I was not driving too fast on the freeway. I was driving too fast for an exit and the slowdown wasn’t marked… a sign that should have said “this is a 25 mph exit curve on a 60mph freeway.” There was not enough time to slow down before I rammed my car into a guardrail. In order to avoid the collision, I would have flipped the car and made everything much, much worse. I feel so bad because I have been a grandma driver and babied the hell out of my car because it’s a Toyota and I intended to drive it until the wheels fell off. Unfortunately, the whole front end was first.

The title comes from my lack of foresight. When I got insurance for my car, I had plenty in savings to buy another one, so I only carried liability. Then, I spent the money on my ITIL certification and grief. It takes savings to completely fall apart and not be able to get out of bed. In the first few months after my mother died, I left the house maybe once a week, and alternately slept and cried, what it took to allow my body to release the thunderstorm I kept hidden the entire time I was in Houston for the funeral… because I had to suppress my grief in order to be able to function. As a natural introvert, it was hard emotional work to handle the business of death, and to meet hundreds of people who knew my mother and not me, or hadn’t seen me since I was a baby/toddler and thus had no memory of them. In addition to grief, for the first month or so, I had what the interwebs call an “introvert hangover.” It means isolation after having to endure enormous amounts of social interaction, especially since I did most of it without the social lubricant of alcohol, because I didn’t want to feel any more numb than I already did. I’d also done my research. A lot of people turn to drugs or alcohol after the death of a loved one, and I didn’t want to become a statistic. Because I live in a household that doesn’t drink, I just naturally followed their lead before my mother’s death.

Afterward, being sober all the time was even more important to me because of what I saw as an enormous trap for the grief-stricken. I’ll have a drink now and again when I go to trivia or out to dinner, but I don’t keep my own alcohol at home and my vice of choice is fair trade, organic hippy douche coffee. As Christian Lander says in Stuff White People Like, “anything else is liquid oppression.” So, not only did I baby the car and drive like a grandma, I was stone cold sober when I realized that my car was gone and I probably wasn’t going to get her back. There’s probably $2,000 worth of body work that needs to be done, and it is unclear to me whether it would be worth it to pay it even if I had the money on hand. This is because Toyotas keep their value, and the car itself is worth about $6k on the private market. For that money, I could also buy another car that hasn’t been wrecked. The point is moot because I’d have to ask for the money to fix it or another car, when I really don’t need one to begin with. It would be asking for a “want,” and I’m just not in a position to place wants over needs.

The best option at this point would be to sell the car for scrap metal in order to save up for a new car, or to buy a year-long Metro pass. In the past, the only time I ever used an Uber or a Lyft was when I was coming home from the grocery store. Safeway and Whole Foods are both within easy walking or bus distance. It’s getting all the bags home that’s a complete bitch. I am more than willing to pay five bucks for the use of someone else’s trunk.

It’s funny (weird, not haha) that I was just saying yesterday how I needed more exercise, and I got it. Just not today. Today I am sore beyond belief, and am not going to push it until tomorrow or the next day.

In the first few seconds after the accident, I’d never felt more alone. I didn’t know what to do. First of all, I was going to Waffle House for some Southern comfort food. I’d found one near Frederick, so at least I was not out in BFE Virginia… but still, 30 miles from home. Secondly, I didn’t know who to call in order to take care of my car AND didn’t want to call 911 because it didn’t seem like that terrible an emergency. My airbag did not deploy (which, in retrospect, I have no idea why). I was sore, but still ambulatory…. albeit dazed with shock and pain. Good Samaritans stopped about two minutes later, and called the police and ambulance for me. I didn’t really need an ambulance, but who else was going to take me to the hospital to see if I had a concussion or any other injuries? Even the police didn’t offer to give me a ride. It was ambulance or nothing. It was another moment that reinforced how alone I was, but also the kindness of strangers. Even the police were sympathetic, saying that they see a lot of accidents on that very turn, and the same exit on the other side of the freeway is worse. I’d like to publicly thank MD trooper J. Deater, because even though he would say he was just doing his job, I would say he went above and beyond the call of duty, even following the ambulance and meeting me at the hospital to see if I was all right. Maybe that’s just protocol, but it seemed sweet to me.

