I work at a frozen yogurt shop. I leave my store every night smelling of bleach (from doing the dishes) and putrid dairy products, holding on my hips those few extra pounds — a result of hunger, boredom, theft, and experimentation.

I play my music at a piercing volume at home, in my car, at work.  Not because I’m one of those teenagers who have no respect for their surrounding neighbors, but because I’m pretty sure my hearing is deteriorating as we speak (erm, as I type and as you read).  As a kid, I sat too close to the television and wanted my episode of Rugrats to completely blare through the speakers.  Which also explains the severity of my eyeglass prescription.

I was pitter-pattering in the kitchen completing my daily duties when the owner of the Mexican restaurant next door walked in and proclaimed that my music was seeping through the walls.  It was entirely way too loud and needed to be turned down.

I stared at her blankly and said, “Excuse me?”

She repeated her request again.

And again, “Excuse me?  I’m so sorry.  I’m partially deaf.”

Okay, I’m probably going to go to hell for lying to her about being deaf. But then again, it isn’t an entirely gross exaggeration, I don’t hear as well as I probably should.  But she made me feel like a jackass for playing my music at a normal volume — a normal one for me, at least — so I, in turn, made her feel like a jackass for being rude to a “deaf” person.

Last week, I was walking through Ralph’s buying hot dogs (which, by the way, are remarkably overpriced — at least, more expensive than I had earlier thought when I volunteered to buy what I assumed was the cheapest thing on the list) for Emmeline’s Birthday Barbecue Bonanza.  She didn’t name it that.  My fingers sometimes type without my brain’s endorsement.

I made my way down the refrigerated deli meats aisle at a brisk pace towards what I could plainly see was their expansive hot dog section.  But something stopped me.  I felt it.  There is was.  Pulling me back.  Something akin to a your soul’s other half, longing to forever conjoin.  When you feel it, you feel it.

So, I slowly backed up.  Step, step, step.  And my intuition felt it.  “Turn to your right,” it said.  And I did.

There it was.

The honey mustard bottle.

If my three best friends are reading this, they’re probably choking with laughter.  I have a strange and unnatural obsession with honey mustard.  So sweet, so tart, so delectably delicious in every way.  It compliments most everything that it has graced as THE condiment.  The only one that satisfies my heart’s every desire.  “You have a boyfriend?”  No.  I have honey mustard.  And that’s all I need.

A few years ago, while riding down the Boulevard in Stacy’s car, I was looking out the window when I felt the urge to announce to my three friends, “You know what I love?  Honey mustard.”  And from that day on, at any mention of this yellow paste, my friends would burst in what can only be described as laughter of the mockery brand.

For the last week, I’ve carried this bottle of mustard with me in my purse, eating everything with a dollop atop it.

I stepped on my scale this morning.

Suffice it to say, I don’t like honey mustard anymore.

At times, especially with the assistance of the extra monthly dose of hormones, I tend to become a tad over dramatic.  Two Wednesdays ago proved to be one of these days when I impetuously modified one of my many emotional pulls into a $176 plane ticket.

I turned impulse to action when — actually, for once, I’m not into the whole divulging every detail thing.  Let’s just say God’s comedic timing while writing The Drama of Jamie is still just as flawless as ever.  And when I say comedic, I mean comedy at the expense of the main character.  So, to escape the humility, I opened up Southwest.com and bought myself a ticket to San Francisco with most of the paycheck I had received earlier that week.  I left San Diego a little over 24 hours later on a voyage into the arms of my best friends, Madonna and Stacy.

I’m back now, in the comfort of my own home, bed, and computer, trying to artfully and cleverly manipulate my trip into strings of words, but to no avail.  I’m not sure if San Francisco, time, or lack of practice has drained me of my ability to blog, but nevertheless, I’m still attempting.

This blog has been sitting under “Drafts” for almost a week and… I give up.  I’m going to post it as is, half-written with a sorry excuse attached at the bottom.

But you get the point: I was depressed, so I impulsively flew to San Francisco.  Aside from the Asian man with the flapping lips and inability to contain his spit that I sat next to on the plane and the pile-of-vomit-disguised-as-a-pile-of-newspaper I sat next to on the BART, ‘twas an overall good trip.  I had missed my friends and, y’know what?  Drunkenly sobbing into your pillow isn’t quite the same if you’re not sandwiched between the two girls who know you more than anyone really should.

Now that I’ve covered the gist of my trip, please excuse me while I slowly burn out my already deteriorating eyeballs re-watching all three seasons of Chuck, pausing in between each episode to replenish my Twinkie stash and to use the restroom.