Friday Night Lies

1  Chicken Lo Mein Kids Meal

1 Sweet and Sour Chicken Kids Meal
1 Order of Chicken Eggrolls (comes with 2)

Please tell me, does this sound like a meal for one person or two? Because the girl at the counter yesterday felt the need to clarify whether I required 2 plasticware packets for this order. Why would she ask me something so insulting? Do I look like the type of person who orders two meals and two eggrolls to devour on a Friday night? Am I that overweight, unattractive and off-putting that she thinks that all I have to do on my evening off is plow through a smorgesboard of asian cuisine while watching a chick-flick and pretending to clean up my studio apartment? The nerve!

To her credit, that is exactly what I was doing that night, so in the most technical of senses, she was right to question me; but doesn’t it seem prudent to just assume that I am ordering for 2? After (somewhat huffily) implying that yes, I would be needing two plasticware packets, I walked out to my car and wondered at myself.

Why lie? They were kids meals after all and I did intend to save some for lunch the next day, so why not be a woman about the whole issue, tell the truth and spare Shu Shus the loss of one packet (which I am sure adds up after a while if people are just taking them willy nilly for face-saving purposes). Truthfully, I wasn’t even disappointed in spending my evening this way, to the contrary, I had been looking forward to it, planning it even, but the problem was that on some level, I had been judged rightly and that tends to make me squirm.

I realized this a few months ago when I had a meeting with my professional mentor. She is always asking for honesty so I basically told her that I honestly had never planned to be a working woman and going to a job day after day was really becoming a buzzkill for me. She of course looked at me like a naive, entitled, lazy disappointment of a student. She reminded me that it isn’t completely realistic to be a housewife sans husband and children. I started crying.

I went home feeling sick to my stomach sure that she had misunderstood me. "I don’t feel like she was listening", I thought, "or maybe I was just stumbling over my words too much" or…Could it be that she understood me perfectly? I mean yes, she has her own beliefs and biases that she might attach to the facts of my life but she has that right. So does the Shu Shus girl. I don’t get to choose their reaction to who I am. But that is exactly what I attempt to do when I edit and talk around my point and try to be pleasing instead of authentic.

I am a double-meal ordering, aspiring housewife. That might be unhealthy, crazy or worse, but it is the truth. It is my own problem or pride and no one else's. So, I guess this is my apology to Shu Shus. 

Sorry for lying about your plasticware.

Adventually...

I will always remember my first Hannukah.

I was living overseas with Leelee and, at the time, with my friend Nat as well. Leelee and I are Christians and Nat is Jewish and so we decided that this was a great time to share faith with one another.

Each night Nat schooled us in Hannukah happenings:

We utilized our resources of old candy box and Oreos sent from home to play the dreidel game.

We lit our potato-constructed Menorah in the window sill each evening.

We ate deliciously oily Latkes in rememberance of the oil that God provided to the israelites in the Temple.

and,

We learned and prayed new Hebrew blessings, my favorite of which was the Ha-Motzi or Blessing for Bread.

When it was our turn to share, I did readings in celebration of Advent, a tradition that was actually as foreign to me as Hannukah but that God had compelled me to look into on this particular year.

Advent is a time of waiting...

and waiting....

and waiting....

We sing songs like O Come, O Come Emmanuel-- the minor chords reminding us how eerily, depressingly  long Israel awaited a savior.

And we relate.  Because we are waiters too.

When will I find love?
 How long 'til I get pregnant?
 What needs to happen for me to escape to this job, city, sin?

And some of us, myself included,  are the most obnoxious of kids in the back of God's Mini-van.

Are we THERE yet?!?!

Now, as anyone who has ever seen a good coming-of-age film knows, the answer is no! We are not there yet. The vast majority of our time on this planet is spent traveling with occasional arrivals-- and to be honest it is probably kind of annoying to God that we can't take a minute to look at all the beauty that surronds us as we get there. It is good to be eager, to live in expectation of what God is going to do, I don't mean to malign that practice one bit. I live by this practice. But it is also good to thank God for our daily bread--that which sustains us as we wait...

"Baruch Atah YHVH/Adonai,  ("Praised are You, Lord, our God,)
Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam -  (King of the Universe)
Ha-motzi lechem min ha-aretz." (Who brings forth bread from the Earth)

In Bethlehem lies the realization of all the world's hopes and fears, or so the song goes. May you live this advent season with more hope and less fear and with thankfulness for the Bread of Life.

Kerri K.

P.S. Want to try something pretty darn meaningful for advent? Check-out http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

How do you like them, Apples?

