Thanksgiving Is Awesome

Dearest readers,

Recently, I celebrated the best holiday ever invented by mankind: Thanksgiving. A day where one can eat to their hearts content and no one can judge them for being a greedy fatso about it. A day where no one has to worry that servings of their favorite dish will run out, for there is no end to the Turkey God's bountiful spoon and also three people made the same thing, so we're totally covered. A day where neurotic psychos such as myself can mindlessly do something they absolutely love until their body screams in painful protest--no, not running, although weirdly the same behavior applies in that case-- but eating. Glorious eating! And oh what food there was to eat!

I want to take a special blog entry to describe and review the foods that I ate during the Great Thanksgiving of 2012 and also the aftermath that was Leftovers Day (most people call it Black Friday but as we all know I don't shop). As someone who really, really likes eating, I assure you that my palette is of the highest caliber and I will do my best and uphold my duty to offer the most in depth and well informed critique of the foods I consumed so that you can drool in jealousy and perhaps get a few ideas for your Thanksgivings of the future, of which I hope meet even just half of the amazingness that mine was. I will try to be as detailed as possible.

It all began on Thanksgivings Eve. I decided to tap into my matronly side (a severely neglected side of myself) and cook some things for other people for once... I mostly just wanted to eat them myself. Thanksgiving was a good excuse to make large batches of them. I put on a super girly 50s housewife apron and modest high heels (not really) and set to work baking sweetbread from scratch and also mini-apple pies cooked inside apples, because I am so meta. (I am so meta, I don't even use the word 'meta' properly).

The bread? Came out awesome.
The apple pies? Came out awesome.

Here are some photos I took on instagram because I have such an artistic soul and my regular camera phone is not sufficient enough to capture the depth of my spirit.

Awesome sweetbread

Awesome apple pies

My roommate had the brilliant idea of making an apple crumble with the leftover apple pie filling and crust. We ate it with some ice cream for dinner. It tasted awesome.

After cooking and taste testing my food quite sufficiently I went to bed, giddy with dreams of the tasty delights that lay await in the day to come. I was like a child on Christmas, except I actually slept because I have spent months honing my internal body clock to go to sleep and wake up at very specific times. But I will still pretty excited and all that. 

The next day, after a quick 5 mile run to make me feel a little less guilty about the events I was about to partake in, we headed off to the magical land of West Hollywood... I apologize. Those of you who do not live in Southern California probably do not realize that I am being completely sarcastic about that comment. Do not let the silver screen misinform you; Anywhere even in the vicinity of Los Angeles is actually a stinking pit. Fortunately the people we were going to visit are very cool and live in a nice house, so it was easy to pretend we were somewhere else a little less hellish. 

We arrived around 11am and were presented with completely alcohol-free drinks, sausage and egg pie, homemade bread, crackers, pear slices, and the most wondrous selection of cheeses. I would tell you specifically what kind of cheeses there were, but I don't actually know because I only pretend to be an educated person when really I know very little about the wonders of the world. This extends to the world of cheese, unfortunately. Perhaps one day I will be a cheese master, but those are only distant hopes for the time being. 

The drinks? Awesome. 

The breakfast pie? Awesome. 

The bread? Awesome. 

Crackers? Well, they were pretty normal, but still awesome. 

The pear slices? Awesome. And surprisingly very thin. Like really, quality deli-meat kind of thin. And crinkly. They were quite the sight.

The cheeses? Awesome. Especially the soft one. That one was really awesome. 

Then it was time to head off the site of feasting, several miles to the West of our location. Or East? North? South, maybe? Who knows. We were in LA. It is nothing but a labyrinth of concrete vomit. It is a feat just to tell which way is left in that place.

We relocated to another very nice apartment, so as to try and forget where we were again, because it was very traumatic actually having to go out into the streets and be reminded for a few minutes. There were many very hip, young couples there, but more importantly there was food. Dinner was on the brink of readiness. Appetizers were set out. There were completely nonalcoholic drinks galore. I helped myself to some innocent cranberry juice and started sampling. There were more cheeses. I don't know what kind, but I think one was what some people refer to as "brie." It was awesome. I ate a lot of it. 

There were also prosciutto wrapped dates, which were SUPER awesome. I nearly died. I don't often normally much like prosciutto or dates, but they were so awesome I even went to the trouble of figuring out what prosciutto was and how to spell it so I didn't look like an idiot on the internet. And let me tell you, that was a lot of trouble to go through. It took me like, 5 whole minutes to figure it out. I thought prosciutto started with a "b." 

