moving

Jon is moving in. We've moved together many times in the past. We are fundamentally different when it comes to moving. Jon likes to stick things in boxes as early as possible and watch the boxes pile up. He likes to quantify the change that is about to happen. I can't handle that. I need tidiness. In my mind, that translates to moving everything at the last possible moment, shoving it into a cardboard box on the way out the door. This time just Jon is moving. He's been toting walkable loads to the apartment for weeks. Hoarding little piles of books in one corner and CD's in another, occasionally requesting my presence to ogle the growing heaps with him. In order to cope with the chaos, I got rid of a bunch of stuff I would otherwise have kept.



I was feeling pretty good about my ability to get rid of things that weren't exactly worthless. Truthfully, it's just that I have a lot more where that came from. Here's the state of things:



It is officially the last picture of the apartment I can bear to take until the whole thing is resolved. Don't expect another one anytime soon. Today my efforts turned into a sequin sorting venture. In the end, I threw away about 5 sequins. That's what I call progress. I'm not sure what Jon calls it.

a riddle

How long does it take to unwrap 4800 DVD singles from cello packaging and remove them from paperboard sleeves?

Hint: it's longer than you think and not funny

About 14 hours. But the bright side is pretty bright. My fingernails look glossier, my utility knife skills are out of this world, I'm seeing some amazing definition in my opposable thumb region and I was able to listen to three straight hours of NPR on Sunday night. It's like a whole new me. I hope next time we totally fuck something up at work, we do it on a grander scale.

happy birthday, mom

Mom is a triplet. Her birthday is a big deal in our fam. This is how we roll at the Polzin house. Totally average thumb. We barely survived this firework. Always good to gain a new appreciation for life on one's birthday.




A rustic buttercream cake. I made the Barefoot Contessa chocolate cake recipe on my sister's recommendation. All present agreed that this cake was worth eating, even worth making again sometime. My personal advice for a long happy life of making cakes: find a delicious recipe for buttercream and nothing else matters. I use the recipe from The Whimsical Bakehouse Cookbook. I highly recommend it.

168 years of shenanigans and counting. Congrats, girls! You could pass for 110.

sistah

My sister has been visiting. Splitting her time between Minneapolis and my hometown. She just flew back to NYC tonight to seek thrills of a more urban nature. When she's in the Midwest, she settles for the natural variety. Hence her insistence on kayaking the Black River in its most tumultuous state. I was happy to hang with the lichens. Jamie's a thrill seeker. She also has incredible pride. It gets her into a lot of situations like this one...


Her pride once led her to jump off a 40 foot drop into water of questionable depth just to outdo me. The easier route would have been to call my bluff. She's got so much going for her- smarts, wit, beauty, cleavage- that her determination to outbrave anyone in the room seems almost gratuitous.

Prep time in the kitchen. Surgical. This is not uncommon in the Polzin house, where the kitchen is the center of all life.


The kitchen is a great place to do minor surgery- good lighting, relatively sterile, the dog at foot for easy clean-up and post-op is always at arm's length: Haagen Daaz. Nothing stops the pain like a scoop of vanilla/ scoop of chocolate. I miss Jamie already. Haagen Daaz works for that, too.

holi-day-ay

This title is meant to be sung to the tune of Madonna. Falsetto.

Imagine waking up one morning believing that it is just an ordinary day and falling asleep that same night with the realization that the day was actually an unofficial secular holiday created especially for you. True story. Yesterday. Administrative Professionals Day. Things like this only happen once in a lifetime.

masterpiece revealed

Last weekend, inspired by a small pile of things I had already decided to part with, I took a framed tapestry off the wall and declared it junk. I set it on top of the pile. I have trouble getting rid of things. I see potential everywhere. Often where it doesn't exist. Which is why, a short while after ousting the picture, I decided to salvage the tapestry from the frame- to make a hat out of it.


(drumroll here)


A remarkably creepy discovery. It reminds me of a lady who found a true masterpiece cast out on the curb in NYC a few years ago. Her find was worth a million dollars. Ours is worth whatever it costs to copy a church bulletin at 500% and glue it to particle board.
Thrilling, nonetheless.



cheers big J

earth love

I made these cupcakes to honor Earth Day, then felt depressed about it. Because instead of the cupcakes representing a celebration of the earth, as I had intended, I could only visualize the literal devouring of the earth as people ate them. As children of my co-workers ran around the yard with detritus of earth smeared on their faces. Disturbing. The greasy residue of their inheritance.

