I have become a strange, foreign creature. This morning I made meatballs (as I was eating my Toaster Strudel) so that after work, dinner can get on the table quicker. Yesterday morning? I peeled shrimp. Who am I? Whoever I am, I am getting stuff DONE.

Knitting update: after several nights of failed attempts, I think I successfully cast on correctly. My main problem is not knowing which side the yarn is supposed to be on. Does it switch when you start actually knitting? Who made up knitting, anyway? I’d like to have a chat with them. If I did have a chat, and it was a video chat, I would hide the fact that I was using $2.99 Vanna White yarn. Vanna White: letter turner, yarn enthusiast, enigma.

Yesterday at the grocery store I was reading all the magazine covers while waiting in line, and people: the Cosmopolitan cover-writers have officially gone too far. This is the teaser:

YOUR HOO-HA HANDBOOK
Get a Healthy, Sexy Vagina

It probably says a lot about me that I am more comfortable with the word “hoo-ha” on a magazine cover than the word “vagina.” Or maybe it’s the context: sexy vagina. I took a picture with my (brand-new, surprise after-Christmas gift from Larry!) iPhone, and then harrassed every girl I know with a wordless text message. So, if you received a disturbing photo with the words “sexy vagina” in it, that was me. Sorry.

Speaking of the iPhone, it’s been cold here and I have discovered that you can’t answer the phone with gloves on (it has a slidey thing on the screen that doesn’t respond to gloved hands). So this morning, I answered with my nose. Hung up that way, too. I subscribe firmly to the belief that no one is studying me, and thus, I managed not to feel dumb.

In unrelated news, I am beyond excited about American Idol starting back up next week. No Paula!

• Overheard in J. Crew:
Lady: What do you think? Could I get away with wearing this scarf?
Teenage daughter: Do what you want. I don’t care.

• Today at the corner of Fortification and Greymont, I saw a well-dressed man cross the street with something in both of his hands. Upon closer inspection, I saw that he had three lightbulbs in one hand and two in the other.

• At the same intersection, I saw a lady put on deodorant in her car. Oh wait! That was me.

• I have a few product endorsements for you for no particular reason than these products have brought me great joy lately:

1. Woolite One Step Carpet Cleaner. This is the carpet cleaner that I would’ve waited my whole life for if I were the sort of person who waited on carpet cleaner. The can specifically says it takes out fruit juice stains, and as some little baby has dribbled his apple juice all over my precious living room rug, I really needed this promise to be true. So you vaccum your carpet, spray this stuff on it, let it sit for 15 minutes, and then vacuum again. And people: the stains, lo, they are gone. There is no scrubbing. The stains magically disappear. Also, the stuff is like $3.

2. Revlon ColorStay eyeliner. I’m a big fan of eyeliner in general, but have always had a problem finding a perfect one that wasn’t too smeary or wasn’t too hard. This stuff is rad: it’s not an actual pencil, so there’s no sharpening going on (and therefore no shards of wood to accidentally jab into your eye): you just twist and more magic, glide-on eyeliner comes out. It stays put and doesn’t rip off your eyelids upon application.

• I read that potato peel pie book. You know the one. You know what? It wasn’t bad. Not the best book I ever read, but it was enjoyable, a quick read, and had the added bonus of letting me learn something else gross about World War II along the way. While I wouldn’t have sought out the book, it literally arrived on my desk and so I took that as a sign and read it. (My sign reading is very subjective, as I did not read the other books that arrived on my desk.)

• Attention anyone who misses the Doag Loaver! The house across the street from hers is for sale. You’re welcome.

• While it is every parent’s responsibility to teach their children the important things in life, I have apparently chosen to teach my tiny baby (who is now a big boy of 16 months!) the dumbest things ever, such as: (1) that if he points at me, I will touch my index finger to his and say “ding,” and then he will say “ding,” and then we will do this over and over; (2) instead of putting the nice stacking rings on the little post like you’re supposed to, we shall instead put them on our heads and wear them as hats; and (3) when eating crunchy things, it is important to squint, show all one’s teeth, and go hi-ya-ya-ya-ya while chewing quickly. You should try the last one. It’s fun.

This morning I saw a guy swig from a gallon jug of red drink while in the passenger seat of a car.

