"I cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food."*

   No man will ever want to marry me.

   There are, perhaps, many reasons for this, but the most important is my general ineptitude at all things house-keeping or craft related.

   Take for instance “The Curious Case of the Holes in All the T-Shirts.” I have a plethora of cotton t-shirts. Nearly every one has a mysterious hole in the same exact spot: lower, middle front.

   They all look something like this:

   What’s this about? How does it happen? Are my jeans attacking my shirts? Is it my seatbelt? Do I have a sharp bellybutton? I don’t understand, but it’s been going on for a good 4 years now, so I can’t blame it on any specific item of clothing. I’m truly stumped. And I’m really fucking annoyed.

   I was feeling crafty the other night and decided to re-hem one of my favorite t-shirts in order to cover up the telltale holes on the front. It’s a sweet t-shirt that my Aunt Kris brought back from Korea after she and her family spent two years on the Army base in Seoul. It’s not exactly replaceable, if you get my drift. And it’s super cool because it has dolphins and Korean letters on it that probably spell out something really neat. (I actually think it was a t-shirt from the school my cousins attended there and it was supposed to be for Penelope, but I stole it before I moved to LA. Sorry, P. But once you’ve seen how I “fixed” it, you won’t want it back.)

   Here are a couple of photos of the finished product.

   Good lord, it looks like the dolphins themselves hemmed this shirt. And they were blind dolphins. On strong doses of PCP.

   I have plans to get this problem resolved. This shirt is too special to look this bad. But I’m ashamed. Ashamed that I mention sewing so much and act like I know how to do it. I don’t. And I should never be allowed to touch a real garment again for the rest of my life. I’ll just keep trying out stitches on pieces of cardstock like I did before. Sigh out loud.

   Segue to today when I attempted to make gluten-free peanut butter cookies. The recipe is very simple: take some peanut butter and add sugar, an egg, some vanilla and baking soda and bake it.

   But I am much too clever to follow a recipe. I decided to make mine with chocolate almond butter and since it was already really sweet, I decided to leave out the sugar. Here is what I ended up with:

I thought it might be good anyway, once I let it cool. 

But here's what happened when I tried to cut it. Cookie scale soup, anyone?

   Never make up baking recipes as you go. Or “eyeball” your measurements. Okay, maybe it’s fine if you’re good at culinary stuff and know what you’re doing, but don’t start getting a big ego just because you once made a yellow cake out of box. This doesn’t mean you’re a baker. It just means you can read. I went back and did it right the second time and they turned out pretty good. (I think. I mean they look like cookies. And what's that famous saying, "Get it right the second time"?) Lesson learned. (Dang, I’m just learning lessons all over the place this year!)

Totally passable. Fingers crossed.

   I am comforted by the fact that men still sometimes marry women who can’t do anything useful in the home. Thank goodness it’s 2013 and not 1953. But what can I possibly bring to the table besides my incredible body and delightful personality? It seems unfair to enter into a marriage with only the abilities to sleep for twelve hours at a time and recite lines from movies. On the other hand, no one is actively trying to marry me right now, so I guess I shouldn’t worry about it. And I suppose I can always keep hoping for a rich dude with lots of servants that know how to cook and sew. And I’m not entirely sure I want to get married anytime soon anyway, so I can probably relax about the whole thing. Phew. Yet another crisis diverted. Like my buddy Rebecca always says, "Life is a game of Whack-a-Mole." True, so true.

   I will, however, say a few prayers for my friends. They’re the ones that are going to have to try to eat these cookies tomorrow.

*A quote from W.C. Fields. I swear to god, I made those cookies sober. Maybe I shouldn't brag about it, though.

"Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity."*

    I’m feeling pretty smug today because I pumped some serious iron last night while watching Around the World in 80 Days (we’re talking at least 12 reps of various curls and extensions with 8-lb-dumbbells. Also...Around the World is a 3 hour movie, and I made it through the first 6th). And I got to bed at a grown-up person’s hour (11:30), so I was raring to go at 8 a.m. But, as so often happens at 8 a.m., I find that I don’t have anywhere to go, and I wonder if I should go back to bed. Especially since my arms and legs were sort of weak and hurt-y from all the iron pumping.

    But I didn’t go back to bed. I worked out (again!) and ran some errands and talked to my parents on the phone.

    Here’s the thing: my mom’s coming in town in under a week and I have to get my apartment to look like it’s a) very clean, b) not trashy and c) like a responsible adult lives in it.

    To that end, I have cleaned the dickens out of my bathroom (“dickens?” what am I, 90-years-old?), attempted to get all moldy and expired foods removed from my fridge, dusted my furniture and hidden all my dirty books. Just kidding. I didn’t dust.

    But I will!

    No, seriously, it’s not really about my mom, though I do want her and her buddy Laura to be comfortable while they stay at my apartment. It’s more that I’m becoming increasingly ashamed of my digs. And THAT has less to do with my digs not being good enough or classy enough (many wonderful human beings throughout history have lived in shittier places), but more to do with my inability to keep up with the day-to-day minutiae that is housekeeping.

    See, housekeeping is really boring.

    I love reading recipes and eating good food and I love looking at before and after pictures of remodeled homes and apartments. What I hate is actually getting up off my ass to clean the floor or the dishes or the fridge. I hate making myself dinner. It’s really awful and tedious and I think my mind functions on a plane much too high for such drudgery. Also, if I make dinner and it’s really delicious but no one’s there to tell me so, was it truly delicious? I’m just way too deep for housekeeping.

    Although, I'm not too deep (or busy, it would seem) for some kitchen-related photography. Check out some evidence of how I spend my spare time...

The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995)

The Usual Suspects in my kitchen. (Lacey, 2012)

   But Mom is coming in town, so I had to stop wasting time and do some basic chores that I’ve been putting off for a while. That’s partly why I did all that laundry the other day. And then I cleaned the toilet. And I found a Tupperware in my fridge so full of mold, I chose to throw it away rather than barf while trying to clean it (sorry, god of recycling!).  And I fully intend to sweep the floors and water the plants. I may even vacuum the couches.

    See, if Mom sees me living like a derelict, she’s going to feel sorry for me and start “tending” to things around my apartment. This will be a two-fold disaster: I will resent her because she thinks I’m living like a hobo, even though I am, and insists on bettering my lifestyle. And I will feel sad that she’s spending her hard-earned money on rectifying my poor life choices. It’s a lose-lose situation, especially for me. Because I’m kind of a loser.

    My mother is very generous and very fun, so this trip will be delightful provided I make this place look like part of the Kennedy summer compound. Which will be hard because I don’t have a patio. Or stables. Or tennis courts. Or ascots. Or polo ponies. Or an ocean or toothy rich people nearby. But I do have a pool, which I will try to distract her with while closing the blinds to my neighbor’s makeshift, backyard “gym.” (Maybe I should see if he wants to spot me the next time I lift weights?)

    Wish me luck!

*Quote is from Erma Bombeck. And this was a woman who actually was a home-maker AND a humor columnist. But not like Martha Stewart. That bitch thinks we all have maids, butlers, yachts and basil plants growing out our butts.