Iced Coffee, JFK Airport

The wait for Dunkin wrapped around the entire food court at 7:15. But I had time. At the front I asked for a medium iced coffee with cream, in a hot cup. I always ask for iced coffee in a hot cup because paper decomposes and plastic doesn't. Some places (the adorable cafe in Henne's neighborhood where I ate a black and white cookie and millionaire shortbread) don't mind at all. Other people insist what I'm asking is insane. I would classify the cashier at the JFK Dunkin as the latter. I was very aware of the family grumbling behind me, but I couldn't help myself when she held up a plastic cup and said, "No" over and over, I had to say, "Why?" over and over. Finally she pulled someone over to ask, and he was like, "Yeah who cares?" The whole thing was so overdramatic they forgot to charge me, and when I protested they just shuffled me away holding my paper bagel bag and victory cup.

At my gate I sat on a high top while the rest of the Group D mongrels swarmed the door. A couple about my age walked by, and I felt my senses heighten when they stopped a few feet from me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw them staring at me. I slyly checked my underwear wasn't sticking out, but beyond that couldn't guess what might be so interesting. I heard the girl mutter, "I'm gonna be my mom" before trotting over. "Excuse me!" she twinkled, "But where is the Dunkin Donuts?" I pointed her back and left. She smiled and went on her way.

Everybody here wanted somethin' more / searchin' for a sound we hadn't heard before.

Thursday

7:30 AM - rise, read the news, check email
8 AM - research train tickets for Spring Break, journal, read spirituality essays
9 AM - run four miles at the gym while reviewing a new screenplay
10 AM - shower and shove my life together
10:25 - run to the 22 bus, eat yogurt on the bus spilling on leggings
10:50 - jump off the bus and go to Dunkin for a vanilla cupcake coffee for me and a large regular for my mentor
11 AM - arrive at mentor's house, he greets me with pastry cake, continue outlining our new pilot
12:45 - walk to work at T Community College
1 PM - meet with a student to tutor her in paragraph sturcture
2 PM - catch the train to Lakeview, read The Things They Carried
2:20 - get a pink manicure
3 PM - sit in a table read of a new screenplay
5 PM - give feedback to famous writer (!)
5:45 - go home to Puhg, buy train tickets, organize papers/plans for tomorrow's classes, eat kale bowl
6:30 PM - improv class at The A________
7:50 PM - Lyft to i_, answer student emails in the car
8:15 warm-up with Dollar in the green room, other castmate brings cookies in a Ziploc
8:35 do two-person set with Dollar about high school detective duo
9 PM watch rest of show
10 PM sit at the bar with Pookie & Had, chatting
11 PM ride train home, walk the wet sidewalk
11:30 double-check lesson plans, snacks for full-day ahead
11:55 sleep

Anti-Sloth!

My sister sort of harps on this idea of sloth from time to time that I'll paraphrase here:
We all think sloth means being lazy like not working or sleeping a lot, but it means a lot more. There's mental sloth. There's knowing you don't like your job and not trying to change it. Or not telling the friend the thing they should know. Or not finishing that thought you had about why or why not you thought the film was good. Even in your own head.

Perhaps because I am moving and have a forced sense of freedom, or perhaps because I'm out of school for the first time in two decades or just because this season of Breaking Bad has been very good and Dunkin has an iced coffee for 99 cents deal on, but lately I have been doing things I want to do. Case in point--the waterpark on Friday. But there has been so much more. I get bored with sorting papers, so I read. Or I mention wanting to experience The Rainforest Cafe as an adult half-jokingly and Bisque takes me on a date there for volcano cake. At summer camp I love playing Mafia with kiddos, so why not get a bunch of friends together on a Thursday and play, offering up the last beers in the fridge and the Thin Mints I have been saving in my freezer since January of last year. Any day can be a rainy day. In the good way I mean.

He tricked me into seeing Edge of Tomorrow after, but that's okay.

