The Comfy Corner

Even Boston's parking meters fail.

This alien script that we are often forced to decipher is ridiculous. If you're going to make me verify that I am a human, at least give me some words that I can read. This happens far too often and always puts a little damper on my day. It makes me doubt my humanness or the quality of the status I just created.

p.s. the attempt I made to decipher this particular alien script failed. I suppose the word wasn't "sinhn." I must not be human.

Today, I went to the beach. Now, living in Boston does not provide anyone with a plethora of beautiful beaches to visit, so after extensive Googling. My new roommate, Grace, and I decided to go to Revere Beach, which won the "prize for best-known urban beach." It was quite the experience.

I was able to relax on my blanket, breathe in the salty, somewhat polluted air, dig my toes into the harsh sand carefully avoiding plastic bottles and shards of glass, listen to the dulcet tones of hip hop music and passenger planes going by, and most importantly, watch people going up and down the "hottie walk." The "hottie walk" is the path that goes along the beach where overweight girls in small bikinis strut their muffin tops. Apparently, "going to the beach" simply means walking up and down this path a couple times. No one really swims or goes on the sand. For those of you that are not familiar with Boston's most famous beach, it is akin to New York's Coney Island, minus the carnival rides and the hot dogs (all the same hotties, though).

My roommate (a frequent visitor of Revere Beach) informed me that today was atypical. Usually the "hottie walk" is crowded with seventeen-year-olds and their babies. I was only lucky enough to witness a couple hotties. We theorized that perhaps there is a "hottie bus" that transports all the hotties to and from the beach and it hadn't come today. Who knows? The only thing that is certain is that I will be returning to Revere Beach on a hot summer day with a cooler of beer, a chair and a camera. Keep in touch for the photos of the hotties.

Hello Comfy Cornerers! After several turns of the cauldron, we have come up with our own story to relate.

Once upon a time, there was an evil witch (*sharp intake of breath*) who was hiding in a scary castle far, far away. "Meerh! I'm a witch and I'm scary," said the scary witch. "No one wants to come visit me because I'm ugly and have a green nose. Meerh!" Little did she know, a prince was gallavanting heroically by. "Meerh!" said the prince, "I'm beautiful and everyone wants to be with me. Let's explore that castle with the ugly, crying witch in the window."

He entered the portal. Candles lit the walls. Glimmering. Hallways extended in every direction. In the distance, he heard sweet music playing, and proceeded towards it, tantalized by the dulcet tones of the violin and cello. He came upon a golden door adorned with diamonds and rubies. The door magically swept open to reveal a beautiful princess. Beguiled by her buxom, bountiful, bosom, he ambled towards her. At the touch of their lips, she transformed back into her hideous, witch-like self. The prince was horrified and bolted from the castle. Little did he realize that he, too, had become hideous. :< Only when he reached the neighboring village and stopped to chat with some of the locals was he made aware of his deformed, repulsive visage. He glanced in a storefront window, and the window shuddered. He gallavanted back toward the castle, enraged. "What have you done to me?!" he screamed at the witch. The witch smiled slyly and whispered, "I don't know what you mean." He gazed at his reflection in the mirror and was astonished to discover that his charming looks had returned. "Whenever you leave the confines of this castle, your good looks will vanish. Meerh!"

Thus, the prince was forced to live out his days, prisoner to the witch's spell.

I suppose it's time to fess up and admit that I was incredibly high when I decided starting a blog would be an excellent idea, hence the name comfy corner - because when I'm high I love soft things and comfortable corners. I suppose our best ideas come when our minds are set free by the powers of recreational anesthesia. Unfortunately, the name comfycorner.blogspot.com was ALREADY TAKEN! Witness the screenshot above or take a visit for yourself. You will quickly notice that the blog is anything but comfortable - the bright pinks are harsh on the eyes and the layout choice has much to be desired. You will then notice that no posts have been made by "Madeline." I viewed her complete profile and I quickly noted that I was the first one to ever view it. BAH! She's not even popular! She probably has like 57 friends on Facebook (the days of number-of-friends competitions have long passed haven't they? We've come a long way, yes we have) No doubt some 11 year old girl out there who doesn't even know how to make a blog decided it would be fun to just mess around and see what it was like, not knowing that someone with an actual, creative idea would come by 5 years later wanting to use the same domain name. Madeline, I hope you are reading this, I want you to go to Olive Garden and eat bread sticks until you explode.

