Sunday, July 13, 2008

other things under my skin.

Creepy Neighbot
I have a neighbot that's staring into my window. The gray-haired, gut-hanging-out-the-bottom-of-his-shirt, me-in-fifteen-years type. Maybe future-me is here to spy on present-me and make sure I'm keeping my shit in order and not bleeding out from stupid self-inflicted injuries.* But honestly? I would never stop caring about my appearance so much to walk around with my stomach hanging out. I hope if I ever outgrow my favorite t-shirts, I'll simply give them to goodwill.** And go on a diet. And even if I refused to ship my favorite shirts out, I suspect I'd layer with a longer shirt.
Fat bellied etiquette aside, layering tees lets the bottom shirt catch the sweat in the summer so you don't ruin your nice shirts. Even your nice t-shirts.*** I hope neighbot reads this. I'm only 40% angry that he's violating my privacy. The other 60% of my misdirected disdain is over his repulsiveness.**** That really shoots the future-me theory in the foot. He should know this shit and have it processed and internalized, as I've/he's written about it. Maybe he's beginning to understand my feelings right now. Maybe whenever I yell at him from the stoop to cut the shit I'll violate some time/mind continuum law and the universe will implode.

It'll be worth it.

Brilliant
"By Jove, I've had an idea."
-"Well, spit it out man."
"Well everyone's complaining about the water of death. Their soap won't lather and their shampoo won't really ever come out of their hair and whenever they step out of the shower their skin is so dry it falls off in sheets."
-"Yes, I understand it's a problem in the western territories."
"Instead of calling it 'water of death,' I think we're going to start referring to it as 'hard water.' That way, people won't be sure if they actually have it and it won't sound so intimidating."
-"Capital idea."
"Hmm, yes. I think we could also make some restaurants, and get rid of the service aspect entirely, and call it 'fast food."
-"Brilliant!"

Shopping List
1. Chicken (Miller Chicken Breast, 6.49. Purdue was roughly two dollars cheaper. But the Miller packaging said "Antibiotic-free" so big. And does that mean cage free too? Maybe free range? Happy chicken corpses for two more dollars sounds fair)
2. Can Opener *x5 (8.29!)
3. Hot Sauce (Frank's Red Hot (2.69) 12oz)
4. Elbow Mac (Heartland Rotini (1.50)instead. Rachael Ray said use Elbow Mac, but whatever...)
5. Carrots and Celery ("Mini carrots" -1.00 Celery -1.99)
6. Soup (Chunky is "on sale" at 1.79. I bought three cans (.79)of chicken and rice****** and treated myself to two cans of split pea and ham. Interesting phenomenon: Fully Loaded. I remember whenever Chunky soup was just a non-condensed form of premium cambpell's. What the fuck?)
7. Eggs (half dozen. .99. I have a skillet now. I should make breakfast some day. Still haven't secured a toaster oven...)
8. Veggie Nugs (Morningstar Chicken Nuggets are 4.49. What an extravagance! I guess if I ever go Veggie, I have to go Vegan.)
9. Pizza Rolls (Tostino's Cheese- 1.29 A much fairer price for the luxury of instameals)
10. Sweet, Sweet Coffee (Also, why are Dunkin' Donuts coffee beans expensive now? (8.79) I mean, I'll buy any coffee that's good and not paying tithe to Israel, but if you can do it for six dollars, do it for six dollars...)
11. Shredded Mozzarella (2 bags of Kroger brand Moz.- 5.00)
12. Non-dairy creamer (D'OH!)
13. Diced Tomatoes (2 cans Kb Mexican Style- 1.22)
Unplanned Purchases: Kb Singles (1.67- Skillet means grilled cheese), Kb Black Bean (.61), Kb Vidalia Onion (.72).

State got .56 cents for the can opener, which was very honest of Kroeger.
Kroeger got 55.39.
I got home and cut up the chicken, threw it in the pot with some olive oil and cajun seasoning.******* I chopped up the carrots, onion, and celery, and threw all that into the bottom of the slow cooker...crock. Once the chicken was done I dumped that in there too, along with those two cans of diced tomatoes and a liberal shot *x8 of hot sauce. Heated up the slow cooker and boiled the rotini, mixed them together with a half bag of moz.
Waited twenty minutes.
Got it in me.

And that feels good.

*and superficial
**except for my "scud" shirt. It's a collector's item. holes and all.
***someday I'll look through my various receipts and figure out just how many bicycles I could have bought if I'd opted to buy plain white undershirts and dress shirts instead of a cavalcade of punny Hanes beefy tees. Then I can finally get my "Dumb Ass" tattoo. I'll have earned it.
**** Arbitrary percentages. While I do have an alembic and a calcinator for distilling and measuring the various point of origins in any emotion, Brain Spickets are notoriously difficult to use, and I wouldn't use one without an assistant. I need a Rosenfeld-Chagall.
***** and thank God I remembered that one.
****** Campbell's condensed. Sorry Chunky, a buck is a book of papers/ bottle of soda/ ten sheets of copied paper. And don't tell me it's not all going to the same place. You're just worried about messing up your intercorp competition numbers.
******* Both of which were Kroeger Brand (Kb). They said they'd give me free groceries, what do you want?
******** half the bottle

5 comments:

Kara Spaulding said...

1. I haven't gotten to Season 4, but I think LOST's Desmond might cover some of your current-you-future-you issues? Except I don't think the current-Desmond has ever come face-to-face with the future-Desmond. Or would that be past- with current-? Or...well. Maybe I shouldn't be pointing you down this road.

2. At first I thought you bought five can openers. Which would've been understandable.

misanthropic bastard said...

1. LOST = can o' worms but that's also mind travel. I feel like that does resolve some of the issues, particularly why future-me wouldn't have knowledge of my opinion of him. (I wouldn't be here. I'd be in the future. Buying longer t-shirt. Interesting thought: Maybe I am future me. It explains so much!)

2. An unintended but desirable side-effect of footnote abbreviation.
Seriously, I'm glad that happened. I'm going to edit the *x8 out now so it looks like I did it on purpose... because you know, I totally did.

misanthropic bastard said...

actually, it works there too. and I did it on purpose.

Angel Surdin said...

Nice post.

Time travel.
Lists.
Asides.*
* complete with asterisks.

Awesome.

misanthropic bastard said...

I like the asterisks, and the lateral effect you were talking about. And it turns out with unicode you get one superscript number.¹ I'm not sure about blogger's preference to stick to left- or right- justification, so that may sink the horizontal field, at least as far me and the internet are concerned.

¹hold Alt and press 0185 on the num pad.†
†It occurs to me that I should have thought of the character map sooner. Like, every time I forgot how to put an ascending accent on an a or an e.