Even if love is blind, the neighbors ain’t

Went with Jessy to the symphony last night, mostly because I heard there was a movie involved. The folks played the score live for the silent film Sherlock Jr., which I had never seen before but apparently is one of Buster Keaton’s best. We had to sit through the first part of the non-film orchestra performance before we got to the movie part, all of the non-movie stuff was ridiculous insufferable po-mo wank. Fashion-wise clad in the clothes we taught and officed in we occupied an interesting space between a few of the trying-too-hard hipsters with wartime knee boots and the guy who was wearing a North Face windbreaker and crocs. Wine and liquor was eight dollars a glass so we got a coffee for two dollars and paid with a debit card which is insane. It felt neat to be out on the town, though really we were mostly just shuttled there from our home and back again with not that much ambling. We parked across the street for five dollars then walked across the street to an area where it was valet parking for fifteen dollars, and I wondered who has fifteen dollars to have someone drive their car, and it was a lot of people, people who I imagine are real assholes.

One of the things I gave to Jessy for Valentine’s day was a large candle that has wooden X-shaped wicks that crackle and pop as the candle burns, which as it turns out is soothing but also makes me think constantly that I am going to have to watch for flare-ups or some sort of enormous pop like in a fireplace, but of course I don’t have to be worried about that. It makes our house smell like Christmas, which is probably why it was still left at the store a couple weeks before Valentine’s day for a very affordable price. Come to think of it, the hand soap I just bought also smells like either Christmas or a big strong man, it is some kind of spicy berry, every time I wash my hands in the kitchen I am like, something interesting is going on in here.

Now that Altoids have been part of my life for a couple of decades I am confident in saying I no longer find them strong at all, let alone curiously strong. No, no, the curiosity is dead, Altoids.

CURIOUS DALLAS, TEXAS THINGS OF THE NOW
– It is like 45 degrees and everyone in the office is in a panic because it is “so cold”
– I am sure going to miss all the Mexican foods I can get up in this bitch when I leave Dallas
– What the fuck, Bertie Higgins just came up on my music here what is this
WHAT THE FUCK WHAT

We only have a few days left until the Academy Awards, which I guess they are just officially calling “the Oscars” now, but I kind of hate that. I haven’t gotten to watch the awards show in like five years, which kind of hurts because I really do love movies and the show is one of the few remaining cultural television events like the Super Bowl since nobody really universally watches the same television shows anymore. Jessy and I have been grinding through the movies to try to at least see all the Best Picture nominees, mostly so we can more appropriately place our outrage when the movies we wanted to win do not win. Right now we have seen I think five of them, which would have been “all of them” back before I left this weirdo country, and now they nominate like nine or ten which I mean sure good but I got some movies to watch still. Movies yet to watch: 12 Years a Slave (too depressing), Philomena (too do not know anything about), Gravity (too space), and Captain Phillips (too tom hanks).

I went to a place called Grandy’s today for lunch, it is apparently like a fast food thing, the best equivalent I could draw is KFC if KFC also sold chicken fried steak with gravy on it. They asked, do you want a second fried pork cutlet thing for a dollar, and why the hell I said yes I do not know. I could not even start into it, I had to throw it away, I felt Japanese guilt. In Japan they’d have asked me if I wanted it for free and I’d have said no cause I’d’ve known I’d’ve not been able to eat it. But here I paid a dollar cause it seemed like a good deal and look where that got me. All in all it was pretty slammin though.

I’m really not what you’d call into your basic kink

I’ve been makin’ mashed cauliflower lately for supper, for some reason. I boil up a chopped head of fresh cauliflower in a cup or two of water till it’s all soft and then mush it with some cream cheese and butter and parmesan and whatnot and it is super taste because it stays really hot, hotter than mashed potatoes probably even. So last night we are sitting at the table eating it up and this lady comes to the door, Jessy goes to get it and I jaw at my roommate for a little while and drink my beer waitin’ for her to come back, but she doesn’t for a while so I decide to go check it out. The lady at the door is some kinda crazy cat lady, she asks if we have a black cat which we do, but Kiki is right there next to us, and she says well she’s asking cause there is a dead black cat out in the road off in front of our house. In my mind I am all like “yo why is this my problem lady” and then she gets to the meat of the issue: she lives next door, and she knows the cat is there in the road, and she can see the cat, and she doesn’t want to see the cat anymore, and she wants to know if I will “remove” the cat.