It is hard to make it through April without feeling inundated with earth-saving awareness. I'm not complaining. Bring it on. Today my boss rode to work on his longboard instead of driving. But aside from that, everyone went about their material business. Twelve boxes full of reject promotionals have been sitting behind me at work the last two days while I try to figure out which is more eco-friendly: throwing the boxes away, unopened, or splitting open each shrink-wrapped CD, removing it from its recyclable paper sleeve, then consolidating the unwanted CD's into less boxes and shipping them to Pennsylvania to a plant that recycles them- at the expense of the company I work for. There are 4800 CD's. I am also pondering whether it is worthwhile to ask my dad to drive 140 miles with his rototiller to Minneapolis to till up a small garden plot outside my workplace. As if the carbon offset of a few tomatos and a bunch of carrots will make up for the transit of heavy machinery for 300 miles. The answer for each is fairly clear- forget it. Unless...you consider the impact of the public act. The radius of awareness connected to things requiring sacrifice and labor that we are willing to do with only the hope that some good will come of it. It is no small thing. Which is why I plan to undertake both of these questionable acts. Hope is better than the alternative.

universal truths

kindness begets kindness

tidiness begets tidiness

fruitcake begets fruitcake


(that's my mom)

mpls = awesome

Both my sisters entertain the notion of one day moving to Minneapolis. On that note, it's been awhile since they weathered a winter in the Midwest. I tried not to let on how bad the winter was because I want them to move here. Then it snowed almost every day for the first two weeks of April. I called them with tears in my eyes, effectively unraveling 6 months of carefully constructed fondness for this place. Better they know the truth.

pros-
great restaurants
good political leanings
an appreciation of the arts
lots of bike paths

cons-
explain diversity
cars rule
lots of tennis shoes
november - april

The truth? I think I like this place. As mom often says 'wherever you go- there you are.' And here I am. Less harried than when I was in the heart of NYC. Less harsh, my sister tells me. Having gotten over the initial offense, I have to agree with her.

shoewise

I just had my shoes re-heeled. Two pairs of them. It was not something I did to save money. It was something I did, and plan to do more often, to lessen my life's pile of shoes. This is a recurring thought I have whenever I finally throw away a pair of shoes. My life pile. Possibly that is why the idea of Human Footprint really hits home for me. For a very long while, my life's pile of shoes has been growing in the back of my mind. Once, a few years ago, a girl I was nannying for asked me why I didn't just get a new pair of shoes. The shoes she spoke of were $3 Chinatown slippers. My big toe was peeking through the front end and the soles of them were almost worn through. I told her that I felt like every day I wore them was a bonus day. I tried to explain to her that I threw away so many pairs of shoes and that wearing them a few weeks longer would mean less pairs of shoes that I throw away in the end. The argument was barely sound and almost certainly fell on deaf ears, but I still believe in the idea. The idea that making a pair of shoes last as long as humanly possible is the best thing that we can hope to do- shoewise.

Bear with me while I do a little eco-math. I paid $14.99 for these shoes at Payless one year ago. Buying shoes at Payless is not earth friendly. They are cheap shoes. I could just as easily have thrown them away last week as take them to the cobbler. (Don't feel bad if a vision of peach crisp with ice cream just popped into your head. Ditto.) The cobbler charged $16 to stick a new heel on them. It would have been cheaper to buy a new pair of shitty shoes. But not if the cost of adding another pair of cheap shoes to my life's pile is something I don't think I can afford right now. And I really don't think I can afford that. Behold my born-again heels.


In fairness, it's not just about shoe garbage. Payless also does not make these shoes anymore. And these shoes are extremely comfortable, despite the high heel. It has to do with the heel placement, so take note. This is what comfy heels look like. As if I need another reason to want to make these shoes immortal- I get an obscene number of compliments on these shoes. Not to mention that they are vegan and easy to clean, given that they're closer cousins to lawn furniture than to designer shoes.

