Date:

August 23rd, 2008

  • I’ve been neglectful in noting my dreams lately (and I’m going through a patch where I don’t remember them as well) but earlier this week I dreamed that Kurt told me Evo Morales had died and I said ‘but I just saw him on the television arguing with the opposition’. Then I realized that having seen him on television did not mean he wasn’t dead (kind of like that Pixies song “a letter in your writing doesn’t mean you’re not dead”) and I felt sad, because I like Morales, even though he does some shady stuff, because he’s indigenous and it’s about time.
  • On Thursday I opened up one of those big boxes of matches and realized it was almost empty, maybe 20 or so matches left in the bottom. I couldn’t quite get at them because there was this slip of cardboard in the way, so I pulled the slip of cardboard out. It was a coupon. That expired on Dec 31, 1999. Even if I bought the box of matches on the day the coupon expired (unlikely), I’ve still had this box of matches for eight and a half years. That’s at least four moves. Who expects a box of matches to endure near a decade?
  • We’ve been slumming lately. A couple of weeks ago we made our first visit to Aldi, a rock bottom pricing grocery store. We’d never been before, and had no idea you couldn’t pay by credit card. They take cash and debit cards only (and apparently the debit card thing is pretty recent). So we stood in line debating whether we knew the pin for our credit/debit card (“Try your ATM pin”, I said, with a shrug) and the people in line behind us all looked at us like we were McCain — ignorant of how many houses we owned. It’s also apparently pretty common to get “cash back” on your transaction, using Aldi like a glorified ATM, and we both blinked, nonplussed, when the cashier asked us whether we wanted cash back. By the time we’d recovered enough to say, “NO.” the guy behind us had already said, “I’ll take their cash back!” The woman with him looked like she was strung out on meth. They were buying one tube of pork sausage. Also, our washing machine broke, so we went to the laundromat. Man, laundromat tech has really come a long way in the fifteen years since I last had to use coins to wash. It’s largely HE washers, and it was pretty cool, since we’re in the market for a frontloader. Still, it’s clear there’s a socio-economic gulf between me and the average laundromat client. Not a scary gulf, I didn’t think I was going to get shot or anything, but yeah, I’m very much not a college kid or a retired woman on a fixed income or a blue collar guy. It’s easy to forget how many things in life well-to-do smoothes over for you, even if you only have the one house.
  • I’ve got some things to say about writing, but that’s (mostly) another post. All I want to say here is: I love finishing a story draft. It gives me a buzz. I’m a little surprised about the intoxicating neurology involved, I always thought (judging from how little I finish) that completion thrill was something that happened to other people. Must figure out a way to exploit this to finish more things.
  • This week’s story recommendation is neither its own post, nor something to read. It’s something to listen to: Podcastle 14 – The Grand Cheat. Wonderful story in all kinds of ways. Beautifully read. Enjoy! Hillary Moon Murphy’s other Podcastle offering (Podcastle 3 – Run of The Fiery Horse) is good too, but if you’re only going to listen to one “The Grand Cheat” is the way to go. As Adrian Monk says, “You’ll thank me later.”

Continue reading

Powered by WordPress