Safe as houses

Today I had a Jamba Juice for the first time in approximately 6 months (see my previous posts about attempting to buy a J.J. in a shopping mall near a high school – worst idea ever) and it was still amazing. I justified the expense by reminding myself that an immunity boost is cheaper and probably more effective than a swine flu vaccine but mainly I was just craving some squashed fruit mixed with gallons of sugar water.

A slight aside on my favorite topic, “things that I used to order from restaurants all the time but are now no longer listed on the menu.” My favorite smoothie was called a Strawberry Tsunami, but a few years ago the word tsunami became too offensive and they changed the name to Strawberry Surf-rider. In the early days of this transition I would order the Strawberry Tsunami out of misplaced loyalty (just as I order the unlisted two cheese burger meal at McDonalds) but today I said it purely by accident. The girl behind the counter affected ignorance and I had to excuse, and then correct, myself.

Speaking of girls behind counters, I have some commentary about being one. On Sunday I suffered my first bout of retail rage, which considering how people love to throw tissue paper on the floor, took an awfully long time to sink in. The story is actually very short: I was supposed to be folding and straightening sweaters and people kept touching them with no intention of buying them. For some reason, though I touch all manner of crap that I have no intention of buying, this seemed unforgiveable.

I think this was one of those learning moments and I suddenly sympathized with people who always over-tip the waitress because they once worked in food service. I am never going to go rooting through a pile of sweaters that I don’t really want ever again. Nor will I ditch something on a random shelf that I’ve carried all the way around the store twice and am too lazy to return. Well, maybe in really big stores that you aren’t allowed to go backward in…like IKEA or a Walmart Super Center.

And in unrelated news, I would like to start using the abbreviation “g.d.” instead of “goddamn” when typing. I would also like to integrate the phrase “safe as houses” into my vocabulary.

Old-town-of-work

Last week I went back to the town that I used to work in for the first time in over 6 months. Strange as it may seem, I felt oddly nostalgic for the surroundings of my old job, though not the actual building, my sentiments for which are recorded earlier in this very blog.

The creeping nostalgia began as I got on the I-5. After months of trolling up and down 50 and 80, I was struck by the recollection of crossing the causeway on foggy mornings, partially awake and very grumpy. Living in Midtown and working in Woodland was my first taste of commuting, and I hated it with every bicycle loving fiber of my being. And yet I caught myself thinking with near-fondness of my trial-and-error theories for selecting the best exits and routes.

I cruised into Woodland and observed the scenery during the long stop-lights at key intersections that I had resented so vehemently in bygone days. I was surprised to feel the first inklings of the strange exposed feeling that I get in my hometown Dixon, and to some degree, post-college era Davis. When I’ve lived somewhere and left it, I feel weirdly guilty, (or potentially just embarrassed) to be back there. Thus I shuffle with great stealth around the Safeway of my youth.

So I felt nostalgic about my old-town-of-work, and it was brought to my attention afterward that we might have lived there, if I had gotten that newspaper job back last September. (Remember kids, I didn’t get that job because my car alarm went off without cease in the parking lot for two hours, not because I was under-qualified). Probably in some raunchy duplex, making peanuts and writing Peanuts (the comic, because I think journalists in regional papers just write it themselves to save money).

What is the point of this tirade? Only that things are very strange, and I might have lived in a town that now makes me feel equal parts embarrassed and nostalgic.

Fistful of advil in my bubble space

I think that it’s about time to change my image to something more intimidating and awe inspiring. [The last time that I considered changing my image it was because I wanted to be more mysterious. To be clear, my idea of mysterious is to grow my hair out long and wear it in a single braid down my back, but enough about that.] My motivation is this: my spinelessness has become so apparent that even oral surgeons (the yellow-bellied gum-cutters of the surgical set) feel comfortable patronizing me.