I also got my black ruched boots re-heeled for $18. Here they are next to my tan ruched boots.


I am going to re-heel my tan boots elsewhere as a means of comparison shopping. If I got nothing else from my years studying chemistry, I have solid faith in my ability to set up a controlled fashion experiment. See, Dad? Just when you were thinking that the schooling hadn't paid off.

coming soon...

from a theater near me. Yesterday, after claiming to a co-worker that windy days instill in me a certain sense of hilarity and consequently feeling pressured to take myself less seriously, I passed two workers at the aforementioned professional theatre company grilling meat in the same spot often occupied by the dumpster. They were stagehands in full uniform. Nose rings, lip rings, mohawks, cigarettes, tattoos, black apparel, and what may well have been stage make-up. While I generally know better than to get between people and their half-grilled meat, I casually mentioned that I was fond of their garbage and asked if it was for the taking. They were, if not flattered, at least totally cool with me rummaging through their dumpster in the future. I am already devising plans for a dramatic outing- not for the faint of heart.

let it not be trash

There's a lot of would be trash in my apartment. I strongly believe in rescuing things in the dusky moment in time before they become garbage. That moment when something is set on a curb or in a dumpster. Pre-trash has nothing to do with the quality of an object. My apartment is full of wonderful things that would be trash. It has only to do with the will of whoever owned the object last. Several weeks ago, I saw an amazing board in a dumpster near where I work. The dumpster sits outside a professional theatrical company. I know the routine. A show ends, the set is struck, and a dumpster is delivered specifically to collect all the false entities that a production entails. For over a week I eyed the board en route to work. It had a big hole in it where a knot had fallen out, but was otherwise intact. A board of great character. I intended to call the theatre company and make sure that their trash was as it seemed. Not destined for some grand reincarnation elsewhere. But before I got around to calling, the dumpster disappeared. I think about that board often. I have many shelves made of reclaimed wood. Now I long for a true thespian shelf.


Last Wednesday Jon brought this in off the street. It is a fantastic piece. We are both in awe of it.


This piece of furniture could survive five generations if given the chance. As much as I marvel at IKEA, it is quite possible for a nice haircut to outlive most of its product line. Good furniture is something my generation has experienced only by way of nostalgia.

One of the many hats I wear at work is taking out the trash. I like to joke that I'm the garbage girl, insofar as the literal truth can be called joking. But more concerning than the nomen is the fact that I must acknowledge every piece of garbage. Beyond that, I ultimately determine whether or not an object becomes trash. This makes me a trash expert of sorts. It also instills in me a sadness I can never quite shake. I am mildly haunted by garbage. Once in a while, I come across something that I cannot bear to throw away. Not because I want it, but because I feel that deeming it garbage is a complete misallocation of this thing. Most recently- a styrofoam wine shipper. After exhausting every recycling resource available to me and finding its nearest point of recycle to be somewhere on the west coast, I adopted it as my neo-industrial wine rack.


I'm fond of it. It has a practical side rivaled by no other wine rack. If I decide to relocate my entire wine cellar (bottles totaling four at this point in time), I can simply grab its lid out of my bedroom closet and pack it up. It is unpretentious, like most of the wine I drink. But it is also egalitarian. My bottle of Iconoclast feels right at home here. Poor thing. Its day are numbered.

taxed

Keep your refunds to yourself.

I always owe taxes. I think there was a year when I was 16 that I owed nothing. I probably logged a grand total of a 100 hours at Dairy Queen that year (and logged at least as many DQ treats). That was a pretty good year. I've been writing checks to the United States Treasury ever since. I am not that familiar with the stages of grief, but I imagine that owing tax come April 15th takes you on a short but poignant journey through them all. I did denial- that was Saturday. I filled out as many tax forms as I could get my hands on. Each one had a brief moment of hope. Namely, that moment where I misread the final statement and thought that I was getting a refund. I did anger. Saturday, also. But then I thought (it helps that I come to this realization every year at this time) that the money was technically never mine to begin with and I use more public services than the average person and I am a big proponent of public health care- so I better get used to paying taxes. Monday was acceptance. Now I'm moving on, i.e. being poor again. I am cheaping out whenever possible. At first this sounds like a dreary existence but there's a big upside.