So, there I was, high as a kite with a brilliant idea but no domain name. Other combinations such as comfycorner2010 or comfycornerbychang simply wouldn't do. I would have to come up with something even more creative. So I went to Facebook - my go to for inspiration. And I was casually checking my profile to see how I was doing and I realized (with horror) that no one had liked one of my clever statuses. So I sat eagerly by the computer and said "Like my status!" which is when I suddenly realized that Facebook allows you to like your own status. I had never noticed this before. So like Snidely Whiplash, I grinned, looked around with mischievous eyes, and I clicked the "like" button. I liked my own status, I usually do. Then, it dawned on me that I had found my domain name. And that, children, is how likemystatus.blogspot.com came to be.

The only thing I hate more than Olive Garden is the commercials for Olive Garden (and the whole Khloe Kardashian and Lamar wedding, but that's for a different blog). This rant is probably a bit dated because the whole "When you're here you're family" campaign has been going on for quite some time now, but this has been bugging me for a long time and they are still coming out with newer, more infuriating commercials. They all consist of some super fake "family" all laughing at the table with the waiter saying something really vomit-y like "The usual again today, Tom?" and then some family member, wiping off the tears from the laughter, being like "Oh Tom, try something new already." Then he tries the poop ravioli with fake sauce and suddenly "I think I have a new usual!" followed by unwarranted group laughter.

Dear Olive Garden, I propose a new approach to your "When you're here you're family" campaign. A more realistic approach. A family of four is sitting at a small booth quietly eating their dinner. The sister says something like "Would you hate me if I said I was pregnant?" The mother drops her fork, the dad changes the subject by saying "Where is our damn waiter? We asked for more breadsticks like 30 minutes ago." And then the mother starts crying and the son says something like "These breadsticks rock, but they make me so gassy." He farts. No one laughs. Fade to black "Olive Garden. When you're here you're family." I would eat at a restaurant like that.

In real life, escaping an awkward conversation is relatively easy. For our purposes let's say you are talking to awkward Jackie. Everyone knows an awkward Jackie. You can simply make an excuse that you are in a hurry to get somewhere important and Jackie always understands. Even online it is easy -- "Sorry Jackie, gotta go cook dinner!" -- "Alrighty Jackie, better finish this paper! We should totes hang out, though. I missssss you!" There are, of course, people who insist on following you around refusing to let the conversation go. This is conversation parasite Jackie, feeding off of your kindness and willingness to give her the time of day to listen to her crazzzzzy story about the Starbucks guy.

Parties, however, are a different story. It is quite easy to get trapped into an uninteresting conversation at a party and it is much harder to escape it. What could you possibly say? "Oh I'm sorry Jackie, I have to go chat with this other group of people that seems to be having a better time than us." It seems like at parties the group across the room is always having a better, crazier time than you. If you do somehow manage to escape awkward Jackie by saying something like "Oh, I have to run use the bathroom" Jackie is clearly going to see that you just wanted to get away because you don't come back! Or you are caught on the other side of the room chatting with the crazy partiers, taking crazy pictures (without Jackie). You are trapped in this situation where you couldn't possibly have something "important" to do ("Oh I have this important beer pong meeting that I can't miss.") because you are at a party. The only solution to this problem is to get really drunk so you can be like "Wow, when I get drunk I get really A.D.D."

Just food for thought as you lounge in your comfy corners.