• Up early. The old eyes popped open at 8:30ish for some reason. This is what happens when I don’t drink for a few days, I guess. Scary.
I have to take Felix to the vet at noon for his blood tests to see how we can get that insulinoma under control. I’m not looking forward to driving all the way out to bumfuck (Winchester and Riverdale), but I am looking forward to getting the treatment ball rolling.
(Ha, I love how I’m all “omfg, driving 25 minutes east is such a drag, lolz.” Oh how things have changed from the time when I grew up in a town 17 miles and 30 minutes from the nearest Wal-Mart, where if you needed milk and hadn’t gotten it at your local “convenience” store, which closed at 7 p.m., you were SOL and had to just make do ’til morning, unless you wanted to make an hour round trip to Savannah. Moving to a city sure has spoiled me something fierce. Although, I suppose I pay for it in the sheer amount of siren squeals I have to hear.)
• I decided last night that were I to ever meet a man wearing a Turkey Volume Guessing Man costume, I’d marry him on the spot.
• Why, dear god, why won’t my heat come and stay on? The radiators are open wide and yet it can’t be much more than 50 degrees in here. And yes, jerks, I’ve got plenty of layers on and it’s possible that I’m exaggerating about the temperature (it could be more like 55). Is it any wonder that I have a hard time getting out of bed when it’s the only heated space in this godforsaken place?
• Man, I just poured a cup of coffee and went to get a spoon for some sugar, and noticed that it had a crusty little rusty little something on it. I scratched at it but it didn’t budge, so I figured it was a now permanent feature of the spoon. But when I removed the spoon from the coffee, it came out clean. Delicious. I just love the thought of drinking crusty rust.
• My dad’s knee surgery (torn cartilage) went well yesterday. He called me, all mellow from the drugs, just to let me know he was doing fine. He said that the doctors told him he’d need knee replacement surgery in a few years, which is a bummer but I guess it’s best to have a little bit of warning.
• I ate at Do* yesterday with hotshot reporter T-bagz McScoop (that’s his Christian name) and saw @rakuette and @fancycwabs, randomly enough. I ordered off the noodle bar menu (chicken pho; my dining companion got the Tom Yum Gung Hot + Sour Soup) and it was quite good, even though — I’m not gonna lie — trying to maneuver my way around Asian food makes me feel completely idiotic. As I explained to T-bagz while fumbling awkwardly with chopsticks and that cute little thing that looks like a spoon rest, I didn’t grow up around Asian food (we had a wok and made stir-fry once a week, but we ate with forks and all I did was pick out and eat the chicken anyway), so the learning curve for me is a little steep. It’s just that unless you’ve been taught how to eat it — which container goes where, which utensil for what, what pours into and over what, etc. — it just comes to your table like it’s a fucking puzzle on an IQ test. And I maintain that as neat-o as chopsticks are in theory (they are aesthetically smashing, it’s true), they need to be retired from the cultural lexicon. Seriously**.
• Some dude favorited one of my Flickr pictures of my brother — one where he’s wearing work boots. The dude said in the comments, simply, “HUNK!” I followed the user’s link and saw that he has a bit of a thing for dudes in stovepipe boots. It takes all kinds, man. I wish to shit I could tell my brother about his secret admirer, but he just wouldn’t enjoy it as much as he should.
* I spent more time than I care to admit to looking for a way to get the long-vowel symbol over that O. I even copied one from Dictionary.com but it published as a question mark. This could be the thing that finally drives me insane. HOW DO I MAKE A LONG O?!?
** I don’t want this idea to be mistaken for me being all white and privileged and “oooh look how exotic Asian food is!” because that’s not what I’m getting it. Alls I’m saying is that it’s something I’m pretty unfamiliar with, and something about which my ignorance causes me a fair bit of shame, because Asian food is obviously awesome. So I’m trying to learn. But it’s tough getting through the initial humiliation of not knowing how shit works. And, granted, it’s a self-created humiliation, but it’s there nonetheless. Wow, I am neurotic. Also, I blink and breathe a lot.
My mom is half Chinese and half Japanese, and she grew up in Hawaii, which is this so-called Asian foods mecca. Anyway, she refuses to use chopsticks, and she often refers to her people as “oriental,” and she hates HATES sushi. This kind of stuff used to annoy the hell out of me because I thought, “Wow, how un-cool, Mom. Here I am trying to be all Asian-y and cool, and you just ruin it for me when you eat $0.10 Ramen from Kroger on a plate with a fork in front my friends and say shit like, ‘y’all.'” I’ve learned to get over it because, really, who cares. Eating is such a visceral action; it comes naturally – roll with it – lick your fingers if you want. All I’m saying is that I totally get your frustration and anxiety concerning this, but really, it’s all good!
I’m proud to eat Asian food with a fork. They make the superior cuisine, we make the superior tool. Yin and yang are in harmony.
Try the Unicode for the o with a line: D;
(I just know that when I click submit, that’s going to show as an o with a line, instead of the code.)
Wait, that didn’t work. Try this: ?
Did that work? Copied and pasted from Word.
Damn! I give up. (And your blog needs a “preview” button so I wouldn’t have to keep posting to see if this was working or not.)
* You can copy and paste this next time: ?. And if you’re feeling shouty you can use the capital version, ?.
** I worked for a Japanese company a few years back and was so completely impressed with their eating noodle soup with fucking chopsticks that I made a point of only eating pho with chopsticks, and using chopsticks at Mosa, and sushi, etc. etc. The frequent practice paid off when I spent two weeks in China a couple of years ago and would have starved had I not been able to grab cocktail peanuts from a giant lazy susan with a pair of chopsticks. I DON’T use chopsticks at the Chinese buffet, ’cause that’s just pretentious.
I guess it ALSO helps if you use a font with a ? in it on your blog…
I think ethnic food is a little like wine – everybody is faking it to some degree.
I used to care, but now I drink cheap wine indescriminately and eat with whatever is around.
Gunshots. You forgot the gunshots with the siren squeals.
Had to join the fun.
ō
L, isn’t it crazy how worked up people can get over this stuff? I love that your mom is all “fuck it, gimme a fork!” That cracks me up.
J, exactly. I have got to get over my fear of both chopsticks AND asking for a fork when it seems tacky.
MM, thanks for trying, but I think it’s a font issue. Maybe? But you’re right. I need a preview function. I’M ON IT!
FC, see? I think I just need some practice.
C, cheap wine and available utensils, yes! This shall be my creed from now on.
L, lolz. Luckily for me, I am always able to convince myself that those sounds I hear are fireworks. Celebratory fireworks!
T, thanks for joining in on the fun. I have got to do some work on my WP template, I think, in order to get to use the fun characters. Boo.