After awhile of trying to save precious stomach space and subsequently failing to the lure of the prosciutto wrapped dates, it was dinner time. THE dinner time. The dinner time of all dinner times. We took our seats. We received our plates. As usual, I was one to get the ball rolling and started serving myself probably what was inappropriately too soon. Let me list for you now, all the things that I served myself, and what I thought of them, in detail: 

Turkey. Primarily dark meat (it is the only way to go, honestly). This turkey was soaked in buttermilk before being roasted. It was awesome. 

Gravy. I don't usually eat gravy, but it was in this really cute little gravy boat in front of me at the table. Turned out it was awesome.

Stuffing. Also not usually a dish I tend to eat a lot. Or ever. But this one was super moist. It did not even look like stuffing. I did not even know that was what it was. Which is actually why I served myself some. But it was awesome! 

Cranberry sauce. There were two varieties being served, one more gelatin-like, and one made up of real crushed cranberries. Both were awesome. 

Mashed potatoes. Classic. Awesome. 

Chili-infused mashed potatoes. At least that is what I think they were. There were beans and corn and salsa and stuff in them, so I can only assume. They were awesome. 

Steamed greenbeans. Awesome. 

Greenbeans in a creamy mushroom sauce. Holy crap. So awesome. 

Sweetbread that I made. We already know that it was awesome. 

A little whiskey-butter on the sweetbread... Actually this was one of the few things I did not like. Not a whiskey fan, really. But everyone else thought it was awesome. 

I got seconds of the turkey, stuffing, chili mashed potatoes, cream sauce green beans, and sweetbread. At that point I couldn't clean my plate because it hurt too much. It was a travesty, but one I of course expected, as one always must on the day of turkey feasting. What is Thanksgiving, but a time of pain and sadness that one cannot eat more? We are spoiled, upper-middle class Americans with far too much to eat. What a shame. What a pity. If only we could have more. Our lives are troublesome indeed.

I had to spend some time comatose in my seat, not moving even the slightest bit, as it was too painful and disrupted my strained digestion process. It was most unfortunate that the people next to me started talking human politics and socialism. I only managed to escape by the necessity of needing to call my mother. Thank god. It was a close one. God forbid I actually become opinionated on a matter of social and cultural importance. Yelcgh. The thought disgusts me. 

After awhile I regained a little mobility and we took a nice walk, perhaps burning off 50, maybe even 60 calories. I know the number may seem small, but every little bit makes a difference on Thanksgiving. And with dessert coming up, it was more important than ever. 

The dessert collection was quite a sight to see. In addition to my mini apple pies inside an apple, there was blueberry pie, pumpkin pie, ice cream, and coconut macaroons. I had some of everything. And guess what? All of it. was. awesome. I kept trying to eat more, but my body kept protesting. I sat slumped in a large, perhaps too comfy armchair, in pain and impatience. Every time I thought I might be able to eat more, it only took another bite to remind me of my weakness. Ah what shame! But it was well worth it. I did manage to consume a fairly honorable amount, and felt proud of what I achieved. 

And thus we returned back to the other nice house in LA. And after a few hours we also ate some banana cream pie someone had dropped off, complete with a whole banana or two inside. I also ate a plate of cheesecake, because it was there. Both were awesome. I fell asleep to two people playing a Dead Space video game for the wii, which was perhaps the most beautiful moment of the day, as it has been a long time since I have gotten to sit around watching other people play games. (This is weirdly one of my favorite things to do on the holidays, besides eating).

I had gone to bed with something of a stomach ache, but woke up refreshed and renewed, ready for a day of leftover glory. We began the day with home-cooked waffles. They were awesome. I had a little maple syrup, yogurt, and many types of jam on mine, including mixed berry, cranberry danish spread, fig, and a couple types that I could not pronounce and thus cannot recall now. They were all awesome. I was quite partial to the fig and danish spread, myself. There was also the best bacon I think I have ever had. It came off this enormous hunk of bacon mass, and was the softest, most actually meat-like bacon I have ever encountered. 