I am working on a power point presentation with someone who lives elsewhere, and a few weeks ago he sent his half of the presentation to me so I could insert my slides. He had chosen the hideous Arial as a font, which I ignored, and used Garamond instead. I didn’t fuck with his ugly Arial; I just went about my business, made my slides, then sent the presentation back to him. THEN he sent it back to me and said “oh hey I made all the font the same” which, ok, fine, I kind of expected that, but inexplicably, instead of changing all of it to Arial he changed it all to COMIC SANS.

The other night I asked Larry, “Did Spike just poop, or is that your popsicle I smell?” Somehow, the smell of a grape popsicle was exactly that of a teething poop. (Oh, you molars, you are the devil.) This did not stop me from eating a grape popsicle later in the evening.

Ok, that’s all.

1. PTRYNPK

2. My birthday was Monday and I stayed home with Spike, and then yesterday I ditched him at daycare and went shopping. I had a gift card from Anthropologie (thanks, in laws!) and no time constraints. This, friends, is a great combo. So I dug around in the sale area and had a pile of stuff to try on, including this really cute dress that was marked down to $19.95! Hello! At Anthropologie! So I tried it on, and ohmygod it fit. It’s a leetle low cut (and uh, not in a cute way), but a tank top underneath will do the trick. I also got a super cute skirt.

So last night I was hanging the dress up and heard some crinkling. I went hunting for the crinkly tag and found, instead, a Payday candy bar wrapper in the pocket.

I figured the dress had been returned, as it was marked down so much, but people, it is pristine. There is nary a mark on it, nary a stray string. I have decided that these are the only possible scenarios:

a. the person wore the dress and ate a Payday
b. the person tried the dress on at home and ate a Payday
c. the person tried the dress on at home, heard her roommate’s key in the lock, and stuffed the Payday wrapper into the pocket to prevent the roommate from knowing she ate her last Payday
d. an Anthropologie employee was eating a Payday in the sale area and slipped the wrapper in the pocket when she heard her supervisor coming

While I do not understand who eats Paydays — hello, there is no chocolate — I am grateful that there is no smeary chocolate residue in the pocket. In related news, I am going to start stuffing candy bar wrappers into garments and then demanding a discount upon check out.

3. Last night I accidentally watched Somewhere in Time. All 103 minutes of it (I know there are 103 minutes because at 90 minutes, I looked on imdb to see how much more I had to live through). I last saw this when I was in high school and thought it was sooooo romaaaaantic. Y’all. While I love romance + time travel, Christopher Reeve, bless him, is the WORST ACTOR EVER. It’s like watching an orangutan trying to act. He clutches his head to indicate despair. It is unbearable. It would be 10 times more enjoyable as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie. If you have seen this movie lately, perhaps you can answer two questions for me:

1. So she gives the watch to him when she’s old, and then he leaves it in 1912 when he disappears. But where did it come from to begin with?
2. So the penny screws him and he flies back to 1979. Why doesn’t he just try to go back to 1912 again instead of crying and taking long walks on the beach?

If you have a chance, please watch this movie, take some notes, and get back to me.

There is a special item at Long John Silver’s right now, according to the commercials, people! It’s called the Baja Fish Taco. For a moment, let us imagine what a Baja Fish Taco might be, even at a fried fish emporium. Most fast food places now offer fake healthy items (KFC grilled chicken, anyone? Oprah?), so I imagined it would be a fish-shaped object with fake grill marks wrapped in a tortilla. OH NO. It is a FRIED fish-shaped object, “crumblies,” and “baja sauce” wrapped in a tortilla. Why do I think that’s so funny? Funny enough to write down, then type out to tell you about?

Spike is fond of pulling books off the bookshelf, and almost every day, even if he isn’t in a particularly book-pulling mood, he pulls one particular book off the shelf and throws it on the floor. It’s Our Town by Cynthia Carr. Is he trying to tell me something? I haven’t read it, but…maybe I should.

So I got my hair cut at a new place last week, which was good because my usual hairdresser tends to give me a good haircut approximately every third time I come to see her. Anyway, we all know that hairdressers tend to lavish compliments on their customers, as this results in higher tips. (Once I was at the Gap and there was this girl stationed at the door apparently assigned to compliment the customers as they came in. I heard her tell someone her hair was cute, that she liked another person’s purse, and then she said this to me: “I like the way your jeans fit you.”) However, my new hairdresser took it a little far, as these are the compliments I received:

1. “That’s a cute outfit.”
2. “You’ve got great style.”
3. “What? You have a baby? But you’re so thin!”
4. “You remind me of Scarlett Johanssen. Do you get that a lot?”