Mostly- freedom from stuff. National Geographic just did a special called Human Footprint. It's eye-opening. And it's important. It's important to have an awareness of our impact on the earth. My mantra is something that Mahatma Ghandi once said- 'be the change you want to see in the world.' We can't ask for anything more or anything less.

Today I found this on the side of the road.


It made me feel like a winner.

Grand Cafe

Yesterday morning, Jon and I ventured to my favorite restaurant. It is located on Grand Avenue. Its name has less to do with grandeur than that fact. There is nothing I don't like about this place. The cups and saucers are all mismatched. The decor is plain but graced with pleasantly quirky old things. The tables are big and wooden. The three booths along one wall are tiny- only comfortably fitting one person on each side. From there, you can peek back into the kitchen while you wait for your food and catch a glimpse of the owner. He is always present and always wearing a shy little smile. The menu is interesting but not extravagant. I have never experienced a moment of disappointment here.


Sometimes, I order the pile of toast and homemade jams. It arrives as a magnificent heap of thick slices of toasted country bread with golden butter melting into each slice. If I ever have two kids and no money and Grand Cafe is still there and serving piles of toast- I will order one pile for the whole fam and we will leave as happy as anyone there. My sisters would say this is not a far cry from the 'what if we all had to live in one stall of the horsebarn' quandaries of my childhood. I owe my preoccupation with thinking like a pioneer to Laura Ingalls Wilder. It's something I was hoping to grow out of.

On this occasion, I skirted the toast in favor of homemade biscuits with spicy sausage gravy, over-easy eggs and fresh fruit. Jon got the orange brioche french toast with salted caramel sauce and mascarpone cream. Both delicious- mine moreso. We agreed on this. The giant biscuit had been halved and pan fried so that, in addition to being wonderfully rich and fluffy, its edges were crisply caramelized with butter. Most biscuits should strive to be more like this one.

My mom doesn't know that she's taking me to Grand Cafe next Saturday.

taking the cake

I have a long-standing history of bringing cake to work. This began in college when I worked at the Nitty Gritty Birthday Bar in Madison. I once attempted to bike to work with a cake balancing on my bicycle handlebars. I made it less than one block. The cake ended up as a pile of pine needles on the kitchen table. I was late to work. Most of the cake went uneaten. note: when you live with 4 roommates, no treat goes untouched- even road rash

While I want to believe that I've come a long way since then, the following adventure will attest to a certain human resistance to change/ failure to learn from one's mistakes/ insistence on doing harebrained projects. I have drawn up a timeline of my work-related cake project.

Monday AM- boss assumes cake is being made in his honor
Monday PM- decide to make cake in his honor
Tuesday- take picture of boss's toyota


Wednesday AM- intend to thaw out frosting
Wednesday PM- realize I have not done this
later- go to BodyPump
still later- go to coffeeshop
later yet- bake cakes
after that- iron some laundry
2AM- organize cake board, box, frosting, picture of toyota on my computer, wrap and freeze cakes, set out tools, make parchment cones, dig cake-decorator's stand out of upper cupboard, decide to wake up early
5:30AM- wake up and stare at semi-frozen cakes for awhile
5:45AM- realize my cake board will require better engineering, plug in glue gun
6AM- work intently for 2 hours in sleepy project mode
8AM- abandon project to get to work, crack is developing along top of the hood- general sense of doom
2PM (late lunch hour)- leave work in massive april blizzard to finish cake, near delirium from self-induced pressure


3:15PM- construct ad hoc structure to protect the cake from raging winds and rain, leave apartment with cake fortress


3:30PM- wait on corner for bus as rain pools on the top of my ill-conceived cake tent, vow in explicit terms to never make a cake for work again...EVER.
3:45PM- arrive at work with cake intact
4PM- cake is generally well-received

I think this time I might change/ learn something from this/ insist on doing less harebrained projects.

true confession

The word that best describes me is busybody. Jon says I'm industrious. Euphemisms are a healthy part of every relationship.

mind games

Apparently, the secret to a lengthy life is playing a lot of these. Last night I gave it my all. Yoga, then chess. It was Jon's idea and I took the bait without hesitation. I saw it as the perfect opportunity to realize the romantic version of myself that I often fantasize about. The one that reads entire chapters of books in one sitting, listens to what people are saying without interrupting them, looks out the window once in a while without an agenda. The romantic notion of me also does yoga and can play a game of chess without needing a snack. This is how the night progressed.

