Remember problem 49, the yet to be revealed food problem?

Well, it didn’t end up working out.

Do you want to know what it was going to be? Too bad, I’m not going to tell you. Was I going to quit being vegan and eat a steak? Was I going to stuff my face with Taco bell everyday for a month (dream come true)? Was I going to karate chop in the neck this trust-fund d-bag for serving foie gras lollipops at his ridiculous restaurant?

You’ll just have to decide for yourself.

Julio, who is soon to be the future baby-daddy of my dear friend and sister in biking, Jess, keeps crying about how he can never eat the cupcakes I make because they have sugar in them.

Then, in yesterday’s post about moving to New York, I humbly asked if it would be ok with all y’all if I added finding an apartment to the list of problems. Julio said no!, and then said, ok, if you make me sugar free cupcakes first.

And since I’m always one step ahead of the game in everything I do, I’ll kill two bird with one stone: Problem 49 is to make Julio some nasty sugar-free cupcakes, which means I can then add Problem 93 as finding an apartment in NY that isn’t in a horrible neighborhood and doesn’t require living with 32 other people. Oh and has decent bathroom tile, and always smells like fresh laundry. And also is near the train. And has lots of light. And if it had a yard or a deck or something, I will just die of happiness.

That’s all, easy.

Man, I’m so smart. I turned one request for baked goods into two problems that I kind of have to do anyway. Genius.

Let’s just knock the food category out of the way. Not having any full categories defined is haunting me.

44) Plant a mini-herb garden.

Legal herbs only, bro! Groan.. sorry, sorry.

45) Plant a mini back-deck vegetable garden

Yes, this could be combined with #44, but I’m doing the herb garden as a separate beast, because I imagine each will have a different set of challenges. I’ve been doing some research online about vegetables I could plant on the back deck, which is pretty small, you can only fit 4-5 adults out there at a time, and that’s not even terribly comfortable.

So far, I think I’ll try to grow: red peppers, jalepeno peppers… Um….uhhh…. Maybe zuchinni? I think I read that those are easy to grow. Dammit! We’ll see.

46) Vegan pizza party and movie night.

Sounds fun, right? Maybe we’ll watch Brewster’s Millions then have a pillow fight.

47) Host a fancy-pants dinner party

This is an idea from my friend Injung, and I love it. This would be a several course, sit down, place cards and everything kind of dinner party. I’ll even force the guests to dress nice. Riki and I don’t even have a proper table and chairs set, so I’ll have to think about logistics of this one a bit more.

48) Make this

Have you ever seen anything so absolutely perfect or beautiful in your whole life? My god.

49) Something that is in the works, I want to see if it happens before I post about it…

YES!!! Food is done! And I like that it’s not all about me stuffing my face. I mean, it mostly is, but not the herb garden one.

Guess what you guys, I completed a problem and I’m sooo excited to tell you about it!!

But I can’t, not yet, not until I have the photos to prove that I did it. I should get them in the next day or two, yay, yay, I can’t wait!

In the meantime, I’ve decided to add a few things to the list, mainly because I feel like I’ve been really neglecting my blog lately, and this will make me feel better. I’ll have more free time in the coming weeks (i.e. won’t be working as much), so I’ll be completing all kinds of problems.

Here are a few new ones as promised:

Meaningless Category:

#5) Fashion photoshoot at clothing stores around town
This was Riki’s idea - We’re going to go to misc. clothing stores around town that we would normally never set foot in, pick out outfits for each other to wear, and do faux fashion shoots in the store. If you live in Chicago, think Milwaukee Avenue: You know those weird stores like Futurgarb that you never see anyone in, but they seem to have a thriving business? Those stores.

I can hardly even say Futurgarb without wanting to punch myself in the face. I’ve never been in there, so maybe I’m totally wrong and this place is amazing, but I sort of think I’m not wrong in this case. Futurgarb… it hurts, it hurts..

Oh, and if anyone wants to join us, this could be a fun group outing… Looking at you Aaron. I’m dying to see you in a lovely gown.

#6) Dress up in a DisneyLand style costume and hand out popsicles at the beach on a hot day.
Remember this? This was my example for you guys when I was trying to get you to make me do stuff. It sounds fun, so I’m just gonna add it. I think the only snag I could see happening with this plan is if it costs a shit load of money to rent a Diz Land style costume. Does anyone know? I need to investigate. And worst-case scenario, if it is expensive, then I’ll owe 10 bucks to the Cornerstone jar instead of 5.