The only compliment I was willing to believe was number one. Number two feels generic, number three is obviously disingenuous, and number four…oh, number four. I was going to say that I was the opposite of Scarlett Johanssen, but the exact opposite would be, say, Urkel. However, I am not disparaging myself by saying I HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON WITH SCARLETT JOHANSSEN, ESPECIALLY IN MY BRA.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store at lunch to get a few things — eggs, cheese, butter, more steamable-in-the-bag sugar snap peas that I am currently obsessed with — and so brought the bag in and stowed it in one of our work fridges. At 2:50 I happened to look at the clock and suddenly remembered that I had a meeting across town. I got halfway to my car when I remembered my bag o’ perishables and had to go back upstairs. Anyway: just so we are clear, I arrived at my meeting a) late and b) with a carton of eggs. Oh hi! I brought snacks. Well, snacks-to-be. Almost snacks. Deconstructed snacks. Snacks in their purest form. OKAY FINE. I BROUGHT EGGS.

Speaking of the grocery store, on my way there yesterday I was listening to the soft rock easy listening station (of course I was) and heard part of that song that goes “Sunshine, go away today…” which is not a song I’m terribly familiar with (weird given my love of the soft rock easy listening station). Then as I was walking into the store, a man was walking out and what song do you think he was whistling? The same song. The grocery store was playing its own frightening mix of jazzy Muzaked favorites, so apparently the universe was just trying to tell me something. You do realize that I am the sort of person who really does think the universe is trying to tell me something, right? If you’d like to play along and perhaps guess what secret message I was supposed to receive, you should Google it. (I linked to some lyrics online that were apparently on a cruddy site that made people’s computers go nuts. So Google it yourself, why don’t you.)

And speaking of the soft rock easy listening station, I also heard “Careless Whisper” yesterday. Does anyone else think it’s funny that he says, “Though it’s easy to pretend, I know you’re not a fool”? It’s easy to pretend you’re a HUGE IDIOT DUMBASS, but you’re not, so, you know, we’re cool.

• We keep Lulu’s leash and collar in a bowl on a table by the front door, and if you go near the bowl or heaven forbid, touch the bowl so that the collar jangles a little, she goes nuts and thinks it’s time for a walk. The other day Pete dropped his mousie into the bowl and then dug around in it trying to get mousie out, and Lulu actually jumped up and ran over to him with her little puppy eyebrows up and her tail wagging. Like Pete was going to take her for a walk. I love Lulu, but sometimes she’s such a dog.

• I was totally into American Idol this season, but after Allison was booted, I lost interest in that sausage party. And such uninteresting sausages, too! I was still rooting for the widowed sausage but now that he’s gone, I just cannot bring myself to care for the screaming sausage or the stale sausage. You should type “sausage” a few times and see how doing so compels you to KEEP TYPING IT. Sausage!

• A few weeks ago I told you about my friend from high school, JP, who used to throw me around onto vaguely cushioned surfaces, and how we’d become friends again on Facebook. I was looking through my high school journals for ammunition to use against him and found some intriguing information instead.

A Recap of My Junior Year in High School: A List by Sally J. Nordan

JP is awesome! I love him!
Today I thought we were going to make out but instead we wrestled a lot.
JP is mad at me.
I apologized to JP today.
We wrestled some more.
I hate JP.
I love him!
Wrestling!
Mad again.
Apologized again.
More wrestling.
No making out. Just more wrestling.

You see where this is going, don’t you? JP is gay. Of course he is! It all makes sense! He didn’t have dreams of WWF! He just didn’t want to make out with a girl. It’s kind of heartbreaking and sweet and it makes me want to get in a time machine and pat him on the head and tell him it’s ok and that he can stop pinning me down with his elbow now.

I might’ve proclaimed my love for this before, but we’ve reunited recently and our love cannot be stopped: cheesecake-flavored spready cream cheese. Dudes. Just try it. It will change your life.

If you have a scaly, eczema-ridden baby, I highly recommend Baby Phisoderm for all your baby washing needs. You can only get it online and it comes in a pack of six bottles, but it lasted us a whole year. It smells awesome, too: authentically babylike.