Today I went to visit my oral surgeon because a whopping 3.5 weeks later, my gaping wisdom teeth wounds were still throbbing like nobody’s business. Three previous visits had resulted in smiles from dental assistant and plenty of nasty tasting cotton swabs, but no actual relief. I had received several lectures on not taking any crap this time, so I tried to look at stern as it is possible for one to look while wearing a paper bib.

The oral surgeon seemed unperturbed by my glare. In fact, I think he was too busy shouting “You again!” and acting surprised to see me to notice my face…or the mouth bleeding evoked by the prodding assistant with her thin metal stick.

He gazed at me in a kindly manner and asked if I was feeling any better.

“Last night I took a fistful of Advil,” I responded. He didn’t seem impressed. I guess a guy with gobs of Novocain looks down his nose at giant bottles of Safeway Select Advil. He looked inside my mouth. He flushed around with water. He sat back, looking startled.

“You’re wearing Sarah Palin glasses!” he exclaimed joyously. By the time I summoned up enough spit to protest, he was stuffing my mouth with “special” gauze and telling me to come back next week.

Being intimidating would have plenty of fringe benefits that have nothing to do with oral surgery. Maybe I would have fewer people wandering around the side of my desk at work to see what I’m typing while I’m helping them. I know that they probably just want to make sure that I’m spelling their name correctly, but I find this very disconcerting. And not just because I usually have Twitter up. Oftentimes these people have pockets full of tissues and bodies full of excitable germs.

Would it be too nineties of me to say that I want to intimidate sickly customers out of my “bubble space”? Yes, I think so.

Something icky for your Tuesday.

I am annoyed with my lunchmeat for not pretending to be a more wholesome staple.

Sandwiches being a very important part of my theory on eating, I usually spend some small part of the day selecting the choicest ham in the Tupperware for my lunch. This morning I was trying to get a few slices for my sandwich and was very frustrated with the way that it was all squashed together and crumbly, like one big handful of puesdo-meat.

This imagery pretty much grossed me out and put a swine-shaped damper on my appetite. Should I be eating something that doesn’t have enough nutritional integrity to hold its shape? Quickly paranoia set in. What about my mayonnaise, when did it expire? *

So here’s my plea to you, makers and packagers of cheap meat: try a little harder to conceal the gunky, miscellaneous pig-part origins of your product, because you are disturbing my feeding patterns.

*My mayonnaise expires in April 2009. Furthermore, I suspect that this might be the first time in my life that I have typed the word mayonnaise.

Smoothies aren't worth it.

The desire for a smoothie today got me into a very unpleasant situation.

I know what you are thinking: smoothies are like a healthier milkshake and therefore above reproach. And I agree, there is nothing unpleasant about a smoothie. However, faulty planning can mar even the most perfect of fruit beverages. You see, I decided to go and get smoothies for myself and a few of my work-time compatriots during my break at 3 p.m* and 3 p.m.** is the worst possible time to go anywhere in a small town.

[*,** Note to build suspense and over-all word count: I have recently had occasion to brush up on the AP standards. As a result I know all sorts of things, like that one should write “Calif.” instead of C.A, and that my use of ** is rampantly inappropriate. Also, when you have occasion to say “goddamn” in a newspaper it is disrespectful to slap a capital “G” on there. Now I can “who vs whom” with the best of them.]

3 p.m. is the worst time to go anywhere in a small town for one simple reason: it roughly coincides with the moment that high schools roll back their pearly gates and free their frenzied denizens. And it would so happen that the smoothie joint of my choice (I’ll give you a hint, it involves two J's, and is the Starbucks for pseudo-hippies) was located at an unfortunate proximity to the high school. And the parking lot of the shopping center where the double “J” is housed provided many of these teenyboppers with parking.

As I halted before the crosswalk choked with teens, cursing the Jansport-ing masses, I tried to distract myself by reflecting whimsically on how freaky-weird the high-school thing is. Where else can you see people walking around eating straight from a bag of Doritos? People who aren’t homeless, I mean.

