Whip It Good. Whip It Real Good. Real, Real, Real Good.

First of all, is it whip cream or whipped cream?

Secondly, I’m getting increasingly concerned about New Roommate’s (I have to come up with some kind of nom de web) whip/ped cream use. As of Monday, there were two cans of soy whip cream in the fridge. This is a departure from her usual non-fat no-sugar whip cream. (For the record, Redi-Whip Original Whip Cream has 15 calories and 1.5 grams of fat per serving, which is about two tablespoons.)

I’ve also been wondering how, exactly, whipped cream can be fat free, since whipped cream is made when air bubbles become trapped between fat particles. It actually makes me queasy when I think about this too much. It’s like a rip in the time-space continuum or something.

As of yesterday, there is now one can left. That makes at least five cans of whip cream in the last month. I have my food vices like everyone else, and last night’s dinner was Haagen-Daz and a beer. But you have to admit that’s a lot of whip cream.

I can only speculate that she either:

a) has a whippit addiction
b) has a whip cream kink (PSA: In my former life as a college sex columnist, I advised my Dear Readers to avoid whip cream festivities. It’s impossible to get that spoiled milk stank out of the sheets.)
c) has an eating disorder and eats whip cream instead of real food
0r d) just really, really likes whip cream

But in any case, I can’t imagine soy whip cream tasting anything but gross.

Potty Humor

Today is my birthday (hello, early mid-twenties!).

Today I also found pot in the office bathroom.

Somehow, I doubt these two events are related. The Birthday Fairy would have left me a full ounce, not a scrap of a bud that wouldn’t get a mouse high.

Of course, this leads to the conclusion that someone was rolling a joint in the office bathroom. This is disturbing on many levels. Fecal-mist in your blunt, anyone?

Paging Mrs. Dalloway

There are several reasons why I live in a third-floor walk-up in Queens. Well, the main reasons are the cheap rent and a decent location. But a major selling point of city apartment living is the complete and utter lack of lawn and yard maintenance.

I am not what you would call a gardener. To put it bluntly, I am like the Typhoid Mary of Plants. Fourth-grade seed project? They died. A cactus? It died.

Currently, the decaying remnants of two orchids out on my balcony bear testimony to my complete inability to nurture a plant. (Fortunately, they are also a great reminder to take my birth control.)

This is why I am a fan of cut flowers. Someone, possibly Dali, once said that his favorite animal was steak tartare. I feel similarly about flowers. I like them already dead. That way I won’t be held responsible for their premature demise.

In college, I used to go on Sundays to the farmer’s market in the village to buy flowers. I felt like Mrs. Dalloway, without the stream-of-conscious narrative or feminist manifesto. (Ok, fine, sometimes I’d be all, “She crossed the street, wondering if she’d really failed her last statistics exam–” But not too often.) Anyway, it was this nice little ritual of doing something for myself, a small luxury that wasn’t chocolate, beer, or promiscuity.

Anyway, the other day I was in the supermarket, trying to decide what to get for dinner that would not be a) labor-intensive and b) anything but a TV frozen dinner. I actually do like to cook, but cooking for one is often a time-suck. Plus you end up with a weeks’ worth of say, French Onion soup that you never actually get around to eating.

I was tired. And cranky. Very, very cranky. PMS may have been involved. Then I saw the flower display. I thought something to the effect of, “Hey! I haven’t bought myself flowers in years! I should do this! I can cheer myself up! I’m don’t need anyone buying me flowers! I can express self-love and contentment! I am nurturing my inner child!”

So I bought myself some lovely yellow gerbenas. I like gerbenas. I think they were sorta trendy (if a flower can be trendy) five or so years ago, because I kept seeing them in magazines and on stationary. But hey, they look happy. They make me happy. (If there are any Boys Out There Who Want To Buy Me Flowers, take note. I also like lilacs and hydrangeas.)

I took them home, stuck them in my little flower vase doohickey. Ten minutes later, they looked like this:

Clearly, gravity wants to thwart my puny efforts towards psychological well-being.

I’m trying not to read too much into it.

I ended up cutting the stems back a bit. They now look like this:

Purty.

But I still think gravity is out to get me.

Capers

My dad has a couple self-assigned chores around the house. Cable routing, electrical rewiring…all tasks befitting an electrical engineer.

He does, however, really like to clean out the refrigerator. It’s a very ritualized process, and oddly enough, gives him a certain OCD-satisfaction. Restoring order and cleanliness to a fridge gone mad with decaying produce, gone-over milk and leftovers of unidentifiable origins.

Since I moved in almost a year ago, I’ve flashed back to my dad cleaning the fridge every time I opened our fridge. Ok, sometimes I think “Where the hell is the rest of my beer?” or “Hm. Oreos for dinner again.” More often than not though, it’s “Jesus Christ, it’s a petri dish in there. And there appears to be basic lifeforms crawling out of the condensation that’s collected in the bottom of the fridge.” And then I shut the door.

Tonight, however, it was positively shitting out. Meteorologists insist on calling these weather conditions “snow mixed with freezing rain.” I call it “Shit that makes me look up job listings in San Diego.”

Puxatawny Phil is such a little bitch.

So yes, what does a young single woman do on a Friday night in NYC? Clean her fridge, of course. See?

Well, hm, that seems to be sideways. But you get the general gist. You will also note that we have a lot of condiments. I have a theory that condiments breed when you’re not looking. How else can you explain two bottles of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter?

The funny thing about living with roommates is that you’re always surrounded by their stuff. Or stuff that doesn’t belong to you, and quite possibly doesn’t belong to anyone in the apartment. It’s just sort of rooted there, like the toadstools that spring up around rotting tree trunks. Take, for example, this bottle of capers:

These have been in the back of the fridge since I moved in last May. I’ve never seen anyone eat them. And that is a huge amount of capers. Possibly a lifetime supply of capers. Several lifetimes. Who needs that many capers? Who buys that many capers at once — and leaves an almost full jar behind? Why are they still here?

This is actually something I ponder on a regular basis. It’s quite possible I lack a meaningful inner life.

I’m also starting to wonder why the new roommate buys sugar-free/fat-free everything. And why she’s gone through two cans of fat-free whip cream in one week. (Given the phentremine and Trim-Spa in the bathroom cabinet, diabetes doesn’t seem likely as, well, EATING DISORDER.)

The capers really do have to go, however. They’re starting to look like miniature preserved gallbladders. Almost as unappetizing as my other roommate’s bologna. I mean, really. Who eats bologna?