Single though I may be, I have always thought of myself as a mother—most likely because I have always been shaped like a woman entering her second trimester (cute, skinny arms and legs paired with an ample baby-storing mid-section). In the fashion-biz I am what they call an “apple”, and for all my single and not so single ladies out there, I know that you know the trials and tribs of dressing right for your body type.


I still remember when I first discovered the magic of empire-waist baby-doll dresses. I was in the 6th grade and happy as a clam. There have been other moments of apple-bodied victory throughout the years—tank-inis and your classic V-neck Tee, not the least of these little heaven-sent cloth kisses, but this summer I was taken aback by the new lean, mean closet dream that flew into town compliments of Target.

An apple has two wardrobe goals when she gets out of bed each morning:

1. Do everything in her power to showcase those gorgeous gams.

2. Try and limit the number of people who ask when the baby is due.

These goals seem incompatible at times, particularly when you are talking jeans. In the past, apples have oft been given an “all or nothing” scenario. You can show off the legs (and the belly comes along for the ride) or you can cover the tum, tum (with a pant that wholly swallows your entire lower half). I know it isn’t exactly a sophie’s choice situation but c’mon, it sucks.

So when I walked into Laura’s house last August, before heading to a meeting together, I was amazed at what I saw. Laura is always a striking woman—strong and statuesque with a good amount of come-hither thrown in. But, on this particular day I was drooling even more than usual. Her legs were astonishing, I could see every inch of them and yet, I wasn’t embarrassed for her or her four children.

Other people had the same reaction, thus frantic whispers traveled around the meeting.

“Check Laura Out!”
“What is she rocking?”
“Where can I get some?”

The answer would come to me later that evening. This crown jewel of the jean world had a name and the name was

Jeggings!

I know, it is unfortunate, a gross sounding name, truly meant for mockery and if they weren’t so invaluably awesome (forgiving where they need to be and tight where it counts) I would have to boycott them on that count alone. But ladies, they are that invaluably awesome!

And you will never guess who agrees with said awesomeness, I mean deep sigh of pleasure—bite down on his own finger kind of agreement! Find out who, right here (click on the second sneak peek on the page). Yes, yes, I have never been so proud to bear the Jegging name.

So, apples of the world unite, you gotta get your jeg on, and for what it’s worth my little pear friends, I happen to love the look on you A-shapes as well.  But if you disagree then please speak to your sisters!

 What is the must-have item for ladies with a petite uptown and a party downtown?

Other body types feel free to chime in too!

And if some male-type has actually made it to the bottom of this altogether girly conversation starter, do tell-- do you agree with our celebrity gentlemen about the allure of the jegging, or do you prefer a good mom-jean (nice high waist with a taper)?

 Would love to hear from you!

Kerri

R.I.P. My Dreams!

It probably goes without saying that I am in love with almost every semi-youthful, semi-not-disgusting male comedian on the planet, right? Obviously my first and true love is Conan. But guess what? He is married.

Jimmy Fallon? Married.

Stephen Colbert? Married.

Jon Stewart? Married.

Jesse Carey, (who is actually a writer for Relevant Magazine but funny enough to be a comedian)? Married!

And, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your worldview, I am not in the habit of going after married men, even in my imaginings.

But, there has always been one lovely hunk of funny who I could really depend on for my “I am going to become famous one day and then I will totally be in his league” fantasies. That man is Mr. Seth Meyer, head writer for television’s longest running and most well respected sketch comedy show, Saturday Night live. He is the anchor for Weekend Update and to date the funniest guest on late night television shows, in my less than humble opinion.

I also understand, from my faithful attending to each and every interview he has ever given, that his is a family of sports watchers, particularly football, which is a nice bonus to his already ample offerings of looks and comedy. And, because it is completely reasonable ,I always project onto all my celebricrushes a latent Christianity just ready to burst forth once they settle in with a nice down-to-earth, refreshingly “Jesus-ey” kind of girl such as myself. So that settles that issue, and all is well in dreamville.

Until...

I am youtube stalking him last night as a part of my things I am thankful for online musings, when what should my ears hear from his sweet wit-soaked lips, but the dreaded words of fake-crush death—

My girlfriend and I…..

What?!?! Seth Myers has a girlfriend? Well Seth, why hasn’t she come up in your dozens of late night interviews? Don’t you think that is a little misleading?

He continues,

Remember when I was here last year and I told you about her dad’s goat?