So, I read Twilight. While I certainly see the appeal of Edward (pretty, feels like marble), I have major problems with some of the more implausible plot points (Bella tells her cop dad “I’m outta here” and he just lets her go? no way) and even majorer problems with the overuse of adverbs, Sally wrote wryly.

However, I also recently read a fantastic book, which, if you live in Mississippi, you are hereby required to read: Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Set in Jackson in the 60s, it’s just heartbreaking and interesting and funny and well-written and if you’re from here you will die every time a character walks down Belmont and turns onto Myrtle or when someone shops at the Jitney 14. It is not my #1 all-time favorite contemporary novel about Mississippi — always and forever, I pledge my troth to The Heaven of Mercury by Brad Watson — but it is a great book.

Eating sushi in my car makes me feel like a homeless person, albeit one who found a few dollars on the ground and decided to go purchase some grocery store sushi, which is surprisingly not terrible sushi actually.

I had a dream the other night that The Rock was trying to get it on with me in my state senator’s front yard. When I told Mr. The Rock that while I was flattered, we were certainly in different eschalons of attractiveness, he feigned confusion until I pointed at his thigh as evidence.

Spike took a few steps yesterday at school! While I was not there to see it, luckily, the janitor was and demonstrated Spike’s moves for me when I went to pick him up yesterday.

• I have a question. If someone says, referring to a lady, “Hubba hubba,” what do you imagine that lady looking like? (I think of a cartoon lady in a red dress with big boobs and a fur stole.)

• I kind of said I wasn’t going to collect vanity tags anymore, and lo, the world opened up to me, and yea, there were many tags:
MRSOLO
HIDDEN
ICEEY
IWKHAIR
MIRACL2
RCK STR

Dude. Those are awesome.

• When you’re feeling tired and like learning the characters of a new book would be as exhausting as getting to know a group of new friends, do you reach for old books that you know inside and out? If so, then you’ll understand why I am reading From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler for the nine-hundredth time.

• Larry’s dad, who is sweet as pie, is a bit of a dunderhead. I mean that in the nicest way. He’s an adorable dunderhead! An adorable, generous dunderhead! So he was telling Larry about how you can rent movies from the grocery store.

Larry’s dad: And it’s only a dollar a day!
Larry: Well, don’t you keep them for like a week?
Larry’s dad: Well, yeah. But they have all the new releases!
Larry: So what’d you get?
Larry’s dad: Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Larry: …
Larry’s dad: They were out of everything good.
Larry: (laughing)
Larry’s dad: Hey, do you know how to turn off the 3D on a movie? Journey to the Center of the Earth is in 3D and it’s hurting my eyes.
Larry: I don’t think you can turn it off. You need 3D glasses.
Larry’s dad: I can just wear my sunglasses, right? That’s the same thing as 3D, right?
Larry: No.

• In other news, it appears that I can only write posts in nugget form now.

• Why are endocrinologists, as a whole, such dicks? I understand dickish anesthesiologists because THEY WIELD THE POWER, but the encodrine system is just so lame. I saw mine this morning after skipping my yearly visit last year since my ob/gyn was managing my thyroid during my pregnancy, and y’all, this man acted like it was 1979 again and he was in my first grade class and he didn’t get an invite to my birthday party. His nurse-esque person warned me that he was going to fuss at me. Wha? Really? Then he came in, made a big deal that I let someone else test my precious blood, and actually said, “That’s water under the bridge now” when I asked if it would be helpful to have my other doctor fax him the thyroid test results. Water under the bridge! That is what you say when you catch someone in a lie and they apologize half-assedly and you want them to think you’re over it but you’re not really over it.

• I may have seen the best vanity tag ever the other day: OHH YEA. I just don’t think that can be topped.

• Last week I was all riled up because my mother was in town and we had this conversation:

Mom: Do I need to clean your tub?
Me: I don’t know. Do you feel like cleaning my tub?
Mom: When’s the last time you cleaned it?
Me: Sunday.
(Editor’s note: this conversation happened on Thursday.)
Mom: SUNDAY?
Me: Yes.
Mom: Sunday Sunday? Sunday like 5 days ago Sunday?
Me: Yes.
Mom: So the tub the baby is going to bathe in hasn’t been cleaned since Sunday.
Me: That is correct.
Mom: I’m going to go clean the tub.