Healthy Category:

#26) Get my wisdom teeth out
Maybe this one is cheating a little bit. Maybe I already have the appointment booked to do this. Or maybe I don’t. But know this: I’ve been putting this off for over a year, and now one of the teeth is broken in half, so by God, if I want to add it to this list I will. I’ll post photos of chipmunk cheeks, ok?

The Culture Vulture:

#71) Visit the Museum of Surgical Science
Have you guys ever been to this place before? It seriously rules. You can see things like this there. (click at your own risk) I’ve been once to see a photography show, but it was closing right when I got there so I couldn’t really explore too much. I’ll take lots of pics.

Exciting, huh?!

As promised yesterday, updates!

- I have baseball practice this Saturday! Hooray for Get Healthy’s Problem #22!

I’m going to count it as “complete” after my first practice, because lord knows I need to check something off this godforsaken list. But I’ll update you as I go! With pictures even!

I am nervous for this though, since I haven’t played baseball or softball in a million billion years. This summer, look for me to be warming a bench at a baseball diamond near you.

- I have two new problems to add to the aforementioned Get Healthy category… Are you ready? Are you ready? Good, because I’m not.

1) Problem #24: Run the Cincinnati Flying Pig half-Marathon with Michelle and Anne on May 4th. Why am I doing this?

For one, I really like Pigs. I think they might be my favorite animal. For two, Michelle mentioned it to me last week, and I thought “you know, this will really be the kick in the pants I need to get running again.”

And so I agreed, not thinking about how May is really close, and how I don’t really like to run too much, and this means I have to get up early to train, and I really hate that, etc. etc.

I should also say that I ran the 2004 Chicago Marathon, and when I heard the words half-marathon, I thought, “Oh yes, I can do that! I did a full one!” But again, I wasn’t thinking how much work it was, and how, although I was glad I did it, it was a great life experience, etc. etc., I vowed to never do it again. Now I am realizing that even half of the pain and suffering I felt that day is still a shit load of pain and suffering.

Dammit! Dammit I say! But, I agreed, so there it is.

2) Speaking of pigs, which I love, did you guys see this article on pig-brain disease? Why hello, here is another good reason to not eat meat. So gross!

3) Another Problem to add to Get Healthy - Problem #25: Do the Danskin Chicagoland Womens Triathalon. This one also involves Michelle, she’s all in to doing sporty, torturous things like triathlons, and she said she’d kill my cat Smew and poison Riki if I don’t do it, so you see, I have to. But this one is 159 days away, and that’s a lot of days. So I’ll procrastinate until it’s 9 days away, then I’ll be swearing the gods above, swearing to the Michelle above, and be scrambling to get my ass in shape.

I think the rest of my problems/goals from here on out will be to take some really sweet naps.

Tomorrow’s post: I’ll put up reader-submitted goals like I said I would do today, yesterday. I really will, really.

And also to Julio: The problems won’t win! I shake my fist at you now!

Remember how two entries ago I was all smug and said to my brother “ha-ha, I could drive when I was 16, you can’t drive for two more years you filthy Canadian” ?

Well, he sent me a facebook message and reminded me how at Christmas, Riki and I took him to Montreal, and we went into this divey sports-bar, and how we were the only people in the place, and oh - didn’t I remember that they served him alcohol? And it wasn’t just alcohol, it was tequila shots followed by 3 pitchers of beer, followed by drinking games. And then remember how at that other bar? In all his baby-faced glory, when the waiter said, “And howee a-booot yew?”  he casually, confidently, as if he’d had a drinking problem for 40-years, said “Yeah, I’ll have a Corona, bro.” (ok, he didn’t say bro, I just wish he did), and the next thing you know the socialist-jerk with bad facial hair brought him a Corona?

Yes. I remember.

Fine, Jacob. You win. Yes, drinking at 15 is cooler than driving at 16. Just don’t ever do them at the same time, promise me, your humbled big-sister that much.

Oh! and Amy and Simon - After talking it over with Riki a bit more, and since we’ll be in your neck-of-the-woods in August anyway, we decided, why not? Let’s make it an official problem:

#83) Visit Amy and Simon in Venezuela !