The yoga. I have one yoga video. There is nothing impossible to do on this video. It is perfect for me. I kept telling Jon the video was almost over because that is what I tell myself. Next time I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

The chess.


I admit. I was more excited about turning the chalkboard table into a chessboard than I was about learning how to play chess for the tenth time. Yes, it is a bad sign when something must be learned on ten separate occasions. Euchre is another example of a game I don't care enough about to remember how to play it. I am hoping the chalkboard table will change all that. Not only will I throw more dinner parties- I will become a Euchre junkie and an extreme chess player. But before my life changes irreparably, I want to take a moment to relish the fabulousness of this chess set.


It reminds me of that line in As Good As It Gets where Jack Nicholson says 'you make me want to be a better man.' This chess set is like that for me. Chess-wise.

more cream, please

the rockstars of Dunn Bros. Lake Street




These are a few of the characters at the coffee shop I frequent. The place is pretty hodge-podge. The decor is middle-eastern meets church youth group lounge. There's even a piano that people get yelled at for playing. Whenever I see a movie about musicians, I consider buying this piano from the owner. Seems like we'd both get something out of it. He would get rid of his noisome piano. I would finally realize that my dream of being a musician is exactly that. At Dunn Bros. they roast their own beans. Their coffee is great. More than the coffee, I like the staff. Two words. Looney Tunes. I suffer slightly from barista envy.

I made a pointless resolution this year to stop using sweetener in my coffee. I'm not anti-sweetener. It's not like Diet Coke has ever struck me as a slow dagger to the heart, or brain, or whatever it is the naysayers say. It actually really bothers me when people get all high and mighty about not using nutrasweet or the like, saying 'It completely alters your brain chemistry. It just messes with your head.' Get over it. They've clearly never been so poor that they had to live off the stuff. At my most impoverished, I would buy generic lemon concentrate and mix it with water and generic Sweet-n-Low. Poor man's Crystal Light. Being poor is littered with confessions of this sort. Artificial sweeteners are probably the tenth or so thing I would die from and I'm only overly concerned with the first. But for whatever reason, I made the resolution and I'm trying to stick to it. The only real change has been that I drink a lot less coffee. And I drink it with a lot more cream.

back to reality

Yesterday was gorgeous weather. That one day in the year when the demon spirit of Northern California lays claim to the soul of Minneapolis and we all pretend we're better off for putting up with the bitter cold for 6 months followed almost immediately by 5 months of brutally hot, humid, eternally sweaty summer- starting early and ending late, the same way winter does. If I sound bitter, it's only because I've spent the last 6 months being bitter. Yesterday was the day of hope. Today was the day of truth. It rained all day long. But there is a definite silver lining. Two silver linings.


The first is this picture. Jon claims it is the best picture of him ever taken. He likes it because of the way it captures his sneakers. White. I like it because of the way it captures my mood towards Minneapolis. Bleak.


In addition to the greatest picture ever taken of Jon, the total drear provided the perfect opportunity to test my new popover pans. The popover recipe I use is from Martha Stewart's baking cookbook. A tome of baking from which I can attest to no failures. Among the triumphs: Maple Buttercream, Almond Macaroons, Graham Crackers, various scones and Date Bran Muffins. Any one of these recipes is worth buying the cookbook for.


The recipe goes something like this...

Popovaires

1 1/2 cups milk
6 large eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tablespoons powdered sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt

Mix all together with whisk until combined. There will be lumps. Pour into buttered tins. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes. I think the most important thing is to generously butter the tins. No matter what, a few of my popovers always stick to the pan. It's annoying. You pull on the popover trying to loose it and end up deflating and mutilating it. Emotionally, it's a lot like trying to get the pit out of a very ripe peach and ending up with a piece of mauled flesh. If you want to adapt this recipe to make a deep controlled rage- omit the butter completely.

field trip!!!

