lax scandal

Today is my scheduled day for posting on my blog and even though I was torturously brief last time around I suspect that I am going to do the same today. In addition to predicting brevity, I am going to open with a confession: since I didn’t plot out a topic today and because my day has been oddly uneventful, or full of events that I don’t fancy discussing here, I am going to completely wing it with regard to topic and pacing. As you can guess from the convoluted sentence preceding this one, things are likely going to be quite ugly. And yet, onward we go.

I am writing this blog from my office, a room called such because it holds all of my old furniture from my alone-living days. Really, this place is practically a re-creation of the room I had two apartments ago: the bed is along one wall, the bookcase is in the corner and the bulletin board is balanced precariously above the same ugly desk. I am writing in here today because I am making an effort to use this room, having previously been distracted by the wonders of the front room and recently tethered in here in order to use the internet. It is a nice room, although it takes to be much colder than the rest of the house, and I should use the space. We are scandalously lax about using spacing, since we are only two people living in a three-bedroom house.

Between this paragraph and the above one there was a break of several minutes while I tried to figure out for to send a picture from my phone to the computer. Those are two devices that I use everyday that continue to elude me. I was going to upload a picture that I have been meaning to get off of my phone, one of my dog’s stuffed beaver wearing sunglasses, and put it on here to cap off this lackluster post. And since a Google search of "beaver in sunglasses" yielded nothing entertaining, it looks like we only get a lackluster description to cap this sucker off!

Machines: both laundry and vending.

Today I wasted the best handwriting of my life on the word “laundry.”

Usually my handwriting is terrible, with r-looking n’s and overly upright f’s and b’s. But today when I casually decided to make a list on the back of a window envelope with the company logo emblazoned on it, I spontaneously achieved flawlessly casual cursive.

And I am pissed (understandably, I warrant). If I had this one beautiful handwriting sample deep within the bowels of my fingers, why would I waste it on the word ‘laundry’? In my glee I tried to immediately continue my list with hopes to achieve the same penned majesty, but every other item came out in my typically spacey writing. I’m certain it’s gone forever.

Speaking of things that anger me unreasonably, I’m going to dabble in a little economic theory for a moment. I’ve always been one for chaffing my nose on the proverbial grindstone, and so I go to work everyday and make some small packet of monies. And with this money I buy goods and gas and lament like everyone else that prices are rising and especially that the job market is shitty, given my particular circumstance of job-searching.

“Yes,” I think to myself as I cruise along in my lumbering vehicle, listening to every moronic radio commercial blaring the word CRISIS into my ear. “Gas is hideously expensive.”

I absorb this daily and reaching back into the recesses of my brain I remind myself of what inflation means, and what a widget is, and how that the invisible hand is not just another creepy Kevin Bacon movie.

And yet, when I went yesterday to the vending machine at my work place to buy a Milky Way, I was enraged to find that it cost 90 cents. Vending machine inflation is the worst of all. I don’t want to hear any more pansies whining about gas prices; we should just thank our lucky stars that our cars don’t run on delightful caramel.

I would like to say that paying ninety cents for a Milky Way is the worst vending machine experience that I’ve ever had, but unfortunately I have a long history of ugly vending machine encounters. I’m thinking specifically of an instance in during last spring quarter when I was refused my Skittles by a vending machine in a crowded section of Wellman hall. [Characteristic comment on spell checking: Skittles is a word? Really?] I decided to forgo the generally futile and noisy attack on said vending machine, and consoled myself by muttering profanities and slinking away into a nearby lecture hall.

A few minutes later I was seated in the lecture and reading the newspaper (I miss you, free news-print and terrible comics), when a girl silently approached me with a package of Skittles held in front of her. In confusion, I reached out my hand to receive them, wondering frantically if I should have any idea who this chick was. And here is the most mysterious bit of all: after handing me the Skittles, she didn’t offer any explanation or even giggle nervously as I would have, but walked straight back out the door. Just like a guardian angel of artificial fruit flavoring.

That, my friends, is a truly freakish vending machine experience.
As a final point: I’ve been working my way through A Passage to India, (motivated by my love for A Room with a View) and feel a great suspense. It has morphed into one of those court-dramas that hinges on racism, and I always find those sorts of plots most distressing. A similar weakness hinders my reading of slave narratives and led to my refusal of all war tales and holocaust memoirs for cheeky comedies of manners.

Misplaced work ethic

This little sucker is both economic and inspirational around the workplace. I'm pretty much an artist, which would make me almost well-rounded.

Ps, I've been corrected. Apparently there is a drive-thru at the Dixon Subway, a real break through in deli accesability.

Can you make money on a Denny's franchise?

Today I managed to get peanut-butter on my shirt hours before I considered eating my sandwich. I suspect that it might have happened during the sandwich creation process, during which I was admittedly half awake and recklessly flinging sticky knives around, but all that I know for sure is that it’s ten-thirty on a Monday and I’ve got Jiffy crumbles on my shirt. Probably this augurs an exciting and stimulating day ahead. Or perhaps not.

While I’m in this vein of discourse, I might as well continue with more of the mundane. Being a determinedly disheveled sort, I’ve never thought too hard about the catalog-type sale of cosmetics. However, this morning an old bitty handed me an Avon catalog as I shuffled through the door to work and I can’t abide rebuking the elderly so I shoved it into my bag amongst the rest of my belongings. [Pop quiz: What are the other contents of my bulging bag? Answer: The Great Short Works of Willa Cather, the aforementioned peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, sparkling new Bluetooth ear piece,* a pack of Big Red gum, a stick of deodorant, keys, phone, woefully empty wallet, two rogue dimes, a teeny thinger of sunscreen, and one chilled can of Ruby Red Squirt.]

Up until today my thoughts regarding person-to-person cosmetics selling were confined to the stereotypes about Mary Kay that I gleaned from reading Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Café about 47 times when I was 16. I suppose it’s not too shocking, considering that the novel was instructive in forming a whole passel of my youthful stances, such as my generous opinions about the homeless, my liberal views about same-sex marriage and my distrust of people name Dirty Bird burying fish-heads in the garden.

In short, F.G.T.a.t.W-S.C taught me that if you sell Mary-Kay, you can get a great career and a pink Cadillac that symbolizes your newfound joy in life/acceptance of your own personal appearance/womanhood/blah blah depression in the depression. With this cheerful image in mind I opened my Avon catalog expecting to gape at pricey cold creams and magical lip-glosses. Imagine my surprise at finding strange items intermixed with the cosmetics, like underwater digital cameras, BBQ lamps, braided Comfort Flip-Flops, and beach-towels emblazoned with the motto of every MLB team.

Strangely, I went directly from having zero expectations to being disappointed. I hate diversifying for my convenience. I’m of the mind that I’d like to buy meat from a butcher, and bread from a baker and sneakers from a very mod cobbler. How I covet inconvenience.

In other news, my boyfriend and I threw an inside-BBQ (turkey-burgers via stove top served on Wall-E plates) for the Fourth of July over the weekend, and it was a quite successful, though occasionally mildly disturbing, event. Regardless, in the spirit of the great American Revolution, I give you a picture of the pills just consumed by my esteemed co-worker.

A very patriotic apothocary at work.

*I don't wear my Bluetooth headset! I'm not a dork! I just don't want to be pulled over and have an officer realize that none of the lights on my dashboard work. Too awkward.