I turned out to be mostly fine. No concussion, just strained the muscles in my neck and shoulders to the breaking point and was given a muscle relaxer because my PA thought my pain was going to get a lot worse before it got better. She was not wrong…. although I am surprised at how well OTC pain meds are working when I expected to need a narcotic for a couple of days. I didn’t ask for any, though, because the PA seemed confident and I trusted her judgment that the muscle relaxer would be enough. As it turns out, the shame and embarrassment is way worse than the physical injury. I just have to believe the officers when they said my accident was nothing special, shit happens, there probably should be a sign, and I really shouldn’t beat myself up. But I’m so good at it! How dare they take away my one superpower?

I just wish I had the tools to go and grab my Bluetooth stereo out of my car, and not to save it for my next car… although I would have. It’s because it was the last birthday gift from my mother. Thank God I still have the birthday gifts from years past that I use every single day. I have a Bluetooth alarm clock with badass speakers and a multi-device Bluetooth keyboard that I carry every single day because I am so bad at texting on my phone… and would be lost without it at Starbucks, where I connect it to my tablet in order to blog away from home when I don’t want to carry my heavy laptop. If you have an iPad and/or an Android tablet, it is a must have, and right now it’s on sale. As an aside, when you set up an iOS device, it provides Mac keyboard shortcuts. If you set up an Android/PC, it sets up those. Just sayin’ because it confused me at first, but is very handy now that I know. I am linking to all of the products because I wholeheartedly endorse them, and not because they were “Mom presents.” In addition to sentimental value, they are all ridiculously useful.

I am also torn up emotionally about wrecking my car because it was a gift from my sister, and when it arrived, smelled like her and reminded me of home…. complete with NASA sticker in the back window. Especially because Eggsy was a gift, it was just more motivation to take care of her. My little “spy car” became my child, because even though it’s an inanimate object, I don’t have kids or a pet, and she was the closest thing. So I always bought her top shelf “drinks,” used premium gas on occasion to clean out the fuel injectors, and watched many, many YouTube videos so I could do my own maintenance.

At this point, I’m not sure which is the bigger wreck…. Eggsy vs. the guardrail or my logic vs. my emotions. Time will tell as I pray for discernment, getting into that small, quiet space where I can listen to what the universe has to say.

Sometimes things don’t work out the way you’d planned, and yet, are still awesome. I met Dan for lunch near her office in Foggy Bottom, but instead of grabbing food, we decided to walk to The Mall. We ended up touring both the Viet Nam and Korean War Memorials. I didn’t get any pictures of the Viet Nam memorial, because there really weren’t any interesting shots that close up. However, it is powerful because several people have left biographies of their loved ones, and you can see people searching for names long lost to that brutality. We went because we are both enjoying the Ken Burns series on the war, and as cool as it is, I’ve seen it many times but had never been to the Korean… which I wanted to see desperately in David Halberstam’s memory. It seemed like a fitting tribute after poring over The Coldest Winter.

After I took pictures, I walked Dan back to her office and continued on to my car, where I drove to The Red Cross and had a terrible time finding parking… only to find out once I got inside that they provide free parking for donors. I had to walk several city blocks both ways, and my legs are Jell-o today because I am what you would call “indoorsy.” I was in pain and annoyed that the parking was not mentioned in all of the information I got regarding the donor center, but I know I’ll go back.

As it turns out, a few cheeseburgers does not raise your iron all that much, and I washed out again. My iron level was 11.7 in one hand and 12.1 in the other. Don’t ask me how that works… but I’ve taken corrective action by adding iron pills to my daily regimen. I should be able to pass in a week or so. It needs to be 12.5 or higher.

And yes, it did feel like failing an exam. Donating platelets has been important to me since 2009, and I’ve never had a problem before. With all the hurricanes and the shooting in Las Vegas, I just wanted to give back. They can transport platelets all over the country, so if it isn’t needed in DC, it will be moved.

I actually think that failing the iron test twice was a blessing in disguise, because 11.7 means anemia in women. The iron pills could give me more energy, and I could use it. I don’t have a problem sitting at a desk all day, but I love walking around the city and being exhausted from it… right now I am exhausted just thinking about it. Yesterday, I used muscles I’d forgotten I had… and remembered fondly the days when two miles of walking was literally nothing. DC is a walking city. The only reason I brought my car yesterday was that I was running late and Foggy Bottom is one of the easier places to find parking in the city that’s not hideously expensive. The parking wasn’t expensive in the Red Cross neighborhood, either, but it was much more sparse…. thus, the reason when I first woke up, thought, why do I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck? It took me a second…. slow on the uptake in my elder years, I suppose.

