Pig lips and my fifteen minutes of fame
While on vacation in Los Angeles last week, the moment it hit me that I was very far from home was surprisingly not when I stepped out of the car and felt the one hundred degree wave of heat hit me, or when I saw a fake tan on a twelve year old, or when I had to pay five dollars and some odd cents for a tank of gas. No, the moment I realized I was really in L.A. was when I was sitting down, eating a hot dog. Or, actually, when I was sitting down waiting to eat a hot dog.
I heard about Pink’s during my last trip down to Southern California about a year ago. The guy I was staying with at the time talked of wondrous things like juicy polish sausages, drippy, melty cheese, tortilla-wrapped triple dogs, perfectly sweet and crispy onion rings, and general artery-clogging amazery. I've been dying to eat there ever since, especially since I got the feeling that they must sprinkle magic fairy crack dust on top of their chili, so I made it a special birthday request that my friends and I take a break from our thirteen hour theme park days (no joke) and grab a bite.
Unfortunately, apparently everyone else in L.A. knows about this little hole in the wall stand as well, because when we got there the line of people waiting to order their customized heart attacks wrapped well around the building. Half of us (including me) decided to hold up a table in the outside seating area while the other half kept our place in line, and after an hour or so of waiting in the scorching sun my friends and I noticed a large Taxi pulling into the parking lot, mostly because it had an entire camera crew just behind it. Suddenly there were Pink’s employees everywhere, swarming around the table nearest us like angry worker bees or a group of Tasmanian Devils on speed, only to leave just as fast as they had come, but the dirty plastic furniture was now gleaming white, smelling of citrus and topped with a tiny Reserved sign and a bottle of Pink’s water with a rose sticking out of it.
I didn’t recognize the family (a mom, dad and two children) that ended up sitting there, but even if I had I don’t think anyone could cause me to be so star-struck that I would have ignore the high-pitched squealing about how amazing the hot dogs were, or the horrifying cackles that came from the children when their father tried to stuff his entire hot dog in his mouth, or the contrived “MMM’S” and tummy rubbing, or most importantly the phone call from their friend which was (of course) entirely on speaker phone because the mother of the family said “OH MY GO-O-O-D, WISH YOU WERE HERE BECAUSE IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH THE TWO HOUR WAIT!” before she wiped a pile of meat off her face. Because did they really wait two hours? No, they didn’t. I think they waited a total of fifteen minutes while my ass was slowly melting and becoming one with a plastic chair, while my friends were on their second hour of waiting in line and probably developing heat rash, all for some hot dogs.
After the whole ordeal with the seemingly famous family was over (just as the second half of our group was finally ordering) one of the cameramen came up to our table and said something to the effect of, Hey, sign these disclosure forms because we’re filming a reality show and you were in the frame the majority of the time.
I didn’t read the form but I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to actually say what the program is called is or what channel it will be on, but I will tell you that if you see me in the background of a show premiering some time in the fall, that yes I am definitely mouthing obscenities on purpose, and that dark liquid in my cup that looks really innocent and soda-like? It’s rum.
Thinking
Seriously Orbit, why Mojito? I can think of so many other delicious alcoholic beverages that would better suit gum flavor. Like Stoli pink lemonade! Or Sidecar! Or Sex on the Beach! Or vodka tonic. Mmm... vodka.
Giving Winehouse a run for her money
I’ve wanted to write a meaningful post for the last few days, I really have. But you know that life thing? Well, it gets in the way sometimes. The last couple of weeks have been really hectic because I’ve been busy doing the following:
1. Settling into my last semester as a college student. I browsed the campus bookstore for things I feel obligated to buy before my college life is over (a college sweatshirt, a laptop with my student discount, a college mug) but still, I have yet to feel the pang I’m sure will come long after I’ve walked the stage in my graduation robes. And I don’t mean “pang” as in the good-job-you-did-it kind, I mean “pang” as in, Hey Chelsi! This is me, Life. Now that you’ve graduated college I’m here to welcome you to the real world by punching you in the face!
2. Working on the finishing touches for my Internship’s newest gallery exhibit, which opened yesterday and was a huge success. This involved traveling to all corners of the Bay Area with our Program Director, including places like Ikea (which he had never been to), Target, various houses to pick up art, weird printing presses and post office on top of post office. Also, my eyes are tired from creating outlines in Illustrator for dozens of icons that needed to be resized for a zine, and after having spent several hours cutting six inch pieces of thread from a gigantic spool because the artist wanted to use them to represent clusters of ten people in a community of like, eight hundred thousand, I kind of wanted to die. I know that that’s boring talk and what you’re really wondering is how my Program Director had never been to Ikea, but what I’M wondering is how our trip to Target was only his SECOND time there.
3. Trying to make enough money to pay for bills, tuition, and the three fillings I need for the cavities that are causing my molars to rot out of my head. Whoever decided that getting your teeth fixed should cost so much money is a stupid, stupid person, and I’d like to relay the punch in the face that I’m anticipating from life over to them. The same goes for whoever decided we should have only seven days in a week. I need more like ten. That way instead of using the precious few minutes a day I have to lounge around on things like looking for a better paying job, I could work on my spiral into alcoholism, which brings me to:
4. Partying like a rock star, but not in the glamorous sense. Yes I know the promoters, owners, bartenders and DJs at my club of choice (meaning that basically everything is free) but the fact that I didn’t come home for four days because I was spending as much time on that side of the Bay Bridge as possible in order to go to said club and hang out with friends without feeling the rising costs of gasoline, and DIDN’T BRUSH MY TEETH OR SHOWER for three of those four days, heavily outweighs the free-shit benefit of Celebrity and highlights the disgusting crack-head part.
And while I could seriously write pages and pages about any of these four areas of activity, all I can really think about right now is how one of the chicks in my Thursday night writing workshop is perfectly nice and sweet and well groomed except for the three blonde inch-and-a-half long hairs that I spotted growing from the left side of her chin today. Why would a lovely brunette woman allow such an abomination on her face? Better yet, how does a brunette woman even manage to grow blonde hairs at all? She’s a little obsessed with Japanese culture and at first I considered the possibility that she might be experimenting with some sort of Japanese-man-gene-adopting project, but then I remembered that long hairs growing from moles in the face is more of a Chinese thing, so now I don’t know what to think, and I know nothing except for the fact that looking at her makes me insanely uncomfortable and I’ve never felt so compelled to take a razor to someone else’s face before.
One year ago today
This is a photo of me and my friend Arwen (yes, like the Arwen for that one trilogy that isn't at all popular whatsoever) from our trip to Sin City last January. In Vegas we shook our jelly like madwomen and thanked the lord that it's legal to drink on the streets because it was motherfucking snowing. Recently there has been talk of going back because:
1. My twenty fourth birthday is approaching
2. I'm in desperate need of a vacation
3. I have no problem with supporting my growing dependency on alcoholic beverages
4. Seeing perfect sets of tits is cool
5. You can drink on the street
6. You can drink on the street
7. You can drink on the street
8
Life asks: Chelsi, you luckless bitch! What do you do when NONE of the internships you emailed applications to reply and, on top of that, you've been coughing up your lungs for over a week from some deathly plague you can't get checked out because you don't have any health insurance?
Chelsi answers: Thank God I work at a bar and proceed to drink on the job.