Last Year!?!? How did I miss this? Sure, last year was rough at this time what with Conan getting abused right in front of the whole country and all, but was I really so neglectful that I have now been imaginary cheat-dating at the expense of some poor stupid supermodel (one presumes) that is in love with Seth Myers? What’s a girl to do? Some have implied that I might have more luck in my actual dating life if I spent less energy on things of this nature, but that’s just silly. So who do you think, I should move onto next? Anybody know of any single, cute, comedians I should be obsessed with? Tell me your suggestions in the comment section!

And, be sure to check out some of the changes to my blog!

 I hope you like the new background for a new season. Also, you will notice that my posts are now organized for your reading pleasure according to the three areas of my tagline: Silliness, Singleness and Spirituality. I have also created my first of many semi-permanent blog pages entitled Single Cinema. And finally take a look at some of my favorite blogs which I finally figured out how to publicize (all of these changes are on the right hand of your screen).

What about you? Know anyone who might like August Angst? Anyone silly, single, or spiritual? Pass the word along! More readers means more feedback. More feedback means better writing. Better writing means better posts! I am Thankful for you, hope your holiday was sublime!

Kerri

Anthropomorphic Yolk ...

It has been previously publicized that my year of the man proved somewhat lacking. Even more so? My month of writing about my year of the man! However, the Lord (or perhaps just my own greed) has provided me something of a consolation prize for this time in my life and it is: Bum budda bum bum bum bum (cue your best Oprah impression)--My year of the fuuuuuuu-nnneeeeeeeee!!!!

That’s right, two jobs, bi-annual retreat planning, church life and family obligations notwithstanding, I somehow made it to see five comedians in the past five months. You will remember that this very blog sprang forth from my mind during Conan’s Legally Prohibited Tour back in May. A few months later my friend Liv got me Kathy Griffin tickets and I in return got her seats to Aziz Ansari in Houston. For my money, and please do not perceive this as comedic infidelity to my little Coco Bean, Aziz Ansari had the best show.

Conan is probably a better writer, but the variety show feel is not my preference. Let’s just keep it to the jokes sirs and madams. This is my problem with Kathy G. as well because her stories are so meandering and I am so uncertain as to whether she will ever return with the punchlines to the gabbled tale that she started half an hour ago, that I have mini panic attacks all throughout her set. Worth it? Yes!!!! But still anxiety provoking. Plus she swears an awful lot.

Aziz on the other hand, insistently dressed like an old-school haberdasher , and stood before us for an hour of pristinely delivered first-date, crazy-family, rap-culture japery that one hopes will be uploaded to the youtube sooner rather than later. Keep the funny coming , Aziz, and I think (because I cannot fit these in anywhere else) that you should name your next special Anthropomorphic Yolk.

Now for the astute mathlete out there, you realize that if my claims of 5 in 5 is literally true and not simply one of my many hyperbolic indulgences for writing’s sake , then I have yet to divulge the final pair of comedians that I have seen this fall. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert make up that twofer completing my jowl-aching hilarity tour. In true single-lady style, I bought tickets for myself and similarly care-free buddy Christina to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear(Someone’s learned her lesson about showing up to these things solo!).

 Christina is my friend who hates it when people misuse the phrase “begs the question” which, I think we can all agree, begs the question: what does it mean to beg the question? I knew Christina would be a good travel companion because even despite her touch of linguistic pretension (a quality we share), he girl is not above a bit of good-natured jiggery-pokery in an effort to get the best seat possible in a crowd of 250,000. We were not, as in my prefigurement, sitting on the laps of Jon and Stephen gently wiping the sweat droplets off of their moist foreheads betwixt their dueling comedic bits, however, Christina’s sojourning spirit did get us up to the second echelon of seats, a feat which would have had me on the verge of tears within minutes, were I to have braved this journey alone.

So, there we sat listening to songs like this:


And reading signs like these:


And hearing the truth like this:



And the truth is that there is a lot to be frustrated about in life, a lot of obstacles, a lot of jerks, a lot of dissension and honestly a lot of vocabulary words that are hard to fit into one anniversary article.

But there is also a lot to talk about and write about and laugh about together. Levity is good. Life is seriously funny, even more so now that Conan O’B is back on T.V. May all of you Anniversary readers have a year of the funny in your future!


***Special thanks to Amy Adams, Brad Pitt, Laura Prepon and Drew Barrymore for providing the 13 mystery words and phrases found in this article and for being active participants in my Real Life year of the funny!