After breakfast, there was some newborn baby holding and homework to be done, but that did not stop us from grazing on leftovers of an entirely different Thanksgiving meal that had been brought to us. This included more turkey (not as good as the buttermilk turkey, but still awesome), french onion soup casserole (holy crap so awesome), cinnamon sweet potato chunks (awesome), mac'n'cheese (awesome),   and other typical Thanksgiving goodies that fade away in my memories. I am sure they were also awesome. 

There was a box of desserts that had been delivered by a passing guest the morning before. Upon inspection they looked delicious and we decided to eat them. Inside there was some flaky, creamy pastry thing with layers of flakiness and cream, a frosted strawberry angel food cake thing, and fruity custard tarts. I had some of each. They were all awesome. My favorite was the flaky thing. It was the most awesome. 

In addition, there was grazing on more desserts, including apple crisp, leftover cheesecake remnants, and some terribly fabulous cookies. They were all awesome. There was more homemade bread and hummus too. Awesome. 

Believe it or not, after not too long it was clearly dinner time. We were so starving. So pizza crust was whipped out, gravy was lathered upon it, and stuffing, turkey, and other leftovers were placed under a layer of cheese. It cooked for a short while, and Thanksgiving leftover pizza was born. It was literally one of the most awesome things I have ever tasted. I don't know why no one had thought of such a thing before. I cannot even tell you how awesome it was. There was also an alternative new-age leftover pizza made with cranberry sauce, aged gouda and who knows what else. It was awesome. 

I had 5 pieces of pizza in total. I would have had more, but my body resisted. At this point, I knew my time to eat endlessly was coming to a close. I mourned, but accepted my fate. I shortly returned back to my apartment with my roommate in tow, back to a life of raw veggies and regular plain old cheese. It is difficult, after such an extravaganza, to come back to such a dull existence. But I still have many more Thanksgivings to look forward to (only 363 days until Thanksgiving 2013!) I am already scheming what I can do with my leftover pie crust and looking up coconut macaroon recipes online. After all, Christmas is not far off on the horizon...

Things I am thankful for, Sexless and Cynical style

Here at Sexless and Cynical, we would like to acknowledge the day of celebrating that involves stuffing your face until you want to puke. We think it is the best holiday ever conceived of and participate in it most joyously. 

The catch is, in exchange for eating your bodyweight in rich, heavy foods, one is meant to show thanks and be grateful for all the things in their life. Our glorious and most cherished founder, Meri Moose Gooey Boogers, would like to share all of these things with you now. She would also like to say that she remembers to be thankful for these things every day anyway, but this is just a list she will now voice for your reading pleasure and also so she can jump on board with the holiday spirit.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Please remember safe eating and use your condiments. 

Things I am thankful for, Sexless and Cynical style: 

-Food

-Cooking as an excuse to "taste test" food. Over and over again. 

-Shiny, metal poles that are sturdy enough to spin and hang around on upside while contorting my body in various positions, whether they be chrome or brass or any other material.

-Long, colorful silk fabrics that descend from the heavens for me to play on--or rather, flail around like a drunken monkey on. 

-A strong, healthy body. I refer to both myself and any strong, healthy body that belongs to an attractive man in his 20s or 30s. 

-Big, long geographical formations known as hill or mountains that I can conquer to show life "what's up"

-Comedic television, webshows, and movies that help mask the harshness and pain of reality. Er, I mean, life is great and totally awesome all the time. Yea! 

-Female butts and boobs. Seriously, I am not even really gay, but I do greatly appreciate the beauty of female anatomy. Like seriously. It's amazing. 

-Running clothes and accessories that make me look legit and not as much like the awkward, flailing, crazy person I actually look like when I run.

-Food

-Having zero dollars in my bank account for the first time ever, only to remember that I had a summer job and thus still have a bank account full of money to pay for all my crazy fitness addictions

-Being a completely socially inept and awkward female, thus attracting zero men and being able to spend all my time on energy on the most important thing in the world: myself

-Boy cooties that remind me that boys are dumb and having a vagina is awesome 

-Bruises upon bruises upon bruises. They are badges of honor and serve as a testament to how hard I work.

-Sore muscles as an excuse to not get up out of your chair. Also because they mean I'll be stronger tomorrow

-Having a beautiful, flawless face that I don't have to put any make-up on, ever, because it's already so perfect. (That is totally why I don't wear make-up)

-Dogs and cats, as they will one day be all I have in this world as an old and lonely spinster. They will be there for me to tease and make fun of without any repercussions--I mean, they will be good company and true loyal companions. 

