As I was walking home from the train, it was getting dark, so there were tons of kids out trick-or-treating. The best one I saw was a little Superman with angelic curly blond hair who was screaming bloody murder about wanting to go home. Mom was trying to reason with Superman, but he just screamed harder and stomped his feet. I wish I had a video camera– he was a perfect example of Truth, Justice, and the American Way!

As I worked today, lots of people stared at my watering can, and then looked me up and down trying to determine what my costume was. Someone actually asked me what I was, and I was totally stumped for a response. I thought of a witty response about 2 hours after the fact, but then promptly forgot it of course.

So… my biggest accomplishment of the day, besides having it take 45 minutes to buy 4 feet (I really wanted 3 feet, but couldn’t find an adequate measuring tool other than a 4-foot fluorescent lightbulb) of wire from Home Depot for my costume for tomorrow’s party at Laura’s and Jack’s. Nobody was around in the electrical section so I had to wait for various people who didn’t speak English or any language I can get around in (Urdu? Swahili? Why didn’t I pay more attention to those?) to try to find someone else to help me, was to discover that rum and Orangina actually go quite nicely together. I thought that it would be too sweet, but it’s actually pretty good.

Lil’ Bitch and I were going to go hang out in Allston tonight, but he bailed. Whatever. I saw Religulous today and it was pretty good– Bill Maher uses some kind of cringeworthy interviewing techniques at times, but all in all I’m glad he had the guts to come right out and say that religion is stupid. Non religious people are too worried about offending religious people– we’ll always lose against them, though. Our basis for not having religion is science, logic and reason. People who are religious come at it from a totally different angle, one that can’t be explained, so rational explanation will just make them mad.

Anyway… yeah, I forgot what I was going to say. too much rum and orangina. I wonder if there’s a name for this? Maybe I’ll make one up… it’s going to tentatively be called the Scaffold, just because I like that word.

I’m not a completely cynical, jaded, sarcastic, obnoxious, crabby brat. OK, at least not 100% of the time. Somewhere way deep down is still the same person I was when I was a kid– that person that still enjoys skipping rocks and thinks perhaps that the world isn’t doomed to a post-apocalyptic Mad Max state soon. There are few things that can flake away all the burnt crusts of disillusion and resignation to mediocrity that obscure this part of me… one of them, however, is music.

The quickest most obvious form of music is a concert and holy crap can a good show totally blow away all the crud, exposing the shiny (heh, as a typo I just wrote “whiny”– freudian slip?) soft underbelly of the uncorrupted part of my soul. I just got back from one such show– seeing Jamie Lidell and Janelle Monae at the Paradise tonight.

Every time I see J.L., the show is better than the last. He has this totally amazing backing band now– the saxophone player plays a tenor and an alto sax *at the same time* and the guitarist/bassist jumps around and wears this Elvis jumpsuit… there’s also this really good keyboard player and a drummer who I couldn’t see because I’m way too short, but he sounded awesome! then there’s Jamie Lidell himself who is just the bee’s knees. Seriously. He can sing, he can do funky weird experimental electronic stuff, he’s funny, and a little eccentric. His shows are just amazing! They just get better and better! I even got to sing a line from “Multiply”– he always has members of the audience sing different lines into the microphone one at a time– my 0.5 seconds of fame, I guess!

Janelle Monae is completely amazing, too. She looks like she’s about 10 years old, but she sings like no one I’ve ever heard! She is amazingly fab. I command you to check her out.

I would describe more of this show except my cat is being an asshole begging for attention and hijacking my plane of thought. uno momento…

So yeah, the concert was awesome, and just what I needed to get me un-bummed about the general loserosity of my shitty job, lack of friends, budget limitations, car that still won’t start on command, bulemic cat, wrist that won’t heal (though I have this new Borg-esque wrist brace that looks kind of scary, but seems to work really well), etc.

Also, before the show, Patty and I spent the day driving out to Western Mass to check out the fall foliage in some quaint little towns. The weather was beautiful and it was really fun! The leaves were lovely and it was nice to get out of the city. We went to uh… West Somethingville and watched them blow a lump of glass into a vase, had some homemade maple flavored ice cream and… found THE TRANNY SHOP!

I wonder if the Deaf Slow Child is also a tranny?

We ended up in Amherst and had yummy pizza from this place that Patty claims is the best pizza place in the world. I’ve never had artichokes on pizza before, so I guess it’s the best I’ve ever had too.