Silver Post-iversary Contest

I’ve told you before about my high school boyfriend D.J. Qualls, right? Well we used to play a little game together which I will call Opinionitis! After many nights of four-hour talks on the phone, you can really learn a lot about a person, despite what disenchanted mom’s and dads might choose to believe! This is what Deej learned about me: there seemed to be nothing no matter how large or microscopic in the finite or metaphysical world, for which I did not have an opinion—and a strong one at that--


I ranted about things like:

• Why computer geniuses could not make a less offensive operating noise for people trying to explore the world wide web via AOL

• Drive through Windows

• The permissive sexual mores of our time

• People who eat chicken and call themselves vegetarians

• People who pretend to like Coffee

• The Nazi Regime,

and

• Blue Cheese

I raved about things like:

• The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who demonstrated his love for us in this: while we were still sinners  died for us, justifying us by his blood and saving us from God's wrath,  

and,
• Frito Pie

Qualls thought this was cute, but made it his mission to seek out something for which I had neutral thoughts and feelings. And so he would try and sneak a little something into each of our conversations:

“Hey what do you think about the new football field? Shaggy hair on guys?Karate?Hinduism?Three Pronged electric cords?”

He caught me without an opinion once or twice, but generally that is a most difficult thing to do.

I took a personality assessment that called this trait of mine, connected.  It said “nothing is without meaning to you, because you see how everything interconnects”. So there you have it folks, you can stop rolling your eyes and stretching out the word O-PIN-YUN-ated, when you describe me. I am connected, thank you very much, things are very meaningful for me.

One thing in particular that has been popping up on my meaning-meter lately is this blog. Next week will be my 25th post, which might not sound like much, but I had a lot of worries about this little baby of mine:

• Maybe it won’t be funny

• Maybe I am not a very good writer

• Maybe no one will ever look at it

• Maybe I will care if no ever looks at it

• Maybe I will be such a bad writer and care so much that no one is looking at it that I will give up and go back to no writing at all

But here we are 5 months later and I feel proud because it is mine, and because you guys have supported it with comments, compliments, advice, etc. So to say thank you and to celebrate my 25th blog post I want to include those of you who have taken the time to read my thoughts on some very meaningful and some very meaningless material. I want to do this by using your very own words, here’s how you can play along:

• Submit the Topic or Title of my 25th Post – You can see that I have thoughts on the most random and profound subject areas, so I should be able to write a funny and/or spiritually meaningful article about any subject that you give me! (Topic Ex: Elephants, candy corn) (Title Ex: Feeding Candycorn to Elephants)

• Submit mystery words- these words are not the main topic, they are just funny words that you would like to see me incorporate somehow into the body of the next article (ex: lemonhead, viscous, epiglottis, ect.

• Submit any blog ideas that you would like to see rolled out over the next 25 posts (ex: blog page ideas, taglines, contests, posts, etc.)

Readers whose topic, title, or mystery words I use will be given credit using your celebrity pseudonym, so if you don’t have one yet, this is a great chance to get one! Also, Post 25 will not go up on time, I hope to have it up by Thursday, but if not it will be the next Tuesday.

Thanks for Playing!

Calling all Big Books

Well, as promised, I went to see the Social Network, took a week off from writing, read this great article, and spoke with many of you about the nature of my blog-sin. Honestly, I feel almost all atoned up and I am cautiously but honestly moving forward with this little self-hired writing gig. But, before delving straight into some snarky, self satisfied commentary, I want to transition by opening up the “big book” conversation. And in this particular instance I am not referring to the Bible.


Instead, I am talking about a concept that my friend Kate Hudson brought to my attention a few years ago. She asked me once, if I, unlike a couple of other friends, thought she was a “big book”, meaning someone whose life and personality has many chapters, stories, mysteries and yes ,even contradictions. It is this amount of depth after all , which might make each one of us all the more frustrating or enticing to become acquainted with and Kate who is quite like me wanted affirmation that she was layered enough to be hated and adored. I would and did argue that each of us like Whitman himself, are “large, containing multitudes”. That means, Kate Hudson is a big book and you are a big book and so am I.

This feels salient to me at the moment because I know that sometimes I concretize things in my writing that are actually quite fluid. I write from an exaggeration of my point of view which means these little life vignettes that I share seem BLACK and WHITE as I type and post them. I like writing in black and white because I amuse myself an embarrassing amount with my own rigid versions of stories. But, I do believe in the gray in between. My entire life, in many ways, is the gray in between. So this morning I want to leave you with a few chapters from my big book and I would love for you to do the same in the comments section .

Chapter 1: Luddite Blogwriter

Chapter 2: Objective Hyperbolist

Chapter 3: Extreme Moderate

Chapter 4: Extroverted Homebody

Chapter 5: Lost and Found

Ok, Tag your it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!