-Words so that I can express myself and bore dozens of people on the internet with. 

-Did I mention food? 

-Oh yea and family and friends that love and support me through anything in every way who allow me to have the opportunities that so many don't get to have and blah blah blah all that. 

The Evil of Daylight Savings

I don't know about you guys, but lately things have been beginning to slip for me. By slip I mean that everything in my life feels like it is just starting to spiral down an evil black hole of doom. Basically I am sitting on the edge of it, dangling my feet, chewing on some bubble-gum, playing with my yo-yo and staring down into a vortex-like abyss that I could potentially get sucked into if I don't get up off my butt and do something about it soon. Herman the worm will not be coming to save my ass. (If you get this reference you win all the gold stars). Right now I am basically standing on thin air like a Loony Toons character. As soon as I look down, oh man, is shit going to hit the fan. 

We all know how this is going to end

I got the ball rolling when I met someone I am highly attracted to awhile back (just another glorious form of anxiety to lug around every. waking. moment.), but really the black hole beneath my feet started growing when I tore my hamstring last week. As excited as I am to have a real athletic injury, thus legitimizing my very fitness-obsessed soul, I am mostly just incredibly pissed off. I did everything I was told! I warmed up! I did the prep stretches! My good split, the one that hits the floor, was feeling really good! My hips were so square! I thought I could go for it. I thought I was extra warm and extra flexible that night. I sank all the way into my bad side split, held it for a few moments and then POP! Followed by an excruciating bit of pain. I played it off cool for the rest of class, telling no one and taking it easy on the tricks, but boy was I gimpy walking out of there. And now I have had to take a break from running, ease up on the poling, and my flexibility has been set back by miles. It's not fair. This is one giant, fat metaphor for my life. Work hard, do everything you are told, and still get screwed over. Thanks, universe. 

So that happened, and not being able to run has been like someone taking me off my happy pills. That first day I had to skip a run I was a mess. It was not a pretty sight. Ever since then, the black hole has been steadily growing, causing self doubt and anxiety all over the place like a drunk, hot mess on puking her guts and other respective bodily fluids out on the street outside the bar at 2am after St. Patrick's Day. I have done some pretty crazy things since then. I wrote in my diary--the real life paper one, that I don't share with anyone, where legitimate shit I feel about my life goes down. I pondered how all my exes were doing for the first time in months. I had a nice little emotional artistic crisis that I shared with the whole world wide web. It's been really enjoyable, this whole doubting everything in my life and crippling fear of the future. I could not enjoy it any more. No really. I could not. 

So I sat down to ask the question, what has happened? Besides getting an injury and being unable to work my body into exhaustion, thus not having time to have an emotional breakdown, what could possibly be the cause of this horrible feeling I am having lately? I was doing so well, after all. I finally felt like the journey I began in January had gotten me to a good place. And then it hit me. That was just it. I started in January. I have't experienced the brunt, full-force slap of the onset of winter since I started rearranging my whole life to revolve around handfuls of raw spinach and being a physical BAMF. Seasonal affective disorder is hitting me hard right now. And I fully and completely wish to place the blame on something other than my own mental weakness, which we all know does not actually exist since I am an all-powerful badass. So I have no choice than to accuse none other than the wicked, vicious, and cruel-hearted daylight savings time. 

I live in Southern California. We have not had any particular influx of cloudy, overcast days since "fall" began and the temperature has only dropped to the mere low 50s during the evening. It still hits the 80s most days. It's not really winter here. It never will be. But the days sure as hell are shorter. I type this at not even 5PM and my entire apartment is shrouded in darkness. I know I am the odd average 20-something out by getting up at 7AM most days, sure. But empathize with me for a moment. 7 AM used to be sunrise. Now it is 6 AM. I have lost that precious, beautiful one hour of daylight time and it has made all the difference. I am not pleased. Not one bit. 

The days are shorter during the winter in any case, and daylight savings time only takes what little we are left with from us. This "daylight savings time," benefits no one, as far as I can see. I stand here, on the edges of mental sickness, beholding the abyss of melodrama, pretentious artistic breakdowns, and S.A.D. out of the corner of my eye, in hope-- in fear driven desperation-- and urge you, the trustworthy and reliable people of the internet, to take hold of the future, to make a stand, to tell daylight savings time to go home! 

