I deem it so because I have had more dealings with raw chicken this week than in my entire life up to this point combined. First off, I have to tell you my chicken salad story. See, back a few weeks ago when I was sponging off my dad and stepmom for an entire month, my stepmom took me under her wing, so to speak (WING, geddit??), and taught me a little bit of cooking. I learned pot roast and green bean casserole and bran muffins and pimento cheese (which, if you have never been in the south and eaten, let me just tell you that IT EES SOOO GOOD).

And chicken salad. A lovely but complicated recipe of chicken salad which involves boiling the chicken in chicken brothy water, and celery and onion and apple and pepper and lots of mayo. It is delish but time consuming. Chop chop chop, you know, these things take time.

Anyway, within my first two weeks of being here, I made a big ole batch. It took me, like, an afternoon. I had one sandwich and then put it in the fridge with a note: “Take some.” I figured your average person would interpret “Take some” as “Take some but leave me some as well, you douche, because it took freaking forever to make, obviously, and you can see how delicious it is.”

The next day I went to orientation at school all day long. When I got home, there was about half of it left, and I was like, oookay. I had another sandwich of it. That was the night my female roommate, who I’ll call Jane, and I went out and got wasted. At some point in the night, she was like, “Did Mike (male roommate) and I eat too much of your chicken salad? Because I had a sandwich, but he took a big enormous bowl of it, which I thought was sort of weird.” And I was all, “Oh okay, I wondered about it. That’s funny,” and we had a laugh at Mike and how guy/clueless he was.

The next day was that day that Jane and I were totally hungover and spent all day prone on the couch, drinking water and watching Magnolia. Mike hung out with us too. At one point we both went into the kitchen together. I got more water from the fridge and he took out the tub of the chicken salad and I watched, appalled, as he dumped the rest of it into an enormous bowl and threw the empty tupperware into the sink, without asking if he could finish it. I was like, crying on the inside because of the deliciousness of the chicken salad, and there it went, all gone. When we both walked back into the living room, Jane saw Mike with his big ole bowl and gave me the eyebrow raise of “Are you fucking kidding me?” It was pretty funny.

Anyway, later on he said something like, “That chicken salad was really good,” to me, and I responded “Thanks. I’ll make it again, if you buy the stuff.” I was smiling at him, and I think for a second he thought I was kidding, but I TOTALLY WAS NOT KIDDING, because hello, DAY OF CHOPPING. Then he realized that I was not kidding, and we both burst out laughing.

And ever since that day, Jane and I are constantly bringing up “the chicken salad incident” to him, just, like, at random times, and just to make him feel bad. Because that is the sort of bitchy thing we like to do around here.

So, jump to today. Jane’s younger sister has been staying with us for a week and today is her birthday. I told her I would make her the chicken salad as a present, so I spent lots of time earlier today (as soon as I had recovered from the dirty martinis of last night) making a batch. Finally it was done and I brought the huge bowl of it out to her in the living room where she was watching tv. I wish I would have had a little candle to stick in the middle of it, because that would have been funny.

Mike was still asleep…how, I don’t know, because it was 2:30 and his room is right off the living room and these are NOT QUIET GIRLS WE ARE DEALING WITH. Anyway, we started talking about how we should put the bowl right next to his door and try to wake him up with the smell, or we could push the chicken salad, piece by piece, under his door so that he could have a little snack in bed. Finally we were like, “MIKE DO YOU HEAR US?? WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE CHICKEN SALAD THING AGAIN.” And the door flew open and he was standing there, all crazy-haired and in his underwear, and he was like, “I PROMISE TO NEVER EAT YOUR ENTIRE BOWL OF CHICKEN SALAD AGAIN, GOOD GOD WOMEN.” And then shut the door and went back to sleep.

I love living here.

The other chicken I am having to deal with right now is for school. I have a homework assignment, due Monday, to paint a still life arrangement of RAW CHICKEN.

I…there are no words. When the professor assigned this, we all just stared at him with our mouths hanging open like idiots. He was very specific, you see. We are to paint two chicken quarters, which is the thigh and drumstick attached, and one wing. Raw. In an arrangement of our choosing. On a light-colored surface (NO PLATE! If there is a plate involved the painting will be failed, apparently!) so that there is low contrast. Due Monday. I…?

???

?

Hunh??

(Also, imagine these instructions being spoken by Hank Azaria’s character in The Birdcage, because my professor is Spanish and sort of, er, swishy. It makes it even better, no?)

So, my last trip to the grocery store took like 45 minutes, because I had to find and price-compare and buy SO MUCH CHICKEN all in one trip. It was odd. I felt like I was catering a family reunion or something.

Here is my still life arrangement that I am attempting to paint:

I bet none of you ever imagined that art school was THIS glamorous, huh? I know, I lead a charmed life.

Furthermore, I AM OLD.

Wednesday was my birthday and now I am 26, which is more than halfway to 50, and also on the “wrong” side of 25. Cannot believe that it was this week, an entire decade ago, that I was failing my drivers’ test.

I have a total chip on my shoulder about my birthday, because since it’s July 6 people are always out of town or hanging with their families, so they forget about it or can’t come to parties. As a kid I always had the tiniest birthday parties and I’d feel like a loser. When you’re seven you don’t really care that all your friends are at their lake houses; you just care that you had to call in your B-list friends to make up some semblance of a celebration.

So I was sort of bummed about celebrating it in this new town where I have basically no friends. It turned out pretty nice though: Mike, Jane, Jane’s sister, and two girls in my department at school who I had only met twice took me out for sushi. They even brought cards. I ate an obscene mountain of sushi.

Then we went to the bar where Jane works and sat on the roof terrace. Another girl from school showed up and she turned out to be awesome too. I had pear cider.

On the bad side, my best friend of NINETEEN YEARS forgot about my birthday entirely and has yet to call. I am thinking about sending her an email entitled “Happy belated birthday!” And then typing inside “Oh wait, it wasn’t your birthday. IT WAS MINE. Wench.” Or something like that.

Is that too passive-aggressive?