Freezer section trickery...

Because I don't like to cook and can't be bothered with it, I buy a lot of "skillet meals" in the freezer section of the grocery store. Most of them take less than 20 minutes to cook and involve dumping the contents of a bag into a large skillet. Hence the name, "skillet meals."

If one is going to nourish oneself in this manner, one should also read the directions carefully. I recently bought an orange chicken skillet meal, scanned the directions on the bag, and threw it into the cart. When I decided to make it for dinner last night, I discovered that everything could be cooked in-skillet - except for the rice, which came in a pouch, which had to be microwaved. Boil it, you say? The pouch had a warning label that said "for microwave use only: DO NOT BOIL." I threw the rest of the stuff into the skillet while my initial aggravation turned into fury that I wasn't going to be able to add what was probably the best jasmine rice in the world. I had to eat the chicken and vegetables with orange sauce. No rice. BECAUSE I DO NOT OWN A MICROWAVE.

A little history: We were one of the first families in our neighborhood to own a microwave, one of those massive metal Radaranges that took up as much space as the floor model Curtis Mathes television set in the den. It was the late seventies, I had three sisters, two dogs, a cat, two guinea pigs, and a soon-to-be divorced mother who had trouble dragging herself out of bed, much less cooking a meal. From 1979 to the early nineties, our home-cooked meals consisted of anything you could nuke the shit out of. It doesn't surprise me that I had a better relationship with Twinkies than with the limp stalks and rubbery greens that served as "vegetables" during my formative years.

As an adult, I have never owned a microwave. I hate them. I hate food cooked in them. The smell of Lean Cuisine makes me want to hork until the rice pilaf and herb roasted chicken I ate in 1993 comes up. If I had a microwave, it would only be an expensive water-boiler. I don't think it's a big deal, but some people think not owning a microwave is the equivalent of not owning a TOILET. Or that it means I am a hippie luddite (which I am not). Or that I'm crazy (which I am not). I've even had people visiting my house comment, "no microwave? That's crazy!"

First, I do reheat leftovers. I just use the OVEN. Microwaves turn leftover pizza into cardboard with cheese. Second, there hasn't been one instance in the past 10 years where I thought owning one would make my life easier.

Now, if I said I didn’t own a microwave because the government implants devices in them to track our eating habits and beam the information to satellites in outer space, or that microwave radiation causes tumors that make you thirst for human blood, that would be crazy.

However, if I plan to continue to eat "skillet meals," I might have to spring for a small one. That I would unplug and store in the closet under the stairs while not in use, lest it emit radiation while sitting on my kitchen counter.

There's nothing better...

than a rainy, stormy Saturday afternoon when it's 90+ degrees outside and you were smart enough to take the dog for a nice long walk in the morning when it was still cool and not raining and do the dishes and go to the grocery store, which leaves your afternoon free to turn down the air conditioning to 67 degrees and take a nap on top of your duvet/comforter with a throw blanket over your feet, fat little puppy on one side and cat on the other while it pours rain and thunders outside. Guilt-free group naps. They're the best.

Also good: having a stack of unread library books, dinner that doesn't require a lot of preparation in the fridge, the 2nd two discs of Weeds season 4, and a great excuse for staying in for the evening.

The only thing better: if I get to do it all over again on Sunday.

Manufactured productivity...

After spending four months in a high-pressure, 24/7, getting-up-at-5am-to-read-the-news-online job, I clearly had adrenaline withdrawal. Which looks something like the following:

*Wake up at 8am. Roll over. Go back to sleep.
*Wake up again at 10am. Spend 30 minutes deciding whether or not to get out of bed.
*Get out of bed and make coffee (no need for auto brew now that I don't set alarm for 6am).
*Halfheartedly drink coffee, check email, and end up playing umpteen games of spider solitaire.
*Cold. Make a fire in fireplace. Try to do some writing, but it's so waaarrrrrrm now.
*Shut down computer before noon and nap.
*Wake up around 3. Hate daytime television. If no food in house, go to store. If lazy, call for chinese takeout.
*Consider taking a second nap around 6pm. So. Tired.
*Eat, don't eat, don't care.
*TV is boring, try to read. Reading is boring. Watch TV.
*Phone rings. Don't even get up to answer...they'll leave a message.
*Remember back in college when you used to get high and watch cartoons. Feel nostalgic. Do that.
*Adult Swim is on Cartoon Network until at least 2am.
Repeat.