This morning, I am the living example of a Facebook meme…. “welcome to 40, where you have home Advil and purse Advil.”

It was important to me to get together with Dan yesterday, though, because she’s off on a work trip all of next week. I have two job interviews coming up, so we agreed to get together the following week to either celebrate or cry.

We have so much to celebrate, anyway, though… I just can’t tell you what.

Yet.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I’m at SBUX this morning because I have an appointment to give platelets at 1:30, and I could use a boost. Not too much- just a tall Sumatra. If I need more, I can get a refill, but I don’t want to get too dehydrated beforehand. It goes faster if you drink water and/or Gatorade beforehand. I’m just going to go with water. If you go to McDonald’s for dinner, no matter what you order, you’ve probably had enough salt. Although I didn’t do as much damage as I could’ve… I got a cheeseburger, a small fry, and a Southwest Salad with low calorie dressing. I feel both good and bad that I didn’t eat until I hated myself… because that means at least one dessert.

People ask me all the time how I eat like this and stay so slim. That’s really, really easy. I save up my calories for hours, sometimes days. When I’m really anxious, I stop eating and switch to smoothies. So, when my appetite comes back, it’s on like Donkey Kong because I don’t know when I’ll actually be hungry again. Believe me when I say I am not bragging in the slightest. Depression and anxiety are a horrible nutrition plan. The hardest part is constantly being applauded for truly negative behavior… because if I’m skinny, I’m obviously doing something right. Also, people who are heavier than me that seem to have some sort of misplaced anger and aggression at it, as if I don’t have my own body issues just like everyone else. I’ve lost muscle mass due to my “diet,” and can’t run up one flight of stairs without getting winded. Now that it’s cooler outside, it’s time to start walking again. It’s two miles to the Metro, and that seems to be about right. If I am feeling industrious that day, I will also walk the two miles back. Other days, I take the bus.

Why yes, I could walk one mile in one direction and one mile back, but what is the point of that? One mile is the middle of nowhere. Two miles is downtown… you know, where, like, the fun is? In a short period of time (not exactly sure of the day) Silver Spring’s “outdoor living room” will be flooded with water and frozen so that there’s ice skating until New Year’s. I’m excited because I’m not really good at any sports except ice skating and skiing… and in fact, the way I picked up skiing so quickly was my foundation in ice skating. Keeping your ankles together so you don’t have to wedge all the way down the mountain is strikingly similar.

My favorite song just started playing overhead… the one about the only one that could ever reach me was the son of a preacher man…. Great brass hits, and I know for a fact that it’s amazing because it’s true. I may be female, but EXTRAPOLATE! EXTRAPOLATE!

If you don’t get that reference, we probably aren’t very good friends. Although I do have a few friends that are so busy they rarely turn on the television, so I’ll explain it just for them. There are villains on Doctor Who called “The Daleks,” an alien race bent on world domination by killing all other life forms. The Doctor has been battling them since 1963. You can actually watch the original ’60s movie on YouTube. Their main dialogue is EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!, so there are many, many variations out there. Coffee shops have gotten a lot of mileage out of “CAFFEINATE!” There’s a somewhat famous desktop wallpaper of a Dalek in the shower that says “EXFOLIATE!” Why a Dalek would be in the shower is beyond me. They’re metal, and as Craig Ferguson has said, look a bit like a cappucino machine in a dress. But the wallpaper is funny nonetheless… suspension of disbelief and all that.

I am absolutely on pins & needles waiting for Christmas, my favorite day of the year because there is always a Doctor Who special, and this year The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) will regenerate into a female (Jodie Whitaker) for the first time. Some people are upset that she’s white, because there’s never been a minority doctor, either. Perhaps it would have been best to save Pearl Mackie for later….

However, I have watched ALL of Broadchurch, and Whitaker will totally be believable as a relatively young person with roughly 1200-year-old eyes. In Broadchurch, she played a mother who lost a son. If any role would prepare her for The Doctor’s immeasurable inner turmoil, that would be it.