I watched the first episode of the American version of Life on Mars the other night. It was EXACTLY like the BBC one. I mean the dialog, even the sets looked exactly the same! The only main difference was that Annie was a skinny blonde chick rather than Liz White, who is awesome and a little chunky for US TV. I forgot that you can’t have chubby chicks on tv here unless they are playing the Chubby Chick. Anyway, L.O.M. is good– I mean, how could you not like it since it’s exactly the same as the original so far and I liked that?

On Friday I saw Choke, which I really dug a lot. I think I liked it better than the book. But then, I recall not really loving the book that much. I have it still in the bag of stuff to give back to The Biatch, maybe I’ll read it again. I love Kelly MacDonald in pretty much every movie!

Today I was going to have a party, but all 42 people I invited had something better to do (except possibly Holly from Newbs, who is awesome, but I wasn’t sure she was actually coming), so I cancelled it. Sadly enough, this isn’t the first time I’ve thrown a party and nobody’s shown up. In fact, it’s not even the second. It would actually be the fourth, if I’m counting the one I had in Ithaca where the only person to come was Bridget who could only stay for a 1/2 hour and brought some unknown friend who proceeded to make passive-aggressive comments about what a lousy pet owner I am, re: how fat my cat was the entire time (i.e, “My, what a BIG boy you are! My my, your mommy sure does FEED YOU A LOT! Does your vet think you should LOSE SOME WEIGHT?”).

Anyway, I didn’t have to make dinner for anyone, nor did I have to clean the house, which would have been a herculean task, so I guess that’s a bonus.

I still have all the ingredients for the molded Mai Tai Salad (requires booze!), I’ll just have to make it all for myself, Little Red Hen style, bitchez!

Tonight’s entertainment was provided at the Coolidge Corner theater by the Found Footage Festival, which was totally awesome. It’s two guys who used to write for the Onion and david Letterman and stuff who collect random video tapes from yard sales and thrift shops and then put them together in funny montages and stuff. mostly they just speak for themselves, though. Little Marcy even made a cameo appearance! i wish I could find a copy of the instructional video they made us watch when I worked at Cornell– it was made in England and featured English people getting mutilated by staplers and things in an office. The best part was when a dude walked into a back room and the copier suddenly exploded, blinding him. Maybe I’ve found a home for all the stupid random videotapes I’ve been amassing for time immemorial (such as the instructional tape on how to deal with homosexuality in the workplace). Krustee’s grandfather’s instructional video on how to play the musical saw may have found new life!

i just received the package in the mail of the stuff I picked up from Nana’s house but didn’t take back with me on the plane…

I now own

THREE JELL-O MOLDS!!!

2 are shaped like fish, one is shaped sort of like an oblong pumpkin on its side.

I WILL GEL THE FUCK OUT OF THINGS!!!

I’m already planning a feast of molded salad… but don’t worry, I’m not going to make the kind like Nana was into with lime Jello, ham, carrot slices, pineapples and other such things that should not be suspended together in anything green.

Ooh, check this out… bloody mary salad!

Bloody Mary Mix Aspic

Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method
——– ———— ——————————–
2 Envelopes unflavored gelatin
2 cups TABASCO Bloody Mary Mix
1 Bay leaf
1 1/2 cups Water
1 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Sugar

In medium saucepan, sprinkle gelatin over Bloody Mary Mix. Add bay leaf.
Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until gelatin dissolves, about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat; remove bay leaf. Stir in remaining ingredients.
Pour into a 4-cup mold. Chill until firm. To serve, unmold onto serving platter.
Serve with cottage cheese, seafood salad or chicken salad. Serves 4.

That sounds absolutely foul! It’s almost so foul I may have to make it just to expound upon the heinousity of it! If you add booze, will the gelatin still gel?

I also have a white faux-wicker purse with mother-of-toilet-seat handles and fake luggage tags on the outside announcing “London,” “Rome,” “New York” and “Paris.” I think this is going to be my new look– I’ll add the mink stole with “FMB” embroidered on the velvet lining and I will be totally chic as well as a target for animal rights activists!

I’d take a picture, except my stupid Dalek web cam never seems to work when I want it to. It’s kind of ironic (or maybe fitting) that it totally doesn’t work with the TARDIS USB hub.

I finally upgraded Word Press, and got a new template… and it ate all my categories. That’s OK, since all the categories were pretty vague and all my posts consisted of something like the following:

Today work really (sucked/was awesome). I (love/hate/feel indifferent towards) my (awesome/sucky) job.

I just got a new CD by (insert band here), and it’s really awesome/lame (though I really haven’t bought a sucky CD in a long time). It’s (better/ faster/ worse/ cheerier/ more depressing) than their last album, but I still (love/hate/loathe/am strangely aroused by) it.

