11-30-04
Produce aisle guilt.
I needed to buy tomatoes yesterday. I don't know if you've ever browsed tomatoes in a Michigan supermarket in late November*, but they are not a pretty sight. The bulk tomatoes were a variety of colors, none of which were natural for a healthy tomato. The tomatoes on the vine were red, although how they got way was also probably not very natural. They were the same price as the bulk tomatoes ($2.99/lb), but they came in packages of five and I only needed two. Eventually, my inner aesthete won out over my inner cheapskate (I don't really like tomatoes so I probably wouldn't care/notice if they tasted bad, but red ones would look so pretty in the salad I was going to make!), and I decided on the tomatoes on the vine.
Twenty minutes later, I was standing at the checkout and the cashier scanned the tomatoes and threw them in a bag. She scanned them because they had a UPC on the bag instead of weighing them as a per pound item. The computer knew that they were a per pound item and added the price up according the weight on the scale, which was only .03 lb because they only brushed against it as the cashier scanned them and put them in my bag. The price rang up as nine cents.
I was watching this on the little screen, because I've found that if I don't pay close attention to that screen, I tend to get overcharged and I'm not an assertive enough person to go to the service desk and complain. When I saw the tomatoes I thought, "Say something. Say something. Say something. Say something," but I just stood there not saying anything. While I was walking to my car I thought about going to the service desk. While I was driving home I felt guilty.
At 3 o'clock this morning, I was laying in bed feeling guilty about my nine cent tomatoes. And I know that if I had gone to the service desk all that would've happened was that I would've gotten charged too much for out of season tomatoes**, but this is really the kind of thing that I'll feel guilty about for the rest of my life. And I know that there are a number of reasons why I shouldn't worry much about it, but I also know that I'll keep worrying anyway.
**Actually, I'm pretty sure they couldn't have charged me more and there's some law that says the store has to give you five dollars (or something like that) for pointing out their mistake. So really, not going to the service desk has more to do with that lack of assertiveness than about wanting to save money.
*We have greenhouses in order to grow plants in the offseason, right? And produce comes from plants? And there are greenhouses in Michigan? So why can't I buy a decent tomato between the months of October and May?
np: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists-Shake the Sheets
11-25-04
And dogs in the neighborhood are going crazy.
Today we got eight inches of snow! It would have been more fun if I hadn't been driving in it. And actually, it would've been fine if I had been the only one on the highway, but there were lots of other people on it too, and for some reason everyone forgets how to drive when it starts to snow: "Quick, Mildred, slow down to thirty miles an hour and periodically slam on the brakes for no reason at all!" I passed about five accidents on the way, and that was early in the afternoon just after it started to snow.
Also, today I did laundry and since the last time I did laundry (12 days ago), I have only worn five pairs of socks.
Anyway, we have cookies and salad and the inevitable church windows, so I think we are all set for some family togetherness. I plan on winning several games of dominoes, even though there isn't anything very impressive about beating your 12-year-old cousins or Parkinson's-afflicted grandfather in a game of dominoes.
Happy Thanksgiving and remember that it is your duty as an American to eat a lot. [If you are not American, have fun at work Thursday! And if you are in the mood to invade the USA, Thursday would be a good day to do it because 99% of the population will be lying on couches with their belts unbuckled, watching football games. My family won't, since we're not eating ourselves silly until Friday, but we're Mennonite so we won't fight back.] Please note that I do not condone invading america. Or watching football. However, I am in favor of eating.
np: this computer makes many wonderful and amazing noises.
11-21-04
I did throw away two pairs that I bought at the dollar store because they were saggy.
Since I was injured when my box of tights fell on my head the other day, I decided that I should probably go through them and get rid of the ones that I didn't want or need anymore. The problem was that every time I took out a new pair and tried them on to inspect for holes and snags and runs and to see if they still fit, I could think of at least one hypothetical situation in which I would still want need those specific tights again. Sometimes I even managed to justify keeping tights that I've never worn, because there might come a day, sometime, somewhere, in which they will be necessary. (Like those wide fishnets. I might go goth any day now. You never know.)
So what I did is, I stuffed them all back in the box and then rearranged my closet so that the box is on a lower shelf than it was before.
np: Gorky's Zygotic Mynci-Eyes of Green, Green, Green
11-20-04
I've always been wary of tofu but tonight the laziness won, with dire consequences.
Ugh. I think I ate some bad tofu tonight. I was in tiptop condition before I ate those cheese and tofu stuffed shells, and since cheese is my friend and would never do anything to hurt me, it must've been the tofu.
Oh, also the stuffed shells were a week old and I was just too lazy to make new food. My roommate (who made them) said, "Those shells are a week old! I'm not going to eat any more of them!" And I said, "Oh, I'm sure they're still good. I've probably eaten worse things, anyway." And while the latter statement remains true, the former seems to have been proven false.
Ugh.
np: John Vanderslice-Field Guide
11-18-04
I'd swim across Lake Michigan.
Last night I went to see Sufjan Stevens, and on the way home my friend said that he looked like Ashton Kutcher.
I don't really see it. I think her only major argument for a resemblance was that they are both men.
In addition to being incredibly hot and crowded (on a Wednesday night! don't people have jobs and school and stuff?), the show was amazing. Half an hour before I was due to leave I almost decided not to go because I had dropped a plastic box full of tights on my face and my lip was bleeding, and I was tired, and driving to Detroit was the last thing that I wanted to do with my evening. But leaving the house paid off this time.
