Me: I'd like to fill out an application—
Post Office Employee: [world's largest eye roll]
Me: —for a P.O. box.
Post Office Employee: Oh. For a P.O. box? Sure thing.

What, like I was dragging my 22-year-old body to the Post Office with my mommy in tow to fill out an application for employment? Nice try, buddy, but you'll have to find some other gullible soul to make out with in the janitor's closet. But keep up the good work on the eye rolling. The ladies dig that.

Skirtsville is not home to any great chefs. My mom doesn't cook. My dad doesn't cook. My brother doesn't cook. I'm doing well to put together a bowl of cereal in the morning in less than three tries. "Hell's Kitchen" is redundant to us.

Foods we have managed to mash together to form edible meals or snacks:

• Peanut butter and bagels
• Grape Nuts and raisins
• Ham and cherries
• Jelly and pancakes
• Cantaloupe and ice cream (pictured above)

Now, my brother and I did spend a lazy, summer day dipping a variety of foods in chocolate pudding, but no great recipes came from those adventures. (Note to you: Pickles and Doritos should stay far away from chocolate pudding.)

Being Culinarily Challenged doesn't usually bother me because, well, I live in Chicago. There are at least fifteen decent pizza joints within walking distance and just as many great pizzerias within a reasonable driving distance. I could live happily on a diet of cereal, pizza, and chocolate for the rest of my life.

However, it dawns on me that, should I end up back in Texas this fall, I will be one thousand miles away from edible pizza. I will be in a forsaken land of places like Pizza Warehouse and Pizzas 'R' Us, where "Chicago-style" translates to "thicker crust" or something equally stupid.

That said, I'm asking for any tips you may have on cooking. Favorite snack food that's easy to make? Easy dinner recipe that makes for great leftovers? Anything, people. (And zomg, yes, I know I can have Giordano's shipped anywhere in the United States. I already plan to do that at least once a semester.) Please help!

P.S. Title stolen from Sleeping Beauty, and, yes, I still want to change my name to Aurora. And marry a handsome prince. (Hopefully, he will be able to cook.)

Last time I mentioned books, I was buying a lot of them based on some some stellar recommendations from you peoples. In the first week, I polished off White Oleander, as it came with the most lovin'. I was skeptical as I read the first paragraph, but by the end I was weeping because it was finished. I wanted to live in that story for months, not days.

Then I moved on to A Million Little Pieces. The writing style threw me off at first, and it took me a full week to convince myself that "abnormal" does not equal "stupid." And so I dove in and devoured every crazy word as fast as my eyes could stomach them. (Hey, I aced biology, thank you.) I was sad at the end of that book, too, but I was beginning to remember how fun it could be to hop from one imaginary world to the next.

Enter Moby Dick, stage left.

Holy (sea) cow, I have been stuck on page eighty-four (which is really page three, but what's an obnoxiously long book without obnoxiously long introductions?) for ten years now. I know, I know. That doesn't really fit the timeline of the story, but I'm pretty sure there was a black hole involved. And that black hole looks suspiciously like the ghost of Herman Melville.

The quitter in me wants to find another book and come back to Moby Dick later, but too many people have seen me lugging it around. Soon, they'll want to know what I thought of the book, and I do not have the energy to tell them that I would rather sell my soul to the devil than read another quote about whales.

UGH. All this to say, please help me find a less tedious book to read next. If it's one you've already suggested here, please let me know (so I don't go out and buy a second copy or something stupid). New recommendations are welcome, as well. Just nothing involving whales or 300-page introductions. Please and thank you.