I love field trips. Today my excursion was to my favorite secondhand shop. The Salvation Army on Nicollet near 38th street. There was no need for a bag lunch as it isn't the kind of place to really make you hungry. Not even if someone in the aisle next to you happens to be eating fried chicken. I love this Salvation Army for two main reasons.

One reason- the people who work there are interesting. Ghetto friendly. They all smile a lot, as if to belie the actual state of their teeth. Like if you circled a giant birthmark on your forehead or stuck a party pick in a humongous pimple. On any given visit, more than one employee will catch my eye and ask how I'm doing that day. I don't make it there very often but they all know me. I bring a lot of donations in, then shop very slowly until I accumulate nearly as many things as I dropped off. They often give me discounts on my merchandise.

Second reason- the goods are still thrifty. This is a rarity in secondhand shops these days. Many have become nearly as expensive as the dirt-cheap retail stores whose clothes they are often selling once removed. I refuse to buy Forever 21 merchandise at a thrift store. Because if I found a shirt on the sale rack at Forever 21 with a crusty stain on the front and yellow armpits, I wouldn't by it there, either. The Salvation Army on Nicollet prices everything arbitrarily. It's actually according to the value placed on that object by any one of a handful of workers authorized to price stuff. The end result is completely random, but cheap. Today I heard the check-out guy tell a customer that something cost $20. The customer said, 'No way, man. That's too much.' He said in return, 'yeah, I know. I want it, that's why I told you that.' Which also explains why the employees dress in extreme layers and often appear to be inseparable from random objects. Loot is one of the few perks of the job.

Speaking of loot. The day's bounty revealed.


Popover pans! There is backstory. I love popovers and make them fairly often, but swore I would never buy an official popover pan. I have anxiety about kitchen objects with only one purpose. It doesn't explain why I have a electric pizelle iron but just trust me on this. Popovers pans are a perfect example. They take up a bunch of space, are pretty expensive and are only good for popovers. I've been using my 4-oz ramekins for making popovers and pretending it was working out just fine. But...today I found the perfect alternative. Popovaire pans. Lightweight, 99 cents each and they easily stack into my already existing muffin tins, so the space issue is a non-issue. yay!


Giant plaid hoops. Just what I never knew I always wanted. I know what you're thinking. That must be a fake mini-thumb. It's not. The earrings are obscenely huge. I wore them about town afterward to test my compatibility with them. Very compatible. I felt a lot of hoop-envy going on around me. I paid $2 for them. I also received the enthusiastic endorsement of the check-out girl. I love those guys.


Dancing shoes. I scuffed them up a bit riding my pimped-out bicycle. The shoes are completely versatile. No more quandery over what to wear with navy knee-highs and gray corduroys. My sister had a pair of these when she was in the high school production of West Side Story. Consequently, I find myself wishing I lived a musical version of my actual life while wearing them. The same way every movie I see about musicians makes me want to buy a piano.


This dress was cause for deliberation. I am still musing on it. The real selling point was its completely neutral odor. It will require a flashy belt with matching flashy heels and a bit of mending. I am considering taking in the top a bit also. It cost $4.95. Worth it as my first major forray into self-tailoring. I can always lop off the top and settle for a brown polyester skirt. Win/win situation. Succeed, a new dress. Fail, a new skirt.

A near perfect day.

bon ami

Ah....springtime. The very recent arrival of spring has unearthed many things in Uptown Minneapolis. This sofa, for instance. It kind of makes me want to sit right down and catch typhoid fever. Truthfully, it makes me want to go on a spring cleaning rampage. So I invested in a few new eco cleaners today.


bon ami is a cleaner I have seen in several magazines. It is a hot topic for the first time in its 120 years. Note the newborn chick on the label. I get it on an abstract level. A chick is obviously a better mascot for a cleaning powder than Rosie O'Donnell, or satan, or a catfish. Still, the chick wasn't really hitting home for me... until I read the back of the can.


