I am so lucky.

I got my wisdom teeth yanked out of my head a few days ago, and it was so painless and easy. I’ve heard so many horror stories about people being awake through the whole thing, or actually feeling it, or having to go to multiple dentists, etc etc, but my story, it was something like this:

7:30 am: Wake up and think about having coffee, but wind up feeling mad and confused at the world after remembering that the dentist said “No food or drinks 6 hrs before surgery”

9 am: Get picked up by Riki and drive to the dentist. Think about how it’s fun to not be at work when I should be. My coworkers are suckers.

9:30 am: Fork over tons of cash so some dude can pull teeth out of my head and then drive his BMW with a solid gold steering wheel home.

9:45 am: Get hooked up to some machine that beeps along with my heart. Notice how if I breath really slow I can get down to 62 bpm, and conversely, when I think about being put under and oh my god, what if I just die right then and there I go up to 95 bpm. Feel awkward and wonder if the nurse notices and is judging me. It’s ok, she has 90s hair.

9:55 am: Dentist comes in and puts a thing on my face and tells me to take deep breaths. Dentist then proceeds to make “flying high” and “sleep soundly” jokes. Even in a drugged up state I am conscious enough to avoid eye contact and pretend like I didn’t hear him. Then he asks if I want to keep the teeth. I hear myself from three rooms away say, “That’s gross, no!” and then drift off….

10 something am: Barely remember anything, except now Riki is in the room and the nurse is giving me a prescription for Vicodin and telling me how I probably won’t need it, and I could sell it if I don’t use it. Really. She said to sell it. I’m not though.

Rest of the day: Take a nap, watch TV, go buy Marc Jacobs sunglasses (a birthday present from my dad!) Have drinks with friends later. And eat tons of mushy food. Soup, hummus, black beans, smoothies. Yuck. No more mushy food for me, ever.

And that was it. I didn’t even get puffy cheeks or anything, but does sort of feel weird having teeth missing. I’ll miss those guys.

To the person who googled this, and found my blog:

I hope you found your answer. I spent years wondering about this and never knowing. When I finally did find out, life as I knew it was changed.

This is Zak, my little bro.

You met Jacob, my youngest brother here. Zak is the middle child. Allow me to speak candidly to all you middle children out there, on behalf of all of us first-born: you guys have it the hardest. You really do. Although us oldest kids might have perfection issues, and had to babysit the rest of you from the day you were born and all that, you middle kids have it rough. By the time you were walking and talking and graduating kindergarten, it was old news to the P’s.

Just sayin’ middle kids, your pain and suffering does not go unnoticed.

Anyway, Zak lives out in the suburbs, and I seriously hardly ever see him, ever. I added this to my list of problems, which kind of makes me feel like a bad sister, visiting him is something I should do anyway, but adding it to the list made it happen sooner than it might have otherwise. You know how these things go; I’ll come next week, oh next week isn’t good now, what about the 5th? ok, well I’ll call you…

Zak picked me up from the train station with his friend Joe. And if you can’t tell that Joe listens to the String Cheese Incident, then you aren’t paying attention:

Grandma? Is that you?

JK, Joe’s a total sweetheart, I love that kid.

After heading back to Z’s all grownsed up apartment, we went to On the Border, a little mexican chain that I used to work at back in my early 00’s glory days. Actually, I made serious cash as a cocktail waitress there. Perhaps I should revisit that career.

We drank delicious margaritas and had guacamole and fajitas til I felt sick.

Based on the look on his face, Z feels sick too. That’s Jill to his left, his girlfriend.

Then, back to his place for wii games and more drinks. It was a work night too. I felt great the next day, really great.

this photo, it wasn’t staged. I was not making him pose here, not one bit.

Then we had a good laugh over the fact that this was his halloween costume last year. He was a… dude with.. a hat.. on.

I have the same butt-chin. Thanks Parents.

Yes! I only have 3,000,000 more problems to go.

How can I expect to achieve goals this year such as volunteering, starting a garden, or.. I dunno, LEARNING SPANISH (well, starting to learn Spanish, not be fluent or anything), if I can’t even make it through Brewsters Millions?

We’ve started it 3 times, and each time Riki and I have both fallen asleep at the same part, about a third of the way through, you know, the part where John Candy makes his 80th terrible joke. No disrespect to John C., may he rest in peace and all that. I know it’s a family film, he had to do what he had to do.

This weekend Brewster, you’re mine! If there is one thing I do, it’s finishing something that I set out to do, or publicly declared on a blog that I would do.

That’s not entirely true. But I won’t give up, I’ll fight my way through it!

Riki and I hosted a vegan / dairy pizza party-party to knock problem #46 off the list this past Saturday. I think I still have half a pound of dough sitting in my stomach, which is gross. I had it for breakfast yesterday, and as a snack tonight, so maybe this is part of the problem.

It was a success if I do say so myself, and I do. A bunch of friends came over with a bunch of booze, and we provided dough and toppings as faaaaar as the eye can seeeeeee…

writing this post and looking at these photos is seriously making me nauseous. I’m never eating pizza again.

chopped up toppings in their own little bowls. we so fancy.

Here we learn how vegan cheese doesn’t melt. Do you know what it’s like to be failed by your very own faux cheese substitute at a party? It feels awful. Humilitating, really.

This ain’t pretty, but damn it was good.

This is a meat and cheese pizza. Or, the cookie sheet of death and despair, as it’s known in some parts.

Amy also made me a cake! This would be #4 in the list of baked treats I received for my birthday… It was so so good, and so pretty. Pink icing, wtf!

Ok, that’s all I have in me. I can’t look at any more food pictures, arrrghhh. More tomorrow! I’m getting dangerously close to the 80s in the problems list. Which is dangerously far away from 0.