Also, standing in a smokey room and having to yell my idiotic conversations really sexified my voice.
np: Sufjan Stevens-To Be Alone With You
11-13-04
Money and a fancy new toothbrush.
So, I DO have a second job. And pathetically enough, even with my second job I won't be working forty hours a week. I probably won't even be working close to forty hours a week. But any extra money is better than no extra money.
[Speaking of which, I got a raise recently which took effect in September, but which I only started getting paid for in this week's paycheck because I had to sign some papers or something. Anyway, I got my check yesterday and was so excited about the prospect of getting my raise money for all the hours I worked since September, until I opened the envelope up and discovered that it only came to $28. I mean, I knew it wouldn't be much. But still.]
After my pseudo-interview yesterday, I rewarded myself for my new employment by buying a fancy new toothbrush. While I was standing in line to pay for it, the whole situation seemed kind of ridiculous: a job falls into my lap, I go to an interview that's not really an interview but more of a "I'd-just-like-to-see-what-you-look-like-before -I-put-you-to-work" kind of thing, and then after considering a number of candies and superdelicious snack cakes, I reward myself by buying a toothbrush with a toothbrush with a flexible head. Weird.
Also, thanks to Entertainment Weekly and my compulsive desire to enter to win anything and everything that I see up for grabs, I am in possession of two tickets to a sneak preview of Alexander, a movie that I have no intention of ever seeing. I doubt that I even know anyone who would want them (which isn't saying a whole lot, since I only know, like, two people). But I would like to put them to use, since the more free movie passes I get (and which get used), the more my magazine subscription pays for itself. So if you or a loved one is going to be in the Detroit area (specifically Southfield) on November 23 and you (or your loved one) want(s) to see Alexander, let me know and you can have the passes. I'd try to sell them on eBay, but that's really more effort than I care to exert on them.
np: the Zombies-This Will Be Our Year
11-10-04
The neverending quest for an impressive dish to pass.
Yesterday I made pumpkin pecan cheesecake. After spending an hour making it, an hour baking it, and five hours chilling it, it was disappointing to remember that I don't like pumpkin things. At least I learned that I really like cheesecake crusts made out of pecans.
I've been trying to figure out what I want to make to take to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving (which will also be Christmas, since we only gather all together for one winter holiday). I all of a sudden worried that my family thinks that I'm not good at any of the things that they're good at. Sure, I can't sew or quilt or really do anything very crafty, but I can cook. I just don't cook for them, usually. I'm already planning on making peanut butter/snickers cookies (you wrap peanut butter cookie dough around those square bite-sized Snickers bars and you get a delicious cookie of deliciousness!), but no one is impressed by cookies.
People should be impressed by cookies, but they're just not.
Not-food-relatedly, I might have some action on the second part-time job front. They sounded desperate. I sounded available. It's a match made in heaven!
Finally, hundreds of sparrows and hundreds of sparrows.
np: Sparklehorse-Hundreds of Sparrows
11-03-04
We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
Today I made walnut apple raisin cookies. They are a tad more healthy than I generally prefer my cookies to be (oatmeal AND apples. and don't even get me started on those raisins.), but they're still kind of TOTALLY DELICIOUS (I <3 cinnamon and nutmeg). I wish that the recipe had actually made the four dozen cookies that it promised me, but it only produced a mere 31, which at the rate I'm eating them will only last until tomorrow afternoon.
Yesterday a woman at work told me that I had beautiful fingers. I freaked out and said, "Sometimes I pick at them until they bleed." She said, "Oh."
And finally, seven little words that might come in handy during the next four years [Please note that I am something of a fatalist, and the election results neither surprise nor appall me, since they were what I expected all along.]:
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
np: Interpol-Evil
11-01-04
Nah, nothing made of dead guys.
1. I need at least a week between political tv advertisements and any commercial containing a Christmas song. Like, for real, people. Come on. Please.
2. And what is the deal with the Christmas songs already? It's like the calendar ticked over to November 1 and everyone went nuts. C'mon folks, I haven't even gotten my half price Halloween candy yet!
3. Today Ben and Jerry's was giving out free samples at Meijer! Except it was raining and I was carrying a 24-pack of diet Pepsi for my mom so I couldn't eat my ice cream until I got to the car and by then it was all wet (plus with my hands full of ice cream and Pepsi I couldn't put my hood on so my hair got all weird and fuzzy) (except I didn't wash it today so it didn't get as fuzzy as it would have if it hadn't been so greasy). But still - free Cherry Garcia!
4. I had an eating mishap this weekend in which I got tomato sauce on my bra but not on any other article of clothing, which is pretty amazing considering I was wearing three layers of clothing at the time. It was very impressive in its complexity.
5. Who are these people that decide they can't go vote because it's raining? Will they melt? Are they just lazy? I walked to the mailbox in a thunderstorm to mail my absentee ballot. Well, I was actually just going for a walk and decided that I'd mail my ballot if I saw a mailbox and then the thunderstorm kind of snuck up on me. The point is, though, that I arrived home soaking wet and minus one absentee voter's ballot. (Actually, I think the point of that was that I think I'm better than people that won't go vote if it's raining.)
6. Oh, for the election to just be over.
np: the Flaming Lips-Suddenly Everything Has Changed
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