Things That Irrationally Annoy Me: From Sweet Jalapeños to AI Slop
The creeping realization that there’s not enough time.
To read, to travel, to spend with the people you love, to cook for the people you love, to craft, to watch movies, to make playlists, to LIVE.
I will never get to live in Paris for a year or spend a year in India really learning how to cook. I probably won’t get to hike at Mt. Hood in the fall or spend hours in the library just devouring every book I can because I have a job and a family and responsibilities.
So, I guess I just have to do as much of the things I can while I have the time and capacity to do them. But God, there is something devastating about knowing you will never be able to really dedicate yourself to it all.
Peeling gel nail polish.
I know it’s destroying my nails and it looks awful but I can’t help it. Also gel manicures are really expensive.
Men.
This is self-explanatory and I swear to God, if your immediate response to this is, “Not all men,” - please know that I’m talking specifically about you. You annoy me.
Sweet jalapeños.
I like sweet, I love spicy but I can’t fuck with these two rivers merging. I am not a spicy margarita girl and I am put off by the concept of Cowboy Candy. Also, heatless jalapeños are an abomination before The Lord Our God and Aaron Sanchez. God damn you to hell, Aggies.
The lack of maple spice as a coffee syrup at most major coffee retailers.
Look, I know that everyone loves pumpkin and apples and that’s great but you guys. A latte that feels like spiced banana pancakes might just take the edge off the continual poorly-scripted horror podcast that is modern American life.
Matcha.
I want to like it so badly but my mouth, she revolts.
That shitty scratchy font on AI posters and how text dense they all are.
This is the actual definition of, “Yeah, I ain’t reading all that.” The ghost of the Hatch Brothers just need to haunt the people who advocate for this slop for the rest of eternity.
That influencer girl who said she doesn’t read.
Support your local library and get a library card. Then, download either Libby or CloudLibrary and read literally everything you can get your hands on.
The fact that I continually confuse Jena Malone with Jenna Maroney.
One is Johanna from The Hunger Games movie and the other is a master thespian who studied stage acting and game show pointing at the Royal Tampa Academy of Dramatic Tricks.
Girls.
It was never my thing and I’m not really a Lena Dunham fan.
When I first started dating my now-husband, he wanted to show me what he thought was one of the most romantic scenes in the show - when Hannah has a panic attack and calls Adam and he sprints to her rescue.
My response - “That’s not romantic. That’s just being a person. You take care of people who need to be taken care of. It’s not romantic; it’s the base line.”
Meanwhile, my definition of romantic? Before Sunrise where you spend the whole night talking to someone and they listen to you and you’re in Europe.
My husband and I have been together for thirteen years, married for seven of them and in this time, been parents to one child, one cat and two dogs. We make it work.
Shitty brown bread.
The Nature’s Own kind. Give a girl some heft and some grains. If it’s not the kind of stuff an Irish grandmother would approve of, I don’t want it.
