Friday, December 7, 2007

The one in which I talk to mashed potatoes

Dear Birthday,

While you have certainly treated me well over the years, I think I need a change.
Because a week before Christmas?
It just ain't working.

I'm sick of having to fight with the most dominant holiday in the world for a little attention.
I'm tired of work parties and family visits making my birthday party low on everyone's priority list.
I'm done with the joint Christmas-birthday presents (This one has exceptions for those who take advantaged and buy me an extra special gift).

And don't think I don't know that everyone else in my life hates you, too. I've endured my fair of passive-aggressive remarks about how much people love us December babies.

So, what do you say about July next year?

Festively yours,

-Princess

***

Dear Fair Weather Friend,

It's not that I don't understand you not being able to make my birthday party for approximately the 5th year in a row. It's just that it seems especially rude considering you sent me a message two days prior about how excited you were to finally attend. Pray, tell, why then did you make plans for that weekend despite this excitement?

Grumblingly yours,

-Princess

***

Dear New Boss,

I understand you have this whole laid back thing patented. However, it would be much appreciated if you could provide a little, I don't know, guidance when you ask me to do something new. Like give me one example of the format of the report I have to write for you? Or let me sit in on a procedure before asking me to do it?

Professionally yours,

-Princess

***

Dear Mashed Potatoes,

I was planning an exceptionally healthy lunch as part of my prep for the ensuing holiday gorging. Why then did you have to suddenly appear in the health store deli beside the spinach salad and tofu I was planning to eat? And why do you have to be so damn tasty?

Flabbily yours,

-Princess

***

Dear Upstairs Neighbours,

I am aware that the washing machine takes half the time of the dryer. As such, I don't mind if you take out my wet clothes to use the washing machine while waiting for my other load to get out of the dryer.

However, to snag the dryer when I don't get there the second the cycle stops isn't cool. Especially when it means that I now have to leave for work with with clothes on top of the dryer, and I don't get home until past the time when we are allowed to do laundry in the evening.

It is even less cool when another one of you snags the dryer again first thing in the morning.
My wet clammy clothes have now been wet for nearly 24 hours!

I wish you damp socks on cold days.

Grumpily yours,

-Princess

***

Dear manuscript chapter,

I appreciate you inspiring me a little today.
But, really, it would be best for both of us if you just wrote yourself, 'mmmkay?

Inspirationally yours,

-Princess

***

Dear Ethics Lady,

Your incompetence is beginning to annoy me. Like how I have been waiting to find out about the status of the ethics approval of my current study for several weeks, then find out today that you forgot to send it on? And it took less than a day to approve, meaning I could have done my online pilot testing before the end of the semester had you been on top of things?

And what about that time you couldn't find the sentence I added to my informed consent sheet and it took three emails for you to understand where "last line, second paragraph, second page" meant?
Or when you accidentally mixed up my study forms with another study, and emailed me asking why I was recruiting police officers when I wasn't?

Yeah... didn't really appreciate any of it.

Ethically yours,

-Princess

***

Dear boyfriend,

You are cute, with your shock over finding out that there are sardines in caesar salad dressing, and your comical text messages about McDonald's characters (I will never see the Fry Guys in the same way ever again). I miss you, despite the fact that we have spent a good chunk of the week in each others presence. It doesn't really count when we are buried behind our respective laptops.
I intend to pounce the second this all done. Just warning you.

Lovingly (and lustfully) yours,

-Princess

***

Dear Queen Bee,

Thanks for inspiring me for this post, and being okay with my blatant rip-off.
Also thank you for filling my head with all sorts of Tribble trivia.
I heart you.

Heartingly yours,

-Princess

***

Dear other bloggers,

Thank you for all your lovely supportive comments and virtual cookies from my last post. I'm glad The Crazy didn't make you run away.

I want you all to come to my birthday party.

Also, I promise a much more profound post soon-- but for now, I have to save up my "smrt" writing for more pressing matters.

*Sigh.*

Pointfully Yours,

-Princess

31 comments:

nicole antoinette said...

I love these letters. I write them in my head all the time.

I think you are allowed to celebrate your birthday anytime of the year you want. Seriously. It's YOUR birthday. I'll save my happy wishes for July... :)

Jamie Lovely said...

My boyfriends birthday is the 21st. I always get him a birthday and a Christmas present. I don't to make it one big thing. It's no fair!

QueenBee said...

Dear Princess,

I was going to put you in MY post last night, but then I decided to not post it because it was mean (Everything else that I put in there, not what I wrote about you). I was going to write how you always make me smile, and how you're so much the rocking-est blogger and bloggie friend EVER. Weird coincidence? I think so!

Queen Bee.

P.S. Oh yeah, and I heart you muy a lot.

P.P.S. Which of the 2 presents do you want? Do you want a birthday present, or a Christmas present? Cuz frankly, I can't afford both. :-) And I would TOTALLY go to your birthday party. You know...If you didn't live 100 trillion miles away. :-)

Jess said...

I wanna come! I wanna come! And while I'm not a December baby, I too can understand frustration. I'm a summer baby - it's hard to get all my friends together once school is out of session. Alas.

Also. Your letters are positively delightful.

eric1313 said...

Good luck on the scholarly endeavors that your instructors have tried so dutifully to hamper. Your smrt writing is a powerful force, one to not be reckoned with lightly.

PG said...

December birthdays are a complete screw job. Potential parents of the world -- use protection when having sex in mid to late March.

