The Public School Cafeteria Gourmand

Eating at school was rare. I mean, I ate, but I ate lunches that my mom packed for me. These lunches were packed for some years in various tin lunch pails (My Little Pony being a personal favorite) and when I got "too cool" for it, paper bags. I'm pretty sure I was still lame enough to be using the MLP one at this point. The lunchtime staples were fairly predictable and never failed to please. I'd have a ham sandwich on Orowheat whole wheat bread cut on the diagonal, a Capri Sun or Welch's Grape Juice (I preferred white for it's unique and underrated complex flavor, however the standard purple variety would suffice) and one sweet treat...usually blue flavored Gushers or a strawberry Foot Long Fruit Roll Up, which, at the time, seemed like an extraordinary length for a snack but now rather tidy and modest.
I had a Hello Kitty wallet. It was pink with pink snaps closing the change pouches - one diligently labeled "cookies" and the other, "phone." I was quite organized as a child and I am pretty sure I adhered to my strict monetary guidelines.
My elementary school cafeteria provided a different menu from the one at my old private school. There we dignified the dining experience with an altogether foreign title. We had "Hot Lunch" at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran School. God was saving us from something, something wicked. My public school cooked up sloppy joes, strange odors, and the most delicious chocolate chip cookies served wrapped in a greasy square of waxed paper. They were never cooked all the way through. In fact, these cookies were frighteningly undercooked and likely a red flag salmonella hazard. They were so tasty they merited that reserved pouch in my wallet filled with my parent's money.
Their pizza was another story. I generally stayed away from the cafeteria which the exception of my aforementioned dirty little cookie secret. I was always under the impression that cafeteria food was for impoverished youths with negligent parents. It is quite possible this idea was on loan from my mother. The vegetables were never the right shade of green, the milk cartons never gave me the impression they were being stored at the right temperature, the meat never smelled like meat.
But one day, for whatever reason, I was drawn to the pizza covered in dried out government cheese that sat on a sickly white crust like chapped lips. It was foul, terribly foul stuff. Whatever they half-cooked these pizzas on, it had a perforated bottom to it and the underbelly of each slice displayed the pimpled evidence - Braille for your tongue, silently screaming "Don't fucking do it!" But I was young and I didn't hear the call.
Later that day I was sitting across from my mom and brother at my favorite dining establishment, Chili's, when my stomach clenched and twisted in such a violent manner that I couldn't even begin to eat my Kiddie Grilled Cheese. The rest of the evening went as follows: Mom takes me home, I get in parents' bed, I writhe around in pain, I begin to perspire, I writhe around in pain some more, little invisible daggers poke at my innards, my parents insist they take me to the hospital, I refuse, I writhe, parents insist, writhe, daggers, refuse, daggers, daggers, daggers. I give in.
Dad drives me to the West Hills Hospital in our tan Toyota Land Cruiser. He hoists me up, my head bobbing up and down watching our journey from the parking lot to the Emergency Room lobby. The sliding doors open. The sliding doors close. Fluorescent light assaults my eyeballs. And finally, all of a sudden, before we even make it to the receptionist desk...I throw up all over the back of my dad's gray wool coat. I am flooded with shame, relief, and the vow never to eat at school again.

An Unapologetic Apology

I can't help but notice that many of my posts revolve around modeling. Many of my thoughts, gripes, obsessions, ticks, bullshit concerns, mental breakdowns, soul crushing compromises, so on and so forth...surround this industry and making money in it. And so...I apologize if any of you find this grossly offensive or boring because, fuck, it's probably both. However, if you delight in grossly offensive or boring I am quite pleased. Because until one of you assholes gets me another occupation you're just going to have to deal with these.

My New Guilty Pleasure: The Economic Recession

Now, millions of Americans losing their jobs is no laughing matter but I'm deciding to look on the sunny side of this egg. I suppose that I am able to maintain this lighter attitude because I am relatively employed and I have nice legs. I do feel that this is a great time to assess the nature of well, our nature, and adjust accordingly.