Mafia night in my living room.

It could be easier said than done, but oh well, just try.

Vegan Month 2013

My 5th Vegan Month has come to a close! It was a tremendous success.

General News:

-January is pretty low holiday/special event-filled holiday. An island in the seas of Reese's Trees and Hearts.
-My school and work schedule is actually made so I can eat a distinct lunch and dinner every day. It is so much simpler to be vegan if you can actually sit down and eat planned filling food. Constant snacking as a vegan just makes you slowly loathe mixed nuts.
-Every time I do it, more people remember and more people are excited to help in my dining needs. The conversation flows from "Let's get pizza. Oh, you can't." to "I found a place where you can get vegan pizza! We should go!" If you are happy about your commitments, I find people are generally happy to help you succeed at them. Pals joined me for no less than four vegan milkshakes during the month. Hill made veggie chili for our standing lunch date. Ro found vegan almond joys.
-I live within a two mile radius from amazing Thai, Indian, Med, Ethiopian, etc. Going out is not difficult.
-Whereas in the past I have had near (and, let's be real, actual) meltdowns over desserts, this year I was pre-emptive in sweet tooth cravings. I made huge batches of vegan treats and slowly ate through them during the week. I never felt lack. Lack is the devil's device, and removing that concept is key in...probably everything.
-I cheated twice. Once on accident. Once on purpose. I'm okay with that.

Moving Forward:

In previous years I have missed certain foods very much, but, at the same time, I have lost the desire for others. Like, I don't drink milk. I never have cheese in the house. I look at contents of soup cans. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. This year I missed almost nothing. Really. Vegan month felt simple, freeing, joyful. I knew after this month veganism would be the rule and animal products the exception to it. Since the official date, most of my days are still all-veg, and the days that aren't often only include one cheat.

What I Eat:

-Endless combinations of beans + salsa, beans + marinara
-Tortillas filled with nut butter and fruit
-Oatmeal piled high with cinnamon and berries and cashews
-At school burritos without sour cream or pitas stuffed with falafel
-Hummus and veggies
-Salad with balsamic dressing
-Bagels and peanut butter and bananas
-Wheat pasta/rice and veggies
-Vegan cookie dough dip and cake puffs
-Soups!

It's not hard at all. I feel fresher, healthier, happier, more ethical!

But, Some Fun:

At midnight on the last day of Vegan January, Bisque presented me with a banoffee pie, which, despite everything I just said, I ate ravenously. The next morning in class, Hill pulled out a brown paper Dunkin bag with "Welcome to dessert month" written on it. Inside was a heart-shaped pink donut--three of my favorite things in one pastry.

 

It IS nice to have a planned bruchetta date with Ro and Shells. Sometimes, for the sake of culture, you gotta enjoy a lil goat cheese and tomato jam.

Judgement Days

Having a really hard time lately be nonjudgemental. Everything is bothering me from the piece of trash someone let fly out of their car window to General Mills for marketing their sugar terrorism.

I've been leeching onto the priority of removing my own beams, but the judgement sticks itself to me like window clings of tiny cartoon coffees at Dunkin Donuts. Mmmm...donuts.

Everyone's a screw-up in some way. It's basically inevitable. So, we must eschew judgment because there will ALWAYS be opportunities to judge. If you're judgmental, the world ends up looking like a dump pile. Because NEWSFLASH, all your judging does zilch besides make it easier to keep judging.

We all know this. But, here are the real questions:
1. If the judgement is right, is it ever pushy? If you're wrong, have you forfeited your right not to be pushed? Is actually the only right we own the entitlement to push and push back?

2. Where does it COME from? What makes me feel like its a good idea to be judgmental? I think we all act from standpoints of good--sometimes we just don't recognize our motive and our actions don't match. It feels like I'm trying to accomplish something good with judgement, but I'm obviously not. Why does it feel so natural to judge others if we're not meant to do it/if it's unhealthy/if it's not WWJD? You know? I sincerely do not know.