Hopefully it’s not too expensive to fly from Ecuador to Venezuela? At the very least, I’m sure we could find someone to pay us to take the trip if we just, you know, smuggle some drugs over or something.

I need to step it up.

I have not ridden my bike to work once this week, not once! It has been sooo cold, I just couldn’t. I heard the forecast this morning on NPR - it was something like this:

“Do not go outside, or you will die! If bare skin hits the air, death! If you ride your bike, you will die, but in a more slow and painful way than the other circumstances!”

So you see, I just couldn’t. This means I have 3 make-up days ahead of me. Oh, and I forgot to mention that when I was walking to the train this morning I saw about 70 people on bikes. You fool! You baby! Change your diaper and get on your bike!

This weather makes me want to add the following problems to my list:

1) Never leave the house again, and especially never change out of these sweet zebra print pajamas.

2) Never have to go to work again, which means never having to ride my bike to work again. In order to do this, I first need to:

3) Find a bag of money in the bushes. Like in No Country for Old Men, but without the 70s tracking device, and without that creep hunting me down.

Ok, but I do have a real new problem, and I’m really excited about it. I don’t really know where it fits, but for now, I’ll put it under Get Smart.

#32) Visit and animal sanctuary with Amy, and pet animals, and think about how I’m glad I don’t eat them.

I met Amy almost a year ago, in a way that is embarassing for me. Basically, I kept seeing her around town on the most amazing pink bike ever, and I secretly was so jealous, but also wanted to meet her, but I didn’t want to seem like a creep. One day, I came across her bike on flickr, and sent her a message that was something like this:

“Hi, you dont know me, but I know where you live, and work, and how you hate spagetti, and always dreamed of being a ballerina dancer, anyway, I like your bike, do you want to ride bikes with me one day?”

To make this a little shorter, we did meet up, and with a few other amazing bike riding ladies that we had never met before, and they ended up being the coolest bunch of girls I could ever hope to meet, and we all became BFF’s, FandE.

God, where is this going?! So, Amy is vegan, and I had been vegetarian for over 12 years, and hanging out with her got me thinking. She made amazing cupcakes that were vegan, Check. Earwax has an amazing chocolate peanut butter vegan smoothie, check check, I visted Peta.org and met my meat (well, dairy). Check check check check check and check.

I decided to go for it, and I’m so glad I did. I feel great, physically, and morally, and I’m learning to cook! So Amy suggested we go to a sanctuary as part of my problems, so we will. Because that’s what vegans do.

That and meet up in the park and play with those sticks that have the rubber balls on the end and get baked.

What a perv.

But wait - before I continue, let me say that my Dad sent me an email in response to my parent disclaimer from this post. It went something like this:

Dear Jessi, You are the coolest, smartest person in the world, etc. etc. Also, Loved your “balls” photos. You really don’t think you
have to “apologize to your parents” for “balls jokes”, do you?! I’m all about the balls jokes! Love, Dad.

The last part was true at least. So now you know.

Anyway - back to the matter at hand. Even though I haven’t offically opened up the “You tell me what to do” category for reader submissions, Aaron left a suggestion as a comment that I liked so much, I decided to make it official. So here it is:

You tell me what to do category, #69: (In his words)

Record a hip-hop record (at least 4 songs) with Riki and make a myspace music page for it.

Riki and I used to live with Aaron, so he knows what we can do. He knows. Stay tuned, this will be a fun one.

Last June, as I mentioned earlier in this mess of a blog, I was in a cycling accident, broke my collarbone and later had surgery to fuse the bones together with a titanium plate. For the first two weeks I was a mess, sitting on the couch with nothing to do but watch Heroes, take Vicodin, and feel sorry for myself.

Now, despite the insane mood swings and general hatred of life it brought on, vicodin was a lifesaver, except for one horrible incident. During that first week’s drug haze, I somehow, someway, managed to throw away my brand new fancy glasses that I had just ponied up like $500 for. I know for sure that I threw them away because I’m constantly knocking things into the trash in the bathroom on accident; make up, hair product etc. When I realized they were missing it was too late, and all that was left was me, cold and alone with a broken heart, a broken collarbone, and my Pearl vision glasses left over from my glory years in the 90s.

That brings us to this, a brand new problem in the Random category: #91 Get new glasses. Have respect the new glasses. Wear the new glasses always, and never lose them again.