My ADD is kicking in… now I’m wondering if I’ll be warm enough for apheresis. It is generally cold AF when you’re hooked up to the machine, because the fact that you’re freezing isn’t dependent on the temperature of the room, but your body’s reaction to the procedure itself. You just have to keep piling on blankets because you can’t easily wear a coat…. there’s a needle in your arm. I’ve also had several vaso vagel reactions and I’ve fainted, but have come back quickly and it wasn’t enough to make me stop. Fainting happens. There’s hurricanes out there. Blood and platelet banks are low, so I have no choice in the matter. I mean, I do, but I’ve been donating platelets since 2009. It’s kind of my thing. Dana and I used to go to the Red Cross in Portland, where the cute nurses would fawn over us because we were so adorable. I can only hope I’m that adorable on my own, because part of the reason everyone loved us was our tennis match stories.

And, of course I’m that funny and cute. It’s just not the same, and it never will be. But that doesn’t mean it’s not ok. Perhaps I’ll meet a hot nurse… not that I’m really looking. I look at the menu, but I don’t order. Ever since Dana and I broke up, I’ve taken working on myself seriously, because I never want so perfect a relationship to go so wrong again. I don’t have it in me. I’d rather be single and celibate the rest of my life than take the chance of hurting someone the way I hurt her, which was mostly because I was having my own emotional problems and in total survival mode, unable to be a partner… more like a hurt kid. This is not to say it was all my fault that things ended. No relationship’s end is one person’s fault. But I take a lot of responsibility… in my therapist’s opinion, a lot of the time too damn much. But there’s not a lot she can say to change my opinion about that, because I literally can’t lay down The River. It’s not that I won’t. I’ve made promises.

However, The Flop and The Turn are basically every session ever. We are just now getting to a second hand. The first isn’t over. I have one pair. I’m never going to win with that, because it’s not pocket aces or anything.

At least I haven’t lost my law school tuition to Teddy KGB… and eventually I will make him lose his Oreos and go on bustin’ him up all night.

Oooooh, now I know what movie I’m going to watch while I’m laid out, covered in blankets so I don’t lose my shit in front of a hot nurse. #eyecandy #thanksbetoGod

I started writing this post in Houston, so it may jump around a bit now that I’m back in DC and have a lot more to say. I didn’t forget about you- just too busy to actually post anything while I was away.

There is dirt on my shoes. I hate dirt on my shoes… and yet, I cannot wash it off. The past two days have been a non-stop whirlwind of activity, and I don’t know where the dirt originated. Because it might have come from the cemetery, I can’t bring myself to wipe it off. It has become more than dirt; it’s a symbol of where I’ve been and what I’ve experienced. Red streaks of Houston mud on dark black rubber and canvas that represent something… and yet, I know that if my mother was alive, I would have been scrubbing my Chucks with a toothbrush.

The entire reason I came to Houston was to spend time with my sister mourning our mother on the first anniversary of her death, and the tragedy in Las Vegas overshadowed everything. We couldn’t focus on our own pain, but those of others. I kept saying to myself that there was no such thing as competitive suffering, that just because those families were going through tragedies didn’t mean that ours was rendered invalid… and yet, it didn’t help. Or, perhaps it did. The shooting reinforced that bad things happen to good people every day, and life goes on because it has to- there’s just no other choice.

We, of course, did make it to the cemetery, and to St. Anne’s Catholic Parish in hopes of lighting a candle in my mother’s memory… but they didn’t have a place to do so. I just kneeled on the cushion in the front pew, laid my head on the rail, and cried like I hadn’t in a long time. Even though it’s not, it feels like it’s my job to be “the strong one,” and not because anyone’s ever asked me to. It’s just my personality to help everyone through their pain and break down later. The more chaotic it gets around me, the calmer I become.

Then, as an empath, once the chaos is over, I explode with my own pain and that of everyone else I’ve witnessed. To say that crying in the church at the same time someone else was grieving is unusual for me is an understatement, but it was cleansing nonetheless. I was able to feel stronger, and to stop pouring from an empty cup.