My Top Eight Reasons this Recession Kicks Ass
1. Decreased production and consumption of Hannah Montana dolls, tee shirts, pencil sharpeners and backpacks. As much as I enjoy a good pop idol, the amount of crap that is produced in the name "entertainers" for little kids is frightening. I long for the bygone days of inherited wooden toys and hair dolls. I wonder what the Amish are playing with these days...

2. Increased awareness and (hopefully) usage of locally grown produce and other foodstuff. Whole Foods did a lot making the organic movement commercially and profitably viable, but my fruit doesn't need to travel 300 miles by air conditioned truck for me to chomp it down in a minute. A banana told me so.

3. Dinners at home. Thank god I moved into a house with a good kitchen before the stock market tanked. My previous culinary abilities were self-limited to spreading hummus on pre-cooked chicken. With my new found 15 by 15 foot linoleum laden kitchen I am a roasting, baking, domesticated and recession proof machine.

4. Decreased use of fuel and increased use of public transportation. Okay, so I'm not using the bus but I hear that some people are. I can't really joke about my negligence so I'll end this one here.

5. Vacancies on Melrose Avenue. There are a proliferation of "For Lease" signs glued in the windows of commercial properties throughout Los Angeles, but the ones I cannot lament about are the ones nearest my home. Most of which were previously occupied by Ed Hardy knock off outfits, stripper dresses, and other items of exceptional bad taste. I imagine a town in China is suffering without having such things to bedazzle.

6. My most creative Christmas. I'm not going to divulge where I got about half of my presents but I will tell you that I spent a total $8 on 6 people in a specific case. All of the items were "green" in terms of reuse.

7. Learning how to pirate entertainment, no patch required.

8. My hopes for fat American children. The next time you're at Disneyland, take a seat and people watch for a moment. It is likely the number of people, children included, that could squeeze into a size ten can be counted on the hand you're not holding your 40 ounce soda in. Kid's aren't exercising. And no, wii bowling does not count. I pray that parents with tightening purse strings kick their chubby little children back into the baseball fields or into a library.

New Year, Same Ridiculous Shit

For the last two hours, my life has been dedicated to the sole purpose of being a face in some juice commercial. Per the usual, I would like to think that these things extend beyond the superficial; that somehow, someway, someone sees something special in my heart and that is why I book jobs. I try to make myself an endless beam of positive light and magnetic smiles. I stare around the room and wonder if the thirty other girls at this callback are thinking the same thing. Who then wins the positive energy contest? Could the combined efforts of the all of this positive energy then become negative? My mind wanders into an oblivion of useless tangents about religion and everyone and their prayers to different, mutually exclusive gods/ dieties/ relics.
Back to my pink ballroom full of hopefuls. I'm wearing the same black jumper I wore in the original casting in which I awkwardly laughed and hugged and played around with "my new best friend" who was 9 inches shorter than me and with big hair that kept getting in the way of the lower portion of my face. I left feeling violated. Presently, I am trying to squelch the feeling of being outwardly irritated that the director of this commercial is over an hour late. I watch the light change on the carpet covered in gargantuan flowers. The woman in charge frantically runs about making sure there are enough chairs per SAG regulations. "I need to keep the fire lanes clear," she keeps muttering. As a half hour turns into an hour turns into an hour and a quarter, the seats fill up and the adults are suggested to give their seats up for children and stage mommies.
Finally some asshole in a puffy Northface jacket rushes into the room and through the double doors. The director. Soon after, a hotel employee follows the trail with a menu in hand. He apparently has time to eat. They bring in the first ten girls. I am in the second group. The first ten come out; five are kept aside, five are dismissed. My group goes in. We stand holding numbers in front of a panel of people who aren't speaking, moving, or in any way creating an environment in which you feel comfortable. The director takes his head out of his bowl of noodles to bark, "Could you all smile at the camera?" in a way that makes me think that we should have been instructed to do so before lining up before the firing squad.
"Hi, I'm Jessica blah blah. Number 11."
"Brianna blah. Number 12."
"Jenny Bahn. Number 13."
The listing continues until the director's face goes back into his bowl of noodles, apparently indicating that we are not special, interesting, or adequate in any way. We are ushered out and back into the pink ballroom full of people who have not been psychologically manhandled yet. I get a good laugh out of it until I realize that I have misplaced my sunglasses during all of this and that some clepto bitch has stolen them. All in all this day has cost me time, dignity, and $300. But at least I saw Cher walking on my way back home.

