August 19, 2008
Phone Home
Gene finally caved and bought an iPhone. So if you were betting that he'd hold onto his primeval Nokia phone held together with a rubber band forever, you owe someone some money.
Getting the iPhone means we're both on the AT&T network now, which means I, too, had to give up my primeval Nokia phone for something with a bit more flash. It's not that I want flash, exactly -- it's just tough to find the tin-can-and-string-era phones I've been using until now.
The whole process has been kind of surreal, actually. First, Gene is buying a new phone, and not just new to him, but NEW. To get it we had to actually go down to the AT&T store, where we also picked out my phone from the ten or so ordinary ones on offer.* I kept waiting for Gene to be weirded out by the situation -- after all, the selection is much wider if you're shopping at, say, the internet; plus, being followed around by a salesman has never been Gene's favorite thing -- but he gritted his teeth and stuck it out.
So now I have this flashy little number:
It's my first camera phone. Naturally, I'm taking it very seriously. I'd like to have some kind of a theme to my caller-ID pictures. But what? Everyone in masks? Everyone holding a sign saying who they are? I'm looking for ideas. And remember that you will probably be asked to engage in whatever photo behavior you suggest.
*I should mention, I could have gotten an iPhone also but for various reasons I don't want one.
Posted by didofoot at 08:29 AM | Comments (2)
August 18, 2008
B*
It seemed like a genius plan: open a second Burma Superstar just blocks from the first, severely over-crowded Burma Superstar. But like so many genius plans, it went a little south.
The thing to know about Burma Superstar is that all the hype and the two-hour wait for a table and the indie darlingness of it are not wrong. B.S. offers a samusa soup which can kill you with its flavorful goodness. You have to come prepared for it or it will knock your socks off so hard that your feet will come with it and you'll bleed to death. It's a serious soup, for serious people. I mean, I don't even like soup, but this soup I would kill for. I wouldn't kill a family member or anything, but I would definitely kill a stranger.
The thing that makes the soup so deadly delicious is the combination of spices. I have no idea what they are, because I am a crappy cook and can tongue-identify only the three spices I know how to use. It's definitely not basil, or salt. So I have to assume it's cinnamon, the third spice I sometimes cook with. (It may also be cardamom. I think I had that in a tea once.)
The point here is this: on Friday, Michele and Christine and I tried B. Superstar's new spin-off, B*. There's a bunch of new stuff on the menu there, and some old favorites are missing, but they do offer the soup, so naturally Michele and I ordered it. We each grabbed hold of our socks with one hand and our spoons with the other and dug in.
I guess after all this build-up, I don't have to tell you that the soup was tragically, horribly different. It was spicy, yes, but the kind of spicy that burns your tongue without affecting your socks at all.
"It's like they just dumped a bunch of chili powder in," said Michele, who cooks with many kinds of spices and would know.
"The cinnamon flavor is gone," I said mournfully.
The awesome waiter from the original place was in the new restaurant, so that was nice, and the main courses were just fine, and the decor was pretty, and the tea leaf salad was unchanged. But the soup...the soup is different. And Burma Superstar without samusa soup is ankles without feet. So I say, give them six months to get their chef trained before you try it; then we'll see.
This is not my samusa soup.
Posted by didofoot at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2008
Full House
I did some cleaning today. Just vacuuming in the living room and some stuff in the bathroom. I don't need new speakers, but I do need my computer to be able to control the ones in the living room as well as the kitchen. If I can get a full-house sound, I might clean the full house. If not...you're in big trouble, mister.
The Moms has been hassling me about not blogging. My response, apparently, is to create a paragraph-long post featuring a joke from a sitcom she never watched. And still no grandchildren. I am a terrible kid.
These are not my kids.
Posted by didofoot at 12:02 PM | Comments (1)
July 10, 2008
Bob
We have a thirsty ghost and his name is Bob.
I knew Bob in life. He lived on the top floor of our building. He had a hard time getting up the stairs and used to rest in the lobby before making the climb; sometimes I'd be passing through and I'd carry his laundry up to his door or just sit and chat with him. I quite liked him.
Shortly before he died, Bob asked us to switch apartments with him. He wasn't going to be able to manage the stairs any more. We said no for a variety of selfish reasons, but it turned out not to matter as he died in the care facility where he was staying at the time.
Since he died, Bob's been keeping me company. And the poor guy wants a drink. Every so often, he pushes something off a shelf where it is firmly lodged; the first time it was a beer bottle, today it was a water glass. I am always in another room when this happens. It's a lot of shards to sweep up, but I don't mind. I'd leave a beer for him on the counter (in a plastic cup), except I think Gene might object to sharing his hard-bought beer with my invisible friend. Bob's also been screwing around with our refrigerator, I believe, covering the things inside with a thin layer of frost but still not really chilling things. Maybe he lives in there. I might, if I were a ghost who missed food.
Of course, it's possible that working alone all day I've simply invented a friend, because I am a sad, pathetic person. But self-interest compels me to believe I am not sad and pathetic. I'm just hanging out with Bob.
This one's for you, friend.
Posted by didofoot at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2008
The Wart
My jaw joint (located just in front of the ear) is inflamed. You can't tell from looking at it but I sure can feel it. Apparently, I've been grinding my teeth in my sleep. The inflamed joint was diagnosed a week ago, and since then it's spread to the other side of my face and part of my throat. So, I don't know. I might just collapse into a heap of pieces. My days are clearly numbered.
It's funny that I am a tooth-grinder. I'm also a shoulder-tenser, a nail-biter, a back-huncher and a brow-furrower. Where is all this tension coming from, though? Used to be, I could blame it on school or work. Now I've stripped all sources of stress away from my life and I am left with the simple truth: I am a very worried person.
I worry about global warming. I worry that Gene might never want to have kids and I might someday want to. I worry that a guy might whistle at me on the street, that all my books might burn down in an apartment fire, that a friend will tell me what she REALLY thinks of me. Should I be cleaning the house more, writing more fiction, wearing a more attractive shade of nail polish? Should I be more outgoing? I worry that a doorway might open into another world and I won't have any money when I get there and will starve before I have any magical adventures. (I used to keep a small cloth pouch of loose change in my bedroom for just this emergency.) I worry that the flight attendant on the plane might ask me a question I wasn't expecting. I worry that someone I love will die, as a judgment on me because I didn't spend enough time worrying about it and trying to picture it.
I think I worry to stave off trouble. I live in a beautiful apartment, in the city I love best in the world, with the person I most want to live with, doing a job I love, and looking the way I want to look. I have never done anything to deserve this and I worry that I am at the beginning of my particular bildungsroman, not the end, and there are trials by fire ahead of me. I worry so that the gods and cosmic narrators will know that I am not really enjoying myself. Even though I'm eating this banana in the store, I fully intend to pay for it. I will pay for it. Look, I'm paying for it now.
And so I pay a little every day, and waste half the pleasure of having the banana in the first place.
Posted by didofoot at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)
