing touch with my roots, I decided to get on the proverbial bandwagon for my half-birthday and do it up America-style.

Step 1: Road trip!
This part was easy, since my parents were going to visit my brother in Augusta. All I had to do was hitch a ride, and I was halfway to being a regular Betsy Ross! I have no idea what I mean by that. I certainly didn't sew anything.

Step 2: American cuisine
There was some debate over where we would have lunch, and we were deadlocked between Mexican food and pizza - not very American choices, I think you'll agree! I managed to fix the whole thing up with five magical words: "IHOP has funnel cakes now." And so we went to IHOP, one of the top 20 most American eateries I can think of off the top of my head!* I probably went a bit astray by ordering an omelet topped with hollandaise sauce (patriotism FAIL), but I like to think I made up for it by dutifully coloring in a kids menu.

This is what the CD cover would look like if my cat, my mom's cats, and my brother's cat formed a band. Note blood at tip of giant claw. They're hardcore.

I also stumbled upon a new educational initiative which reintroduces arts education for young children, presumably as part of the No Child Left Behind program. You won't be able to read the light grey print, but it says (emphasis mine): "Use the diagram to the right to learn to read music! Then draw notes below to create a special song."

My parents paid a lot of money over many years for me to learn the secrets I could just as easily have gotten from the diagram on the right WHILE eating a Funny Face Pancake!

Suzuki Method? More like So-Puke-y Method! OUR kids will learn to read music at the IHOP, thankyouverymuch!

Step 3: See a Disney movie
Cars 2, y'all!

Step 4: Road Cuisine
Because nothing tastes better than the months-old junk you dig up off a shelf at a convenience store during a long car ride. I'm not even being sarcastic, either - I love that crap. And since we stopped at a Circle K, I got myself one of the jewels in my country's culinary crown:

It's a frozen Mountain Dew. JEALOUS?

And that was my Very American Half-Birthday Road Trip. Fun, right? It was nice to have a day, just America and I, to reflect on why we like each other so darn much. And if you're one of the people who has dedicated your life (or even just some part of it) to protecting the awesome of America, thank you.

Still, I'm glad we made up with the Brits eventually; there's some really good stuff on the iPlayer this week.

*You didn't think I'd back that up, did you? Well SUCK IT! Here are the Top 20 Most American Eateries I Can Think Of Off The Top Of My Head, as determined by a scientific survey of yours truly staring at the wall and saying, "Hmmm...what else?" until I had filled in all the lines.
1. McDonald's
2. A&W 
3. Shoney's
4. Waffle House
5. White Castle
6. IHOP
7. The Cheesecake Factory
8. Red Lobster
9. Cracker Barrel (aside for those who love Cracker Barrel: I didn't make this, but it's awesome)
10. Taco Bell (that is NOT Mexican food)
11. Fuddruckers
12. Piccadilly Cafeteria
13. Ryan's
14. Steak 'n Shake
15. Every mall food court
16. Dunkin Donuts
17. Bob Evans
18. Denny's
19. Chick-fil-A
20. Anywhere that serves Frito Pie