OK, so there's been a holiday in between and I actually have done a good job of keeping up with dishes and laundry, but none of that takes as much time as a 12-hour day working on a political campaign. And since four months is enough time to develop a habit, you know it's really over when political news on CNN or MSNBC just sounds like noise. Boring noise.

I was supposed to "take it easy" between now and the end of the year. That was the plan. But "taking it easy" shouldn't mean "sleep all effing day long." I think that's a symptom of depression, or in my case, adrenaline withdrawal. I need something else- a deadline, a crisis (not wishing, Universe, hear?), or a $750 bill for 30,000-mile maintenance on my Honda - to get my ass off the couch and start working again.

This week I started getting it together. I made an appointment for my car (see above "maintenance on my Honda." I committed to having lunch with a friend next week. I called my sister just to talk. I've had several conversations with friends and family about whether or not I should get a puppy (working from home again = perfect opportunity, no?). I paid all of my bills early. I bought stamps. I did some "real" grocery shopping (meaning not just dinner, but a week or more of meals), I updated my resume, I called Earthlink for the umpteenth time about my slow-ass "fast-access DSL" that I pay $65 a month for (finally got a straight answer on that one instead of them selling me another modem: slowdown is from "additional customers in broadband area and they are going to expand my line." Hello, could you have told me this a YEAR ago when I first starting calling about it? Pissed off.), updated Netflix queue, wrote a couple of blog posts, had lunch with mom and sister and nephew, downloaded Hemingway short stories on audio vols 1, 2 and 3 and listen while cleaning house, and once this week I made my bed.

There is still much to do. I have a guest room that needs cleaning, holiday shopping, puppy shopping, and need to start writing again regularly - even if only in the form of blog posts here.

Cleaning house...

It's not a euphemism. I'm working long days now, usually six days a week (because politics never sleeps), and after about five weeks of it my house looks like a deranged pack of 16-year-olds have been camping out for Spring Break weekend (without the empty beer bottles and vomit). Disarray rules. It got so bad last week I didn't want to go home one night so I spent almost an hour killing time at Whole Foods (if you know how much I hate grocery shopping, you'll understand) in order to avoid my messy home. I realized if I go straight to the back bedroom without turning on the living room lights, I don't notice it as much. Except for the pile of clothes on the bathroom floor and the fist-sized dust bunnies in my bedroom.

I am gross.

So I broke down on Sunday morning, went to my friendly neighborhood Food Lion, and bought a cartful of cleaning supplies. I bought anything that looked like it would clean something. The woman at the checkout said, "so, you're cleaning house today?" I said, "No, I just like to have an entire aisle of products in my house in case I ever feel like cleaning." Ha. I really just said, "mmm hmmm" and tried not to look her in the eye. She scanned my product after product, at one point holding up a bottle and asking, "did you know you have three kinds of bathroom cleanser?"

OK, so I'm not an expert on cleaning products. Also, there are hundreds of them. And they all look like they do something. Better safe than sorry, right? I just told her that I'm not used to deep cleaning (as my former roommate would say, I'm a "surface cleaner"). The checkout lady asked me flat out if I had a housekeeper. Still not looking her in the eye, I said, "used to." She laughed her ASS off. Seriously, she was scanning and bagging and laughing right in my face. The laugh sounded something like: "spoiled brat isn't used to cleaning up after herself and it serves her right for bein' spoiled so I'm going to go ahead and ring the hell up her $75 worth of cleaning products and bag them and send her ass on her way because she is STUPID and I hope she has fun sticking her hand into a toilet bowl." I might have been reading a little much into it, but I swear that's what it sounded like.

However, she did give me a fine tip before I departed with my bags: "Don't use that bleach on hardwood floors, now!"

I spent hours cleaning and am now well-acquainted with Swiffer, Mr. Clean, Kaboom, Lysol Tub & Tile, Clorox spray with bleach, Greased Lightning, Oxyclean, Lysol floor cleaner, Murphy's Wood Oil Soap, fizzy toilet bowl spray, fizzy shower spray, vacuum cleaner belts and bags, Febreze dusting polish, and some kind of "all surface" cleaner that smells like lavender. Note: "all-surface" does not mean all surface. This should not be used on electronic items. Also, you shouldn't use more than one product on your shower and tub unless you want to wake up on the floor with a headache three hours later. And there's my wisdom for the day.

Today, I get to go home to a clean house. I no longer have to worry that I will wake up to a dust bunny uprising and mutiny. I can find the book I was reading instead of giving up and starting a new one. Today is a good day.