Obviously! It makes me feel sad that Bon Ami has a mascot that requires a disclaimer. I can tell I am going to like Bon Ami. We have a lot in common. I also explain myself too much, consider myself a cleaner and the big can thing. Tomorrow- field trip to Salvation Army!

crazy girl in the grocery store

A quick anecdote about being mistaken for a crazy person. As I enter the grocery store, a tall guy catches my eye. I recognize him from my hometown of Black River Falls. I never recognize anyone in Minneapolis, much less someone from my tiny hometown. I realize that he may not know me. I generally know more people than know me. I can't quite think of the word for that, but I know popular isn't the right one. I introduce myself, anyway. A short awkward conversation ensues. I ask something embarrassing, like 'do you go to school at the U?' Later, I do a little math that puts him about 5 years out of college. He's uncomfortable around me. Possibly thinks I'm stalking him. I mention my mom, knowing she was his high school Math teacher. That doesn't help things. He's probably thinking I know all about his fractile dysfunction. Mom can be a little chatty in that way. I make a hasty farewell to put him out of the misery I got him into.

Ten minutes later, digging through the book bin, I see a shadow looming on the ground next to me. As I look up, he is disappearing around the nearest aisle with his cart. It's the feminine products aisle, so it's safe to say he is avoiding me. I can see how I would look weird to an outsider. In my defense, I don't usually dig like a hobo through the book bin at the grocery store. That's not to say I don't look like a bag lady most of the time, but c'mon- it's the grocery store. If there's any place in the world to bag-it without judgement, it should be here. Besides, it isn't every day that a Manga Drawing Kit stops me in my tracks.

The last straw is when the clerk at the checkout counter asks me how much my ice cream Dibs cost. I can't exactly remember. I say $3.97, knowing it is either that or $3.60-something and thinking it would be embarrassing if I am wrong and had aimed too low. Then I say, 'I could go check the price. Maybe I should just put them back. If I'm going back there anyway. I was wondering if I should buy them to begin with. Maybe it's a sign.' This variety of sounding off to the check-out guy is also most exceptional for me. The people who work at Rainbow are the real deal when it comes to nuts. I usually mind my own business. I would have kept quiet except I was hemming and hawing over buying the ice cream to begin with. I only bought it because Trista, from The Bachelor, claims that Dibs were the secret to losing all her post-baby weight.

Not surprising that I catch the attention of the tall guy in the checkout next to me. Nice the way it comes full circle like that. A little yin, a little yang. I guess we're all the crazy girl in the grocery store to someone.

Yay! project mode

Of all the time I spend doing projects, only a fraction is in the state of mind I call project mode. Maybe it's flowstate, maybe it's bliss, maybe it's my golden self. People call this state of mind a lot of things. It is a happy place for me. The last few days, I have been in project mode. It makes being at work incredibly painful. I spend approximately 1% of my employed hours in project mode. That directly translates to 1% of my employed hours existing in that happy place.

The chalkboard table was a qualified success. I say qualified only because a full erasure of the writing below left permanent grooves in the vinyl surface. I've come to terms with that. It holds me accountable. Maybe it will help me swear less. People who don't know me well think I'm demure. It has its advantages. I only have to listen to fart jokes on my own terms. Plus, my 'occasional' curses pack a heavy punch. Not like at home- where they are background noise at best.
Here is a super tidy version of project mode.


On the table is a recipe project. It is an abridged version of what it could and should be- made possible only by Kinko's 49 cent color copies. I can't afford to execute the project on a grander scale. Nor could I afford to make copies of copies, which necessitated learning how to scan on the self-serve copier. The Kinko's nearest me is staffed by fifty morons and this one guy who knows how to work the machines. So, I had to hightail it to Kinko's during his shift on my lunch break to get schooled on the 4-up scan function. I'm a big fan of educational byproducts. Most of my learning is incidental, meaning that I have rarely learned anything without making a huge fool of myself. I'll showcase the finished project at some point in the near future. Also on the table is my newest acquisition. My Manga Drawing Kit. It is truly awesome.


I brought it home two nights ago and Jon's response was that he never knew I wanted to draw manga characters. Which just goes to show- after 7 years together, there is still a whole lot you might not know about someone. I understand his skepticism. Most people who buy a Manga Drawing Kit in the book bin of the grocery store would be acting on impulse. This is different. I had to dig through the entire book bin to find the components of the kit. If I weren't so passionate about manga (ahem...Jon), that might have stopped me in my tracks.