It is no secret that I love my family more than life itself, but physically being in Houston is very difficult for me. I prefer it when my family visits me on “my own turf.” There are too many memories that absolutely torture me here. It helps that my sister has a group of friends I’ve spent very little time with, making new connections and context in this city that I didn’t have before.

It’s just that I’ve been on the long road toward forgiveness at everything that this city has thrown at me, but I’m not there yet. There are old triggers of emotional abuse. There are triggers of loves past that ended badly. There are triggers of discrimination and homophobia on the parts of others, which only reinforces my internal homophobia and all of my kid fears. Having Dana and other old girlfriends live here pales in comparison to the feeling that I can’t really age up here, and in retrospect should have been a major consideration on my part before I dragged Dana into it. Everything that happened with Diane as a tween and teen tightens around my neck like a noose. I have no doubt that one of the reasons Dana got so tired of living with me in this city is that I just had this neverending monologue going about what happened here, and how it was so hard to let go, because the moment I thought I had, the air would smell the same as some night in my past and I would be transported in time, stuck in a moment I can’t get out of.

Breaking up with Kathleen after she personally & professionally embarrassed the hell out of me was almost 20 years ago, and we were both fully-functioning adults. I barely remember what happened in our day-to-day while we were living in Virginia. Therefore, I don’t have any horrible associations with the city and I feel much freer to move about without worrying that something will double me over with pain. In DC, I remember things that come to mind from other places, but I am not constantly walking around in them, living reminders everywhere.

However, my mother is not buried in DC, and her things aren’t there. Because my house burned down in sixth grade, I don’t attach much meaning to them… or at least, I don’t until I reach for something that smells like her. They’re too big, but I grabbed one of her Blue Ridge Elementary Staff button-downs and a knee-length leather coat I’ve been stealing from her since high school to bring back with me. I figure that I can put the shirt in my closet and take it out when I want it, because once I wash it, the magic is over. I can picture myself burying my face into the soft cloth, even when the scent is barely a memory. The coat being a little too big is not a problem, however. It gets cold enough in DC that I can make it fit with all my assorted layers, and “she” will be the outermost, protecting me from harm.

Last night my dad came over to my sister’s and the three of us went through boxes and boxes of pictures, old school work, and toys. I laughed to myself with my kindergarten report cards that I only got one satisfactory in the entirety of my first grade year in “Follows Directions.” There were also three requests for Parent-Teacher conferences. However, there were uplifting moments as well. I never thought of myself as a good student, and in a lot of respects, I wasn’t. But my mom kept a treasure trove of my old writings, ones in which teachers were floored. It made me remember that things weren’t all bad. However, it would have been a different picture if she’d kept all my math homework. 😉

She also kept a science project that I got an A on regarding coal-tar derivative dyes in things like Kool-Aid, and just FYI, pretty sure grape will kill you. In the “follows directions” vein, there’s clearly a grape Kool-Aid stain on the report itself. 😉 You would never know I’d ever done this project if you looked in my pantry and saw all the flavored water bottle mix-ins that are sugar free and still taste like diabetes- bright colored orange, grape, strawberry, fruit punch, the works. I figure that I don’t have any other vices, so if Kool-Aid is ever listed as my cause of death, you can be sure I was at least warned ahead of time… to the tune of about 10 or 15 pages of research.

Eventually, I’ll be posting writings and pictures from “my old life,” because they are priceless. There’s angsty, awful teenage poetry. there’s a few good essays, and pictures of me dressed in girly frilliness that just does not happen these days. When I was a baby, I was very small for my age. I was a preemie, and my dad had to go out and buy doll clothes to bring me home. The trick to being in Houston is to remember everything that happened before I moved there, that my family has an unending love for me, and it is where all my history is stored. I just don’t have room for it here. So in order to see the past in the future, it’s a fairly short plane ride away, and it would do me well to remember that fact.

I won’t lie, though, I am happy to be home. I went to a BBQ at Dan’s last night, and for some reason felt the need to eat everything in sight. The food looked good, yes, but I tend to eat a lot more when I’m with friends than when I am alone. Being with them stimulates my appetite because I feel comfortable, able to put away grief and just enjoy myself. I wish I could have that well of joy all the time, but for now, once in a while is enough. Although I could do without the “so full I think I might actually keel over” feeling this morning. 🙂

I was supposed to go out with Dan again on Wednesday, but she begged off because Autumn, her wife, is about to leave on a big trip, so we made plans to get together either later in the week or early next.