There has been for a few months this black cat that has on occasion freaked us out by looking exactly identical to Kiki who walks around our house and out in front of it, my roommate once saw him and thought oh shit, Kiki got out, but then he came inside and there was Kiki right there, no big whoop. He would only come around in the afternoon or as we were gettin’ home and we haven’t seen him in a while so I guess this is that one, doppleKiki, bizarro-Kiki for all yinz Superman guys.

I grew up on a farm and all, I have been surrounded by dead cats, buried in piles of cats!! But what does she mean remove I ask her, do I like, do I pick it up and put it in a Trader Joe’s bag and give it a nice organic trip into the plastic dumpster or. She says well yes you could throw it away but then like, what if it belongs to someone, and they go looking for the cat, and they can’t find it and look for it forever thinking it’s alive but it is dead, so maybe we should leave it so they can stumble upon its fresh corpse and get the grieving out of the way. Whatever lady, she decides I should move it from “sort of the side of the road” to “the actual side of the road” up against the curb. I put double layered plastic Target bags on my hands and I am still wearing my flannel “room wear” which is what they call it in Japanese I have no idea what kind of shit this is called in American.

I walk out there and wait for there to be no cars seein’ me dinking around with a dead animal in the middle of the road and all, and then I wonder ya know, I guess this thing is kinda fresh, but like did it get hit by a car or something cause I ain’t really want all this guts and all on me. I slide my hands under it, only vaguely considering how I will one day scoop up my own black cat’s finished body, and can only notice how soft and warm it still is, so soft that I wonder if maybe like its goop is all splattered out under it, but as i kinda slide him over to the curb he ain’t leaving a trail or anything so I just kinda go with it. I hold him at length like I used to hold Jessy’s little brother all “oh he he yes this is a nice thing to hold this oh yes” and set him down gently against the edge then go back in and wash my hands and finish my beer and look at my own goofball cat who has no idea I was just shuffling around a corpse of something just like him!! BUT

But then today me and Jessy leave the house for work and just as we are about to go out the door I am tellin’ her hey, I wonder if that dead cat is still there by the side of the road, and we step out a few steps onto the lawn to peek around our car and look, and there sure ain’t no dead cat there. And I say hey, the cat is gone, and I look over to my left to see her reaction, and right there on the goddamned lawn is a black cat, having somehow emerged from somewhere, lookin’ right up at us, and we say hey cat, and the cat walks over into the bushes. WHAT THE FUCK so in conclusion, the cat reanimated and is still alive.

curious america
– I went to this Thai restaurant for lunch the other day, I had to wait to be seated, wait for the menu, wait for the dude to come take my order, wait for the order, wait for the dude to come back to ask me “if I am done” after my food was all gone, wait for the check to be brought, wait for him to pick it up, and wait for him to bring me back my goddamned change. This is far inferior to Japan, where I sit down of my own volition, peruse the menu which is ALREADY ON THE TABLE, push the button, order with a person who comes to me, then brings me my food and a receipt that I take up to the register whenever I am ready to go. Get your shit together america not everyone has an entire fucking hour for lunch to waste like me
– I snagged one of the “natural organic rolled oats” “healthy” granola bars from the break room, it has like 23 grams of sugar in it oh such health so natural

– Almost everyone in the office is gone because of the flu or something, they came in today and sprayed my entire workstation down with actual Lysol spray, it made everything sticky and now my head hurts mission accomplished
– Have you heard of these “Butter Finger” candy bars, I haven’t had one in like a million years but I bought some the other day, I don’t think I have ever opened a Butterfinger that wasn’t cracked in half or thirds and they crumble all over hell good lawd
that’ll do

There was a crazy traffic jam today, I was over a half-hour late for work, at least it wasn’t traffic jelly AHAHAHAH uhhhghhhh