curb girl

I wonder what it would cost to hire someone to cook for me like this.

I've always wanted a live pianist or cellist to play in my home for several hours a day as well.

I also want a few goats and chickens.

It would have been nice to live near the ocean, but, you know — global warming (and other threats to important coastal places) — so I guess I can stay here or somewhere like here.

My government-job desk neighbor is always offering unsolicited food and advice.  He's a lonely person, I've decided; he opened up to me without request, later / recently commenting that he never does such things, that there's (sigh) "something about you."

Yes, I get it, and I said so:  "I'm one of those people people talk to."  Cheer cheer.

I do not like his take-over of my thoughts, both at desk — 8 hours, mind you — and later on during mental download.  Bleh.  I had to state explicitly the other day, after my "I just need some alone-time" from before did not have a lasting effect, that it was absurd to spend lunch together when we already spend 8 hours that way.  Good God.  I know his wife is ailing, but apparently she can still cook lasagna (I am not being obscene), and he's a moral and evidently insecure person who used to be a gymnast in school and recently has taken up scuba diving.

He likes his boat.

He is "not an animal person."

He is generally estranged from his siblings, and his children (three, I think) are generally successful and happy people he likes.  He thinks about art now because of me, he said.

Anyway, I'm hungry.  Awake and hungry.  I would have eaten again by now.

Today (yesterday) we ate at McCoy's for $38 (includes tip) … I had a "small" "bistro" salad (it was good) and some buffalo chili and a corn muffin.  Two beers tinged with raspberry and served at some freakish room temperature.  The outdoor dining air was colder.  I took the cheese and tortilla strips off the chili, because they were obnoxious.  I scoffed at the "spicy" notation on the menu.  Yes, spicy compared to a raw tomato perhaps.  It was good; I've had it before.  The place where I was hoping to get replacement earrings has been gone for some time now, apparently (get out much?), and the pet store on 39th was closed 50 minutes before we arrived.  We went into the ___ (how does one describe a place where they sell odd jewelry, RPG dice, some chain mail and swords, belly dancing clothes, and incense from Tibet, which we bought?) and had a nice little time instead.

There isn't very much to eat in the house that does not require 40 minutes of cooking (or is not grilled cheese.  I had an episode with the loaf of bread; there is irreparable damage.  Please send bread-pudding recipes that work with soft — not the fake whitened kind — whole wheat bread), so I'm left to fantasize about food I could never conceive and which looks too laborious to execute.  Thank you, bloggers of food.

It reminds me of the time I read an entire book on cheese while waiting to be picked up the usual three hours after high school let out.  Why aren't there vending machines in or restaurants around libraries?  I probably didn't have any money anyway.  That library is where I learned about abortion regrets, cocaine, LSD, and sailing terms.  Those are the only books I recall from that setting and time.

Public libraries freak me out.  I prefer university ones.  There is much more privacy.  And the range of ages is (was) closer to one's own:  no kids running around, no old people, etc.  During the two semesters I was recently back in school, my life (and status) made going into the university library such a non-priority that, to this day, I still have not done it at all.  (Note that it is immediately adjacent to the art building!)

I suppose I shall when it becomes necessary for the advancement of my (I can't help but laugh) degree.  I'm probably afraid of the way things are mostly online in special databases … journals are so 1990, like the card catalog was so 1890.  Also, although I was carded twice this weekend, I am older than the average college student.  I don't quite belong there.  We wear different clothes.  Besides, they only asked for my I.D. because A) it was a flirtation method on the grocery-checker's part, and B) because liquor control had been doing little check-ins lately in Westport.  Admittedly, I'm a little worried about the checker's photographic memory.  What if I don't want to share my address with people?  Is that a drinking penalty of some sort?  I heard cigarette taxes went up $1 a pack around here (get out much?).

The girls at work didn't agree that it would be easy for someone to memorize (or write down) SS#s and names or addresses from the tax forms we each swore we would not compromise.  They let us work there at least a week before our background check materials were completely processed.  I suppose the fingerprints had been FBI-cleared already, but opportunity creates a thief, even the kind without a record.

Note: I am not stealing anything from any taxpayer.  I respect the job, back-numbing as it is.  I don't have any intention to steal any identity information or even an understanding of how it is useful.  Also, I'm not as evil as all that; I don't believe in randomly picking people to hurt who have done nothing against me.  For those who have, I let it go and know there is no satisfaction in revenge.  However, if some checker-guy starts showing up around here, I will have to respond.

Bleh.

Feed me, someone.