This is how I would protest on the streets. If I went outside. I'd be topless because that is the only way to protest. At least that is what the internet tells me. 

Who, WHO I ask you, benefits from daylight savings?? Only the crazy fringes of society, the tiny fraction of the population that is crazy enough to get up at the preposterous hour of 5AM, a time so shameful it really shouldn't even exist. Forget them! Their minds are already so sick and twisted that we should have given up all hope on them a long time ago. The truth of the matter is that it is an old, outdated practice. Daylight savings was invented in the stone age to help farmers who had to milk cows and sow crops or sacrifice their first born child or whatever the hell it is 'farmers' do. We all know that  our food now is exclusively produced in oversea factories by Asian toddlers experimenting with test tubes and year-old rejected halloween candy anyway. (That is all fact. You can check me on it.) It is the 21st century now and we don't need daylight savings time anymore. It is nothing but a terrible burden our nation is forced to endure because of things like gun control and women's rights. Put this world on the pill! Let's get a daylight savings time abortion! Death penalty! War in the middle east! Democrats! Republicans! GAY MARRIAGE! 

As a single white female still living mostly off her parents income, I clearly speak for the average american. I wish to be the voice of the common man and woman, the hard working class of our nation, who desperately need our help. Somewhere out there is a little girl asking her poppa why the sun stopped loving her, a tear forming in the corner of her eye as her father has to corrupt her beautiful and naive childhood innocence by explaining to her that no one loves her, I told you not to talk to me while I am watching Sunday football. Go play with this box of cigarettes or something. But she can't. Because it's  4PM and the sun is setting and her mother will beat her if she comes home after dark. America, I ask you, do you want to let this little girl down? I know I don't. She, like every other child, deserves to play with her box of cigarettes in the great outdoors, in the beauty of American nature with bald eagles and domesticated cats whose pictures enthrall the masses on the internet, the flora and fauna that have made this country what it is! Children are the hope of the future. Think of the children, if nothing else! Think of the children getting mauled by bears. Or terrorists. Or terrorist bears! That is the doom that awaits us, if we don't do anything about this daylight savings thing. 

We need to rally against daylight savings time. The hope of our nation and our entire planet depends on it. Maybe even the nine planets. Oh I am sorry. Eight planets. We have already lost one. Daylight savings has already taken its first victim! (You can check me on these facts that are so fact-filled and legitimate. Yes, they are.) We mourn Pluto. It was a great loss to our country. Do you want that to happen to another planet? What about your beloved Saturn, huh? Could you accept the responsibility for that loss as well? I assure you daylight savings time is in cahoots with global warming. Our intel tells us that they were responsible for 9/11 and ruining the economy. Imagine me wearing a blue tie right now because that will convince you I am a better American and you will believe every word I say.  No one wrote this speech for me. Never mind that I am typing this on a laptop and not actually talking at all. I am speaking from the heart. 

So I ask you, people of the internet that may or may not be a part of America but it doesn't really matter because daylight savings time is an international thing anyway, do you want to move forward, to seek not quite full on change, but slight adjustment in our society, or do you want to stay and the past and go down with the ship that is our society today? Are you ship rats or are you glorious, shiny human beings? Are you cheap Microsoft copy-cats or are you appealingly designed, overpriced Apple products that secretly rule the world in conjunction with Facebook? Are you low fat imitation butter or are you THE REAL THING?? Don't you want 4% more of your day, of MY day, to be sunny and glorious, to ironically taunt you with the thought of warmth even though it is winter and it is actually quite chilly outside? You wouldn't know anyway, no one actually goes outside anymore! Don't you care about me and my abysmal black hole that I am Loony-Toon hovering over? If you have made it to this point, it means you read this entire ridiculous blog I wrote. You must care. So show me, Americans/Other internetees, show me that you care. Vote for me, your sexless and cynical queen! 

Or don't. Because I am not actually running for anything. Also elections are over. This post came a little late. I'm sorry. It's daylight savings time's fault. Although you have to give me some kudos for fulfilling your ridiculous speech making needs. Can you tell I did my research on electoral campaign speeches for this? Well I will tell you something, I did not. That's right. I decided to wing it. Just like a real campaign. 

SLIGHT ADJUSTMENT FOR 2013. GO HOME DAYLIGHT SAVINGS.

Campaign poster: totally original idea by me