I was enraged at the time and spent the whole of Friday quizzing people on how often they clean their tubs. Then I decided my mother is insane and got over it.

• I’m trying really hard not to talk about all the funny things I see on Facebook every time I post something, but man, I find that the “Info” tab is a goldmine. Today I discovered a friend from middle school is into tequila!!! and HOT GUYS WITH GREAT ASSES!!!!!!!!!!! I think she was in my Girl Scout troop. I wonder if there is a merit badge for tequila.

• 2WITCHY
7TITHRS
SNKTFYD

I get twitchy, I get sanctified* (although it took me a minute), but 7TITHRS? The Diplomat sent me that one. My guess is “seven tithers” and his is “seven tit hours.” Any other guesses?

• I’ve been reading (slowly, I may add) Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh. I aspire to write a truly silly book one day (complete with ridiculous character names) and have some blurbist write on the back that my book is “in the spirit of Waugh’s Decline and Fall; a true nonsensical masterpiece.” I have the feeling it took Waugh approximately two weeks to write and that he was drunk a lot during the process. One day, I shall give myself a drunken two weeks alone with a typewriter and see what happens. I have a feeling it would be something like this:

Onec upon a tine there was a nam maned Horace McSludgebucket and omg I’m so drunkkkk

• Do you know about Sexy People? What about Fuck You, Penguin? You’re welcome, internet.

• Jaxxonians, have you been to the downtown Keifer’s and had a burger lately? The burger with the mozzerella AND THE FETA DRESSING? Jesus. I ate one yesterday and could eat another four or so today, too.

• Also, gorjus killed John Updike.

*These sound like awesome song lyrics.

1. Spike had tubes put in his ears yesterday! He has had many ear infections in his short life and his pediatrician (note: his dreamy pediatrician) recommended we head to Tubeville. It went really smoothly, although Spike slept shittily last night. I am hoping this is a side effect of the anesthesia and not the tubes.

2. Thanks for the book and music recommendations! I still haven’t bought/stolen any new music, but I did start reading An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (uh, from no one’s recommendation) because I already had it, and so far here is what happens: I read a few sentences and start to get bored, and then a funny sentence will appear and I keep reading. I guess that is a fairly successful way to write a book. BORING BORING BORING FUNNY BORING BORING.

3. I returned someone’s call today and had this encounter:
Whoever: So and So Workplace.
Me: Hi, may I speak to Jennifer?
Whoever: This is Jennif–hold on, please.
(pause while on hold)
Totally Different Person: This is Jennifer, may I help you?

4. I am now Facebook friends with 50% of the little girls who were at my 6th birthday party.

5. I was trying to explain the concept of shared items on the Google Reader to my mother-in-law for the express purpose of telling her that I could see the things that my brother-in-law (her son) shared. So I said, “Yeah, so when Zippy reads something he really likes, he can share it and then I can read it, too.” Mother-in-law looked very worried, then asked if that was an invasion of his privacy.

6. Today I used my gmail archives not only to find out what I thought of a job applicant who I interviewed about a year ago (answer found in a chat: “instead of shaking my hand she waved at me like a contestant on the Tyra Banks show”) but also to establish when a former employee took time off (answer found in a chat: “omg rebecca just came in here and her tooth is dangling out of her head”). Gmail archives as a human resources tool!

• YESOFCR
BDAZZLD

• Excellent excuse why I came back late from lunch: “Sorry, I was buying Spike a monkey costume for Halloween.”

• Rock of Love: Charm School starts next Sunday!

• Do you know about the Sexy People blog? No? Here you go.

• My brother reports that he ate the following at the Texas State Fair:
1. chicken fried bacon
2. fried chocolate truffle
3. fried grilled cheese
4. fried s’mores

1. I often wake up in the middle of the night when the baby breathes hard or flutters his eyelids, and a certain word or phrase or name will inexplicably be in my head. Lucy McGillicuddy, circumflex, perhaps bespattered. Last night it was: Kliban cat.

2. I don’t know what my problem is, but Top Model is on my nerves. That stuff last week when Tyra was the fairy godmother with creepy whited out eyes? I didn’t even find it ridiculously amusing. I know. I should take more naps. And oh god, watching Isis try to fold her poor bony body into a pose that would hide her penis was just torture, and not in a good “bitch poured beer on my weave” kind of way.