Fair Weather Friend is not cool. I'm really over these kind of friends..or flakey ones who consistently commit and cancel at the last minute.

Neither are the people at Ethics. They're uptight, paranoid, control freaks...and completely inefficient.

Larissa said...

Hmmm...maybe I should take a cue from you and write an angry note to the roast beef that enticed me to overeat last night.

Eleni Zoe said...

Loved your letters!

And people who take clothes out of dryers when clothes are still damp should have something very mean done to them.

I'd come to your party. With two presents, of course!
:)

Ant said...

I disagree! :-)

Surely you are not dissing the one and only day in the year where you share a birthday with the likes of Brad Pitt, Keith Richards, Steven Spielberg, Christina (does she need a second name?) and of course...

... myself!

I haven't had a birthday party in years and this year will be no exception. Instead I'm going to have some massage therapy (maybe with some optional extras - nothing like celebrating the passing years with a handjob from a beautiful stranger... :-) )

Maithri said...

Dear Princess,

You crack me up! I can definitely relate to the ethics approval bit especially lol

Have an awesome, birthday celebration of you!

With love, M

megabrooke said...

Oh I loved this! I especially like that you told The BF that you were "going to pounce" as soon as this is all over.
When is your actual birthday? I'd totally be there celebrating with you if I could!

Lisa said...

ANNOYING on the laundry!

Also, I thought it was anchovies, not sardines, in ceasar dressing?

DG said...

Dear Princess,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! There, I said it. And one week before Christmas or not, that is NOT acceptable that people make other plans. Bad move, fair-weathered friend!

Beth said...

Glad to see the art of letter writing is not lost...you do it well. You should actually send them!

My sister's birthday is ON Christmas Day.

brandy said...

Two things
1. I do hope that you have a mini party next year in July. I'm not kidding. I'm seriously thinking of having a party in February to celebrate my awesomeness since my b-day usually is a day where everyone is busy (end of August- everyone is leaving for school, or on holidays)".

2. Mashed potatoes are lovely. I'm pretty sure my version of heaven involves mashed potatoes and a lot of the Office. And George Clooney.


Annnnnd if I could I attend your birthday party, I would. And I would bring a great present. I'm an excellent present giver.

QueenBee said...

Okay, the post. It was mainly me complaining, PMS'ing, being emotional, and stupid. And then at the end, I said that there were 2 things that would make me smile/feel better. Watching a episode of Star Trek, and the comment that you had just left me. Because you are so funny and nice that every time you leave a comment, I either laugh or smile or feel better or all of the above. :-)

eric1313 said...

So, ahh... did the taters talk back to you?

It's all good, though, because we are all destined to gain in robustness, and lose ground versus gravity both in mass and the unique ways it effects both the sexes.

Pleasant, yes, I know.

How's that weekend shaping up for you?

Lisa said...

Mmmm. Mashed potatoes. I make fantastic mashed potatoes. And pizza. Basically I'm great with beer food. I may be overproducing saliva right now.

Jeff shares your sentiments about the birthday/Xmas gift combo.

And if I lived nearer you, I would totally crash your birthday party if you didn't invite me. I'd bring beer food, if it helps.

Sheila said...

Dear Princess,
Thank you for bringing me much laughter with your witty writing! I will be sure to tell Santa to move your birthday so that you and he do not end up in a big fist fight this year. Until then, I hope you have a very Happy Birthday!
Sincerely, Sheila

Miriam said...

I wish I could come to your birthday party. Sadly, I live in the south and you? all the way up there. Sad, really.


http://lspoon.wordpress.com

Jess | the Jess Journals said...

I was actually just wondering about a friend who's birthday actually falls on Christmas. haha

Cute letters :)

And happy early birthday...unless you'd rather I said it in July!

Anonymous said...

ah the joint christmas/bday presents. that sucks big!! and totally move your bday to july for next year. hahaha

t.k.foster said...

The ethics was the funniest. I swear, that ethical lady doesn't sound very ... ethical. But I guess, that's how irony works. Goodluck with that though, I know how those things can go taking years only for them to alter it to death until the study you were going to study becomes basically nothing of the sort.

Eve said...

I write these too. You should see my draft folder in my email inbox.

I love this idea! And I may steal it. What's the statute of limitations on blogging idea, um, copying?

Crushed said...

I'd LOVe to come to your birthday party, sadly I think it's too far a distance...

I tried to avoid my birthday party this year. It didn't work- my mates organised one anyway- just for the wrong week.

Rachel said...

My sister's birthday is the 16th. I always tease her about it, saying her birthday isn't important.

Even though it is.

t.k.foster said...

You've been tagged!

eric1313 said...

And by the way, when I hit publish, does the google reader save each version? Because I edit like mad sometimes. You could be getting thirty of the same post with little variation, sometimes back and forth on the same thing.

Wow, that's cool, no matter what.

So I wrote one wit the lines you liked so much, because they were really good, like you said. See the kind of thing I do when I edit? I can get pretty blind.

Thank you so much for chiming in as I was destined to forget those lines, at least temporarily, had you not told me what you thought.

Have a good night sleeping off that sugar high! Or however you work it...

Michelle and the City said...

i want to come too! :)
and i think next year you should celebrate your half birthday instead. or at least have the party then. :-)

p.s. mashed potatoes are sooo addicting!

t.b.f.love. said...

I loved this post =) It seems very therapeutic.

B2G said...

try having a birthday 2 days after christmas. yuck.