that basket of laundry simply bristles with nuance
Any idea who sent voice mail message to my office late last night that consisted of just a lot of rhythmic clicking? The rhythmic clicking was actually pretty compelling, so I've saved the message. BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS (it's definitely not Morse code), so if you were trying to tell me something, oh extraterrestrial one, you will have to communicate more directly. Sorry, we earthlings (a word first found in print in 1593) are stupid that way.
I think today was the earliest I have ever been at work. SEVEN O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. They make a seven o'clock in the morning now, in case you were not aware. I had been up since dark o'clock not sleeping, so I just decided to get going. The advantages: it's quiet here, I will get to leave early, and maybe I'll get something done for once and not feel like such a loser who doesn't deserve her salary and her nice life. (Shhh, that's a secret.) The disadvantages: the resentfulness, the fact that I had to change my clothes twice (because I was trying to get dressed in the dark so as not to wake up LT, and even though most of my wardrobe is black + black I still would step out into the bathroom and think “ick, no”), and the fact that the transit system is a slightly different world that early in the morning. Meaning that all the people who rode the trains all night because they had nowhere else to go are still riding. From Berwyn to Belmont I was treated to the rantings of a smelly tweaker type—it didn't make a whole lot of sense but he seemed to be angry at the mayor.(But why? Can a man who is so excited about a Polish sausage be all bad?)
ETHNIC OBSERVATIONS THAT I FEEL FAIRLY COMFORTABLE MAKING AFTER LIVING IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD FOR OVER TWO YEARS
1. Orthodox Jewish men do not seem to ever use umbrellas in the rain.
2. Most Russian women dye their hair nifty bright colors.
3. Pakistani grocers do not enjoy making change and usually round your purchase to the nearest dollar.
4. Italian-American girls with dorky Diaryland journals are awfully fond of numbered lists.
ON-THE-STREET OBSERVATIONS
Large groups of teenage girls are very scary. They are like an advancing phalanx of centurions or Huns. The shriek level can blow out windows. On the sidewalk they step aside for no one. If you add up the missing inches off their low-rise jeans you would probably have enough fabric to make a pair of regular jeans.
There's a sign on Lawrence for a package-delivery place called Order Express, but I always misread it as Odor Express. A place where you can go to pick up little vials of different odors. They will fill your odor order quickly. “I'll take a whiff of Decaying Whale Shark to go.” With every ten orders of Cheap Tequila, you get a free Pee-Stained Sheets! I wonder if the good odors, like Towels Right Out Of The Dryer or Oatmeal Cookie or Todd Levin's Neck cost more. (Disclaimer: Todd Levin could smell like hobo crotch for all I know. His pleasant fragrance is all conjecture on my part.)
LONG-AGO CONVERSATION
Picture me, wearing black pajamas, chain-smoking, and sitting cross-legged on a mattress in a cluttered room. Picture H. (I realize you cannot do this with any sort of clarity), also smoking, sitting not-at-all-awkwardly in the awkward butterfly chair next to my bed. It is winter. We've been talking for a while but here is the part I wish to report, the part that has stayed with me forever.
Me [half-seriously]: I will probably kill myself before I turn forty, anyway.
H: No, don't do that.
Me: Why not?
H [pausing, thinking hard]: Because that would be even more pointless than continuing to live, and that's saying a lot.
Maybe that exchange is not very comforting to you. But then again you are not me. (And a good thing, too. It's no picnic, being me. Well, maybe it's sort of like a picnic. A surrealist picnic where the food keeps growing legs and walking away from you. Bye-bye, potato salad! See you later!)
ONLY “FLEMISH” RHYMES WITH BLEMISH
I have developed a very stubborn small pimple in the corner of my mouth like a sad clown. It is so stubborn that I am sort of getting used to it and it reminds me of those tattooed tears that some gang members get under their eyes, to signify that one of their homies (am I legally allowed to say “homies”? And is that how you spell it?) has been killed in the line of…well, in the line of crime, I guess. Ignoring the fact that my zit is not a tattoo, I want to make up some sort of story about what it signifies. I really like oatmeal, and I tend to eat it with a certain amount of gusto, so the zit could symbolize the glob of oatmeal that is often in the corner of my mouth right after I eat oatmeal. Or it could symbolize that I KILLED AND ATE a rival gang member. Yeah. I like that. Much better to be thought of as a bad-ass cannibal than just a girl who doesn't have any damn Clearasil in the house.
—mimi smartypants needs an attitude adjustment.