Jenny Does the Judicial System

Passive girl that I am, I often find myself at the whim of others. Take for instance my agency. I become quite docile in their presence, my phone voice rises, and sometimes I bake cookies. If I am nice, I work. If I am mean, I work, too. This is only because I am hired on the basis of my buns and legs, not my attitude generally speaking. But we are told not to bite the hand that feeds, and the hand that feeds me first feeds my agency which makes the agency look like the hand when in reality it is just the little man between the hand and me eating (the feed).
A few months ago, a heated conversation with another model about "taking some bastard client to small claims court" inspired me to do a fiscal follow-up of my own. The job in question was for a small German boutique on Rodeo Dr. I had worked for them before; the first time being Black Friday of 2006. This was one of those real glamorous jobs I dreamed about when I thought I was going to be a super model: I stood in a store window for twelve hours while Japanese tourists took pictures with me "the living mannequin." Two fellows from high school managed to recognize me under a thick layer of drag queen makeup and ratty hair that the client had originally intended to interweave with Christmas lights. I protested, stating that being plugged into an electrical outlet didn't seem like a terribly safe idea. The then emensley popular Pussy Cat Doll's album played the entirety of my stay, watching real-time commerce and tourism displayed in front of me. Whenever I hear "Loosen Up My Buttons Babe" I remember the superficial burn I got on the left side of my pasty, SPF 55 managed skin from the movie-size wattage bulbs lighting me.
While I was paid for this first experience as well as the next day that they decided to bring me back (apparently my mannequin services were as popular as a Disneyland ride), I was not compensated for the third time I worked for them a few months later. Two years of complaining to my agency later, I was told I was "shit out of luck." Thus taking the matter into my own large hands.
I arrive at the Beverly Hills Court for my December 4th, 1:30 PM appointed time. Apparently I am not the only one, because when I exit the elevator there is a mass of chatting and not chatting people surrounding the four different court rooms like flies on shit. I am fly. I see my defendant. Shit. Since I got out of my car and put five quarters in the meter I have been sweating more than I care to. I begin to sweat more. I think that I am going to ruin my teal and white striped silk shirt that looks like it could be expensive but I bought it at The Wasteland for $25. When I see the German man who is screwing me out of my money all I can think about is the night after work when he invited me to dinner with his wife, baby, and Jose Eber. I don't feel empowered. I feel like an asshole. He looks up and sees me coming. Oh, dear God save me. The conversation that begins with an awkward wave of recognition is a combination of his German accent telling me about getting woken up by the sheriff at 6 am to serve him papers and me stumbling over "I'm so sorry for doing this" type nonsense.
To make a long story just nearly as long as it is, my client tells me that he never meant to hurt me but to punish the agency for another job that involved sixty grand and a flaky model who botched the operation. Whoops. While we are having this conversation, a woman in a red hat covered in ink black feathers approaches my German. Apparently they are friends. Phoebe is a D list celebrity who I can't recognize for the life of me but she obviously feels like we've all been friends for years as she unloads what she's been doing the last year. Said everything includes her hair accessory line and her upcoming E! channel show in which she is going to be paid "triple what everyone else is being paid" because she "the biggest celebrity there." She's got crazy eyes and a nose that's surely seen the Knife. She is suing the Ivy for crashing her white C Class Mercedes into a Buick. Her lovely frumpy mother pulls out photographs of the scene: Phoebe in a pink, purple and white dress surrounded by paparazzi running towards her crashed car with an acting class version of despair on her face. Each photograph is watermarked with a bright pink "PHOEBE" over it, obviously from her personal website.
Finally we are called into the courtroom by a bleached blond lady deputy. I sit down next to the German, although my initial instinct is to sit on the other sides. Are we supposed to be so amiable? I am existing in a constant state of confusion. The deputy comes up to me.