Off topic post, but I just have to share with everyone how fun my birthday was, and how great my boyfriend, family and friends are… awwww….

The fun started first thing in the morning - I arrived at work to find a treat from my Smaussie (small Australian), a cup of Intellegentsia Coffee, and a pound of beans. Drinking this made me realize what a chump I’ve been drinking Starbucks every day. Intellegentsia is perfect, it’s absolutely perfect.

What’s that coffee? Oh, I love you too.

Later, I was paged by the front desk, “Jessi, report to the front desk“. “Ok” I said, and to the desk I went. I was hand delivered flowers and a balloon from my friends Julio, Jess and Michelle. Look here:

This gives me a good sense of what I would look like if I won Miss America. Yeah, I like it.

Then later…  My friend Elizabeth made me delicious vegan cookies, and my co-workers humored me by trying them.

Thank you E. Millz!

After work, Riki picked me up in a car, which is a huge treat, because we don’t even own a car. I normally walk to the train or ride my bike, and most days in Chicago it’s snowing and -30 out. I fricking love riding in a car.

We made a quick stop at home, where he gave me my birthday presents: lots of goodies for my bike, and the boy bought me two pair of fancy jeans! The thing is, these jeans are perfect, and fit me like they were made for me. They even make me feel thin, which is basically the gift that keeps on giving. I’m so impressed, I hate jean shopping so much, which is why I own 1 pair. (now 3. yes!) I feel like a huge burden has been lifted, my life is changed, I am the owner of multiple pairs of jeans…

We went to dinner at the Chicago Diner, which was so delicious, then met up with friends for bowling.

Riki also got me this!

and these!

I thought I would explode, I was so full…

Amy and Michelle got me a knife…

 The knife makes its debut…

And look what Anne made me!

So much fun. And the fun continues.. tonight Riki is taking me to Caribou, then a surprise on Wednesday… yes!

And yet, there is hope…

According to Chowhound, the veggie hot-dog at Hot Doug’s is not vegan!

wtf am I gonna do? I was going to go there and eat for #42. Should I switch it to a different restaurant? Go on a mission to find a good vegan dog somwhere else? Oh, the heartache this blog causes.

I’ve already broken one food rule, in case you didn’t notice. For problem #41 I said I would bike to Veggie Bite on the south side with Amy… and then the Veggie Bite opened in Wicker Park (remember I was so excited?)

It was gross. Some of it was fine, and it was vegan and fast food and I’ll probably buy one of everything if I’m hungover or having a bad day some time in the future, but it was still gross. I’m not biking 25 miles one way for gross.

Curse you Doug, curse you Veggie Bite!

Don’t let the good looks fool you. Although… this photo is triggering some pleasant memories for me that involve the fries. Those weren’t half bad.

Good lord, that 4 up there in the masthead is hideous. Out of all the characters so far, definitely my least favorite. Did you see when the 7 was up? It took my breath away.

I’d better go solve a problem so I can replace it with a 3. Do you know how good the 9 and 3 will look together? Harmony. Balance.

Prepare yourself.

Yes, I know it’s April.*

I know it’s April, and I have 4 problems finished, and that averages one per month, I know this.

Not on track for success, you might be thinking, but I disagree. Do you know how cold and horrible and snowy it’s been in Chicago? I’m not trying to make excuses for myself here, I’m just sayin’ all I want to do is stay in and watch movies. I do not feel like going out and taking the world by storm when it’s 37 degrees outside. I feel like taking my couch by storm, or the refrigerator by storm.

But rest assured, once it’s above 50 degrees for more than 1 day in row, I’ll be doing so much you won’t know what hit you! Just wait, just you wait!

Moving on, look! Another problem solved. I took a Knife Skillz class at The Chopping Block with Amy and Chris.

I rode my bike there from work, and completely underestimated how long it would take - I thought 35 min, but in reality it was almost an hour, then I took a wrong turn, so needless to say, I was about 5-10 min late.

I barged in on the pie-making class, all sweaty and a big mess, and you know how when you ride your bike a long way you get a runny nose? I had that too.

They had to pause the class to register me, and I said to the woman “I.. *breath, breath, breath* just rode my bike…*breath, breath, breath*… So far.. Sorry…*breath, breath, breath*..I’m all flustered…”

She gave me that smile people give you when they are silently judging and thinking about how they managed to come to in to the class freshly showered, what a shame that you didn’t.

She led me upstairs where I then interrupted the class I was signed up for. I’m full of good manners.

The class itself went fairly smoothly. We were given a knife lecture, and all I remember from it is that knives are expensive and come from Germany or Japan. Then our teacher had us chop different vegetables, teaching us the importance of… DUH DUH DUNNNNNN….THE CLAW!

Amy demonstrates the claw. Nice job girl.

The claw is a technique wherein you curl your pinky and ring finger back so they don’t get chopped off, and then hold the object down with your first and middle finger curled under kinda funky. It’s very uncomfortable and felt weird, but you know, safety first.

We also learned how to chop properly, and what was amusing about this part of the class was that our teacher had an assistant who didn’t always agree with what she said. She would show how to chop Vegetable A, and he would go around and mumble something like “well, SHE does it THIS way, but I do it THIS way…” then she would be hot on his heels correcting us back to HER way. Move on to vegetable B, and repeat.

You could tell that they secretly hated each other, and I sort of got a kick out of it. She even sent him off to get her more onions at one point. SNAP!

That’s like $30,000 in knives right there. Daaaaang.

In the end, I left the class with the desire to own a fancy knife, the realization that I really don’t know anything about cooking, the smell of onions on my hands, and most importantly with a problem solved.
*Rant based completely on one comment.. simon.