3. Project Runway: do I love anyone? Not really. Korto, kind of, Jarrell, not at all, Kenley, please.

4. True Blood: Bill is hot, Anna Paquin’s accent grates on my nerves less every week, and the sets — the sets are fucking fantastic. They’ve nailed the trashy south perfectly! Which is essentially what the plot line is every week as well.

5. I recently came across this superstition, allegedly common in rural Pike County in the 1920s: “[R]ub the gums of a new-born baby with the raw brains of a rabbit and he will cut teeth easily.” Oh, weird poor southern people of yesteryear, you make me sick.

6. There is a girl who walks her dog past my house, but “walk” doesn’t aptly describe it. She prances. She is often wearing a cotton dress one could actually describe as a frock if one was in the mood to use such a word, and takes steps like the girls in drill team used to do: toe-heel, not heel-toe. I imagine that she imagines herself in a romantic comedy, perhaps one where she is an editorial assistant at a fashion magazine.

7. Spike is kind of a snotty baby — he always has that back of his head rattly congestion sound. We have a humidifier for his room, we use the suction bulb, we’ve elevated his mattress so his head is raised a little, but nothing really works.

PEOPLE. UNTIL NOW.

Larry bought this thing…this snot-sucking thing. It’s called the Nose Frida. It’s a little hose; you stick one end on the outside of baby’s nose and um, then you suck on the other end. You know. With your mouth. It sounds horrifying, I know! But there is a filter you will not get snot in your mouth and people: it works. Visit the hilarious gallery of nose-sucking mommies here. (With each purchase, you also receive a charming sunshade for your car window that says, “Swedish hoses for stuffy noses.”)

Because I do a lot of things for the baby — for instance, I carried him and then gave him birth — I do not use the Nose Frida. That is purely something between Spike and Larry. I am comfortable relinquishing control in this arena.

8. On Friday I will be going to D.C. for my annual trip, and wow am I not looking forward to leaving Spike for the weekend. I’m taking tomorrow off to hang out with him, to clean the house (my in-laws are coming in to assist Larry with baby duties), and to write elaborate lists of instructions about how to do things. I’m sure Larry’s going to do great, but I am really going to miss rocking that fat, freshly bathed, bejammied baby to sleep each night.

9-13. Sorry, suckers! I’ve run out of steam.

1. NOTGLTY
HEDYD4U (thanks, Professor Fury!)

2. I had this sore spot on my shoulder and started picking at it a little last week. When I finally took out my contacts so I could see it up close last night, I had a mild heart attack because it looked like a textbook photo of a melanoma: ragged edges, red, etc. I will save you the gory details about discovery, excavation, et cetera, but apparently there was an item lodged in my skin that then became infected. Guess what it was? A baby fingernail. I know. Let us never speak of it again.

3. Daycare, despite (because of?) my worries is actually going really well. Today is the first day that I’ll be at work all day, and you know, I’m ok. When I go to pick Spike up he is always happy and also breathing. He isn’t sucking on old wooden blocks and does not have stains and dustbunnies attached to his person. The mornings get a little hairy, especially because Spike doesn’t exactly sleep through the night and it’s anyone’s guess what time he’s going to wake up in the morning. I have to tell you that my clothes planning calendar is really helping, as is the additional insanity I added to my life this weekend, which was putting all the outfits for the week together and hanging them at the front of my closet. I don’t even have to look for the pants and top! I am an organizational wonder! Also perhaps insane!

4. The food plan calendar is also good. Here is my tip for new mothers, or anyone who needs to cook dinner quickly. While someone else is watching the baby, like on Sunday afternoon or something, I chop up anything that needs to be chopped for the week’s meals, like onions. I am not ever going to be one of those people who cooks the month’s worth of meals and freezes them, but I can totally chop a few onions and put them in baggies in the fridge. I also discovered that when it was just me and I wanted to cook, I could get it done — just not all at once. A few weeks ago I was making goat cheese and garlic stuffed chicken, and while there are several steps, I did them when I had the chance: at 2:00 I pounded the chicken flat, then put it back in the fridge. At 4 I made the stuffing and rolled the chicken up. At 5:30 I put it in the pan, etc. It takes some getting used to, but if you’re like me and need to do the things you’ve always done in order to retain your sense of normalcy about yourself, it can work.

5. Because many* of you have asked, yes, Spike’s hair is still awesome. Exhibit A, although it’s kind of dark:

*none