Yatchface with a cookie when we were roommates in 2010.

I'm starting with the man in the mirror.

I'm asking him to change his ways.

Yumba Yuice

The dinner I demanded after my marathon.

There are two Dunkin' Donuts within walking distance of my future school campus.
Last week I told my sister there is a Jamba Juice on campus.
This was before I had made my official choice. She said, "I'm so glad to have heard you have made your decision."

Chain Restaurants Close to My Heart:

5. Cracker Barrel
4. Maggiano's
3. Jamba Juice
2. Dunkin' Donuts
1. Baker's Square

Honorable Mention: Culvers and Mimi's Cafe

I know a lot of people think it's lame to love chains, to accept "Americanized" Italian food, or whatever whatever yuppy mentality. BUT I WILL LOVE THESE RESTAURANTS FOREVA AND WOULD RATHER GO TO A DD THAN THE MOST FANCYPANTS GOURMET PLACE IN NEW YORK CITY!

And all I wanted was the simple things.

Poppin' Bottles in the Club

August 2009, Photo by Pookie, at Dunkin'
I MISS MY LONG HAIR.

Last night, en route to IO downtown, my sister and I saw a Dunkin' Donuts. We both sighed with relief. There is genuinely something relieving about DD to me (and her). I don't love Chicago. I really don't. I appreciate it. I'll rep it and its 1990s Bulls and improv scene and Wilco and Marshall Fields until the day I die, but...I don't love it. It's cold and dirty.

BUT I LOVE DUNKIN' DONUTS. It's like this magical point on the spectrum of childhood memories that doesn't cross with angsty adolescence, delicious tastes of sweet and savory that never turns too rich or too filling, a chain that has been part of my life forever and always unlike my old skating rink or Brown's chicken which disappeared in the romanticism of elementary school.

So, we sighed. Good. Dunkin' Donuts on every street corner. Good. That's how we like it. She said, "We'll stop."
"There's one by dad's house."
"What? I'll need some munchkins for the road! To pop in my mouth!"
Silence. Quietly, to herself, barely audible I hear

"...Poppin' munchkins in the club..."


Picture this adorable little facey in da club with a carton of chocolate munchkins...

After Life: Part I

This morning, at the demand of my sister, the three of us (Pookie, me, Pops) left for Target at 3:50 AM. Yes. Black Friday. It happened. She wanted to get a cheap Wii game. I won't complain because she also bought me the only Wii game that has interested me thus far: Coldstone Creamery Scoop It Up*.

ANYWAY the only thing I wanted from Target was a new Jillian Michaels DVD, so I was just leisurely cruisin' around the aisles. People kept looking at me like, "DON'T YOU KNOW THERE ARE STILL SOME BIG SCREENS LEFT!?!?" As a particularly frantic woman holding a tower of boxed items passed me as I was looking at a sweater, one of her DVDs slid off her stack and bonked me on the shoulder. Another manic shopper unapologetically nearly barreled over it with a cart. I casually picked up the movie and placed it evenly at the top of the purchaser's pyramid. She gazed deep into my eyes and said almost tearfully, "Thank you." I half-expected her to finish "...And bless you my child."

Anyway, an hour later we were back in the car, hopefully en route to more sleep. After hitting a Dunkin Donuts (where there was some 5:30 AM ugliness from me because my dad asked for an extra paper bag to separate his fritter and Pookie's Munchkins), we were home sweet home. We all took up couches and popped in a movie.


Pookie and I after finishing the Boomchunka Monster Sundae from Cherry Republic, 2009


*Yeah, I realize the irony of paying for my freshman year books by scooping ice cream at Marble Slab, and now as a graduate paying to do it virtually. If you are further interested in my career as a "cream-slinger" go here: http://bygonebureau.com/2009/08/24/the-worst-jobs-i’ve-ever-had/