Far be it for me to say anything that might be construed as nice about the youth, but these kids looked damn elated to be released from school. I guess that daily joy is a mass-mentality thing that people forget about due to the sporadic nature of college socializing and classes, but I vaguely remember what it was like.

When I was in high school and before I had my driver’s license, I used hang out around the bus stop after school everyday with some kids who I assumed were socially adventurous, but in fact were just lax in hygiene. I really envied these kids (who walked home from school after my bus retrieved me) because I thought that walking seemed like the ultimate social event; the antithesis of a stifling bus ride home reading ahead in my English books. After I got my license I would troop everyday to the corner where most of “I read The Onion during computer lab, aren’t I clever” set parked their cars so that I might drive the four grueling blocks to work.

Sitting in my boiling hot car today in Jamba Juice gridlock, I tried to summon sympathy by recalling my love for my first car. It was a Chevy Blazer in a faded black, called “Tux-y” by my friend Amanda for reasons too geeky to relate. I was so proud if my car, with the hairbrush on the shelf below the dash, and a backseat full of strategically showy sci-fi novels (bad early- 80s stuff with faded yellow covers). I was particularly proud of the CD player (as I would later be strangely proud of the desk-top background on my computer) and I played unlabeled Beatles CDs and weird burned SKA (always an all-caps word for me) mixes that I kept in one of those CD folders on the sunshade.

When the masses vacated and I finally got to a parking spot this afternoon, I clambered out of my car and attempted to cross the street. Some lady in a grande “sand-colored” SUV braked to let me pass and added a haughty eye-roll to her hurry-up wave. Although mildly embarrassed, I understood completely.

With my short stature and my shitty car, she undoubtedly took me for one of the enemy. I am however a completely different breed of youthful blight: the under-worked post-collegiate secretary desiring a smoothie.

A series of unfortunate facts.

A. Safeway is no longer serving its generic Safeway Select brand of soda in flats.

I have never bought a flat of soda, but I appreciate the concept. If you wanted to mix and match 6-packs of blackberry, "cola," and grapefruit flavors, the flat was the only unit of purchase where you could do so with relative ease. The cardboard rim encompassed an infinite realm of sugartastic possibilities. Now the sodas are only available in dreary uniform 12 packs adorned with the new "arty" flavor differentiations [a picture of the fruit surrounded by parenthesis]. I'm going to think twice before I go on my next grapefruit soda run, because although I'm okay with the cashier knowing that I'm the sort of person who drinks a 6 pack of grapefruit soda while reading a novel with the word "mage" in the title, I don't know if I can handle the stigma of being the sort of person who drinks a 12 pack of grapefruit soda while pursuing the same activity.

B. 1652 is the estimated date of the first coffee house opening in England.

Gee, thanks 1652.

C. My school steals my money to buy water-wings for drunk chicks.

It has so happened lately, with graduation swiftly swooping down upon me, that the value/meaning of a college education has been under discussion at many gatherings. In these debates I usually take a very moderate stance: college is good for some people, but for others (America Studies?) it is simply a method of prolonging the inevitable job-having lifestyle. But in general I have defended the University system, pounding my UC Davis nalgene like a gavel against the table-top. How wrong I have been.

This morning I was reading the newspaper and on the front page there was this article about the tradition of Davis students taking houseboats out on Shasta Lake for Memorial Day weekend. This is no surprise to me, as I'm well aware of this floating keg-fest having had several friends attend in the past and with my own roommate preparing to leave tomorrow. What did surprise me was to learn that the student government (ASUCD) this year sanctioned 3,500 dollars to ensure that there will be a Safeboat with a host of medical supplies and personnel and 2,000 condoms available to the students at this recreational event unaffiliated with the school. This after the school called and solicited me for 20.08 (get it?) dollars in donations to commemorate my graduation. Pssh, I'm not going to donate money so that some damn kids can make a raft out of inflated free condoms held together by free Scooby Doo bandaids so they can row after a can of Keystone Light that floated away down the river.

On a re-read it would appear that I am stalwartly anti-fun. This is usually not the case.