It's not a puppy, I swear

Dear Ryan,

Today I picked up a small holiday gift for you. I'm not much of a gift giver, but this item just seemed right up your alley. So anyway, we should hang out soon.

Also, I thought I'd let you know that I'm almost done with my mix CD. I say this, because that deadline is coming up quick, isn't it? It is.

I suppose I could have just called you.

Cheers,
Stanley

Vittle me this

Tonight, after a (rare) post-work nap, I was overcome with an overwhelming desire for Campbell's Tomato Soup. Such an urge was mine that I even went all the way to the store for milk, and I fucking never use milk. (I buy it, sure; but it's always a project-driven purchase that ends up used once and tossed three weeks after the expiration date.)

She Didn't Even Ask If I Wanted To Buy A Membership Card

I look forward to a future wherein I have a more sedentary lifestyle, because with lots of sitting around comes an influx of arts and crafts, and if I knew a few more arts and crafts then I wouldn't have to buy anybody anything for Christmas, I could just build them shit, and then I could avoid waking up early on a Saturday and driving to Barracks Road Shopping Center. Which, if you don't know Barracks Road, know that I was really hoping somebody would call me while I was shopping so they could ask where I was and I could loudly proclaim, "The Seventh Circle of Hell!" and they could say, "You mean Barracks Road?" and we could laugh. Alas.

So I was at Barracks Road, which I hate (aside from Panera), and I was in Barnes & Noble, which I hate (aside from the super-awesome $2 deals on "Barnes & Noble Classics") and after waiting in line and almost buying like a million little do-it-yourself origami kits and leather bound journals, it was my turn, I was making my purchase, and I went with Ryan's standard Christmastime cashier smalltalk. Which is:

"So you guys must be really busy."

I admit this is neither original nor even interesting, but nonetheless usually I get like a vague but good natured, "Yeah, you have no idea," and I feel like this line is at least like not hated by the majority of cashiers - and not to delve too far into this but it always gets a better reception than my response of "I am doing fantastic! And yourself?" to "How are you doing?" which for some reason nobody wants to hear that you are doing fantastic. Nobody. Anyway, this past Saturday I got a new one.

"So you guys must be really busy."
"Yeah, what the fuck does it look like?"

Mmmmm, clothes

Unlike 100% of the people I know, LC and I don't have a washer/dryer unit, and so have to go to the local laundromat, aptly named Twenty-Four Hour Local Laundromat.

I love it. It reminds me of Mexico, and not because I make blanket stereotypical generalizations, but because it really is like stepping across the double sliding glass door threshold at the Twenty-Four Hour Local Laundromat transports one down through Texas deep into the Sierra Madres. (I wanted to make a Zelda simile here, but I won't.)

The music is Mexican, the talk is Mexican, the smell is even in a vague way Mexican. Musty. Lots of corn. And the scattered, half-confused way I try to communicate, usually unsuccessfully, is exactly like what it was like to be in Mexico. Plus they always watch soccer. I love it. I read my books and listen to the hustle bustle and occasionally someone asks me for a cigarette or a quarter or four quarters because their towels won't get dry, and then some women come in with babies and everybody crowds around and pokes at the baby faces and I ask how old the baby is and they say something I don't understand and I ask again and they look at me in a confused way and don't know what to do. It's just like Mexico. I love it.

And so I look forward to visiting Twenty-Four Hour Local Laundromat. Sometimes I go when I probably don't have even half a load of whites. I happily save quarters after grocery shopping. On weekends drive by and peer in to see if there's anybody I know.

Significantly less than a pound of flesh

I got a biopsy today. Nothing too serious—the doctor's pretty sure that a dry area on my hands is psoriasis, but the biopsy is required to confirm the diagnosis.

Beyond the weirdness of watching someone cut off a little part of your body, it's actually pretty cool. He numbed the area, then took a sort of stick with a pencil-eraser-sized cookie-cutter thing on the end. Punched in. A snip or two here and there. And there you have it. Little chunk of me goes into the awaiting jar.

I did end up with several stitches, and the doctor was concerned about me playing a gig this weekend. He asked about the diameter of drumsticks I used, which was kind of funny. Eventually, he ruled that it would be fine. "Worst case scenario: you bleed, which might add something to the act."

Heh.