Blond Deputy: Miss?
Me: Yes?
Blond Deputy: Are you a witness or do you have a case here?
Me: I'm the plantiff in a suit.
Blond Deputy: There are not shorts allowed in a courtroom and when the judge gets
here she is going to embarrass you.

Oh, dear God. I sweat some more. I run to my car to get black jeans out of my trunk. My inner dialogue continues as such:
"No shorts in the courtroom? But these aren't really shorts. They are tasteful, high waisted and black with a slight sheen to them. I look completely respectable. These people just don't understand fashion."
By the time I return the courtroom the judge is speaking in front of the forty people seated in rows. She is stern. I am terrified. She starts talking about labeling evidence, speeches, etc. I stare at my random email print outs and internet articles. Nothing highlighted, blacked out, starred, labeled, stapled. Next to me is a man with a binder and pages marked with those arrow shaped Post Its. Fuck me. We are all dismissed outside again to exchange evidence, which we have already done. When the German and I get back outside I ask him if we should just settle it without the judge since we have both agreed that I provided a service and should have been compensated. He agrees. I am thankful that he has never been to Small Claims Court before and even more thankful that he is awkward and German. We ask Blond Deputy if we can just settle without seeing the judge, the judge gives me a paper, I sign, it's done.
The German and I share the elevator down to the lobby. He tells me he will call me on Monday. When we get to the sidewalk on Burton, he offers me a cigarette. I decline, shake his hand, and scamper back into the real world where I can be flighty, ridiculous, and wear shorts.

This goes out to Phoebe.

Dr. Pepper, French Rolls, Apple Sauce and Cheerios

Going over to my dad's meant a single-wide trailer, creamed corn, court-appointed every-other-weekend weekend. The healthy menu we adhered to growing up was apparently of my mother's doing. Dad's kitchen was a no holds barred curiosity buffet. And damn it was tasty.
Concocted one day in which there was no milk in the fridge within my two day post expiration maximum, I threw apple sauce into a bowl and generously topped it with stale Cheerios. Crunchy, mildly sweet, and satisfying until I could go back to Mom's - I had in my hands the original Poor Man's Vegan Parfait.
Less detail oriented but no less delicious was a meal that was more of a process and less of a recipe. This creation entailed dipping torn off chunks of a french bread tri-tip roll into a beer mug filled with Dr. Pepper. Dad always had these mugs ready to go in the freezer for his Budweisers. When the glass warmed enough, the soda-flavored frost would glacially move into the rest of the mug which at that point contained bits of white bread and smaller ice cubes.

Poolside Dining

Tom had a pool on the side of his house which seems weird to say but because it was more of a "gated estate" it didn't much matter where the pool went. Front, back, whatever. The closest I had ever been to regular private pool access was the jacuzzi off of my parents old bedroom. It broke one day and became a watering hole for mosquitoes until we filled it with cement five years later.
In the summer I would make tuna drowning in lemon juice and sit by the pool working on the best tan I'll ever allow myself to have. In hindsight it feels like I did this often over a long period of time, but in reality it was probably a summer or two at most.
When Tom divorced my mom we moved into a rental with a pool that took over the the entirety of the pool-sized backyard. We never sat next to it or went in it. No matter how warm it was outside, it always seemed cold back there. My mom spent a lot of time in her room with the shades drawn. I spent a lot of time practicing my rave dancing in my bedroom mirror.