-Some allegedly quirky anecdote about people I came in contact with on the train-

-some tamely scathing observation about the world around us-

-whine about poverty/ aches and pains/ Ben Affleck’s repretoire/ etc.-

-something about the cats-

and that about covers it!

First link, from The Biatch: Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

Second of all, thanks to Krustee, I’ve just ordered one of these:

Other than that, I spent all 11 hours of my work day composing an entry in my head about how kooky rich people are, specifically at two ends of the spectrum where I began and ended my work day: at Whole Foods (organic snobby grocery store) and at a Lexus dealership.

By the end of the day, I was so sick of thinking about rich people that I really don’t want to write much on the subject except for one observation…

Whole Foods is an Inconvenience store. Not only is everything wicked expensive, but people go out of their way to be inconvenienced there. For example… all the plants I water are on top of the dairy aisle. When I’m in the dairy aisle, I’m on a ladder, which blocks whatever ladder-wide section I happen to be in front of. No matter what people are looking for, they ALWAYS go tot he section of food my ladder is blocking first. At first I thought this was a coincidence, but then I started studying the pattern. The aisle would be empty except for me and my ladder… a customer would come into the aisle, look confused for a moment, and then in a perturbed manner, would sigh and try to crane their necks around my ladder to get a better look. Perhaps he or she would move closer, possibly making a small grunting noise of impatience. Perhaps he or she would try to get around the ladder and then make a huge show of apologizing like 100 times for bumping into me… the kind of apology that is actually a passive-aggressive way of saying “YOU’RE IN MY WAY, ASSHOLE!” The customer would then the actual product he or she was looking for, which was obviously nowhere near my ladder, pick it up and then exit the aisle. This happened with at least 80% of the customers. It’s really kind of hysterical– people go into Whole Foods looking to suffer for their organic wheat-grass infused yak yogurt for $9.99 a cup!

Compare with this Market Basket, which is the ghetto store where I shop (nobody I know will step foot in one, proclaiming it to be “too scary” i.e., full of ethic/poor people). There was a cart blocking part of the juice aisle when I was in there the other day, and people avoided the area like the plague. I don’t think a single person even considered buying juice while the cart was there– it just wasn’t important enough for them to get around or ask about. Market Basket shoppers, though they can be annoying in their own way just like anyone in a grocery store, don’t have the same self-important feeling like nothing should be hindering their God-Given Right To Shop.

Just as a comparison:

Ski Queen gjetost (cheese from Norway)

Whole Foods price: $6.99 (a total bargain for cheese there!)

Market Basket price: $2.99

for THE SAME SIZE cheese.

Anyway, this cheese is awesome, you should try it. My two weaknesses are cheese and fruit juice, both of which they have in abundance at Whole Foods. It really sucks spending several hours there a week, because they have cheese in every single fucking section. They have little displays of it in the fruit section, near the bread, sometimes by the meat. I BUMP INTO CHEESE EVERY WHERE I GO! I’ve bought 2 different kinds of cheese there this week: one goat’s milk aged cheese that tastes like bleu cheese with that goaty aftertaste (it’s OK– not amazing, but good) and one called Madon (I think?) which is yummy! It’s kind of like gouda, but a little stronger. I need to stop this because cheese has been taking up my entire grocery budget. I need a cheese budget!

Patty and I went ti Ikea today and I spent way too much money. I did, however, get a bunch of things that will be very useful, like a new set of drawers for my desk so I can keep all the crap on my desk in them while putting my monitor on top. I also got a big rack to put in the kitchen so that all my big mixing bowls can live on a shelf rather than on my floor. Plus, I have a LAUNDRY HAMPER!!! I haven’t had one of those since I was a little kid! I’ve always just used a laundry basket. However, this hamper is awesome–it’s collapsable and also fits more laundry than the basket. Perhaps now I can put my dirty laundry in a hamper insetead of on my floor!

At the end of all of this, I got Klappar Skalbagge. He is a giant stuffed silver beetle with shiny silver legs (8 of them; he’s not of this world) and shiny antennae. Plus, his mouth zips open so I can hide treasures or drugs or anything else I want to in there. Already my desk looks neater! I think I may change the sheets on my bed, too, since I now have a vessel large enough to contain a set of dirty sheets.Yay!

Ah, My bowls are all set, and cereal will fit on the shelves of the kitchen rack thing! Before I had to stick them on a shelf sideways where they would stick way out and I would bump into them. I spent the evening immersed deep in hardware (one Ikea thing required lots of hammering while the other one was all about screwing), and now I feel like I’ve sort of actually accomplished something. My goal of having a cleaner, nicer apartment is under way!