Before the party started, I went to Whole Foods Old Town and picked up some chips, crackers, pico de gallo, and vanilla bean ice cream, my contributions to the festivities. The vanilla ice cream was because I knew other people would show up with desserts that needed it, and I was right- an apple pie and a chocolate bundt cake. I chose the chocolate cake, but if I’d seen the apple pie, all bets would have been off. I probably would have eaten both of them. 😛

I also went to Tech Week in DC, which I thought would be the right move, but now I’m not so sure. I went to lectures regarding venture capitalism, and met a lot of people that wanted to start new businesses, but no one that was actually hiring for any. Although I thought about being petty and buying the domain names for their bright ideas so they’d have to pay me large sums of money to get them back. Then, maybe I’d have my own venture capital, but I couldn’t make myself be that mean.

I came up with the idea for a great app, but it would involve finding an iOS/Android developer because I don’t do that, and coordinating with WMATA to get it done. I talked to my sister’s friend who said that there is a technology in government department, and I might be able to work with them. We shall see.

There was a small party at the bar where we went last year after the funeral to pour one out for mom. I made everyone laugh because they asked me what kind of drink my mom would want, and I said, my mother would prefer we didn’t drink. I had one beer when I first got there, but spent the rest of the evening pounding Diet Cokes, my mom’s real favorite. Then, when it was time to toast Mom, we bought really cheap beer that happened to come in a tall boy. It took so long to pour it out that I thought, we have made a terrible mistake.

I stayed in Houston until Wednesday because my sister was on a panel in one of Annise Parker’s classes at Rice, and she was amazing. Then, the mayor took a picture with me. I have loved her since I was a teenager, because she used to own a coffee shop where baby gays who couldn’t drink sat out in front facing Westheimer and watching cars go buy as we overdid it on caffeine. The coffee shop was amazing, but so was the hug from the mayor and the picture 20 years later.

It’s 5:53 PM, which means that Cold Brew Nitro is probably the worst thing I could drink in the universe rn. However, today is double star day, and I couldn’t pass up a relatively expensive drink to further my quest for even more free coffee. If I need to, I’ll take some sleep medication rather than staying up all night… but sometimes I am even more productive in the quiet, so we’ll see how I’m feeling later. I am certainly typing faster. Again, cold brew on nitro is INSANE, and apparently it isn’t rolled out all over the country- at least, not yet. So therefore my Houston friends are jealous that their nitro won’t arrive until at least Feb. 2018. For my Portland friends, imagine that you can’t get Jubelale on nitro this Christmas. Yes, it’s that sad. Tears, gnashing of teeth, the whole bit. My Houston friends are just lucky that they don’t know what they’re missing.

If any of them come to visit me, they will… and then all Starbucks coffee after that will just pale in comparison. Those poor, unfortunate souls.

I came over here for some black coffee and writing because I just finished dinner at the pub; I had a chickpea burger, a metric fuck tonne of Diet Coke, and an herbal gimlet for dessert. It took a while to get said gimlet, and one of the bartenders told me that it was because the other bartender had to go downstairs to get some basil. When the drink arrived, there was no basil in it. There are two possible reasons for this. The first is that the restaurant is out of basil. The second is that the second bartender was covering for the first. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt…. several, actually. Never leave a man behind. You never know whether you’re getting a customer who’s been in the service industry before and understands everything about why the food and drinks are late, or someone who’s never been in the service industry and makes their displeasure known by screaming across the entire restaurant. My favorite is when BOH (back of house) is running behind and people are screaming at FOH (front of house) because their food is behind, as if the waitress has any influence over the kitchen whatsoever. FOH is running interference, because that’s about as much as they can do when the kitchen is in the weeds…. if the manager is feeling generous, perhaps a comped appetizer or dessert. Other than that, there’s nothing the server can do except grin & bear it.

FOH and BOH have a fight between them that’s probably been going on since the beginning of time. One constantly blames the other. It’s not the waitstaff’s fault the kitchen is behind, because they’re in charge of getting their shit together on their own. It’s not the kitchen’s fault it’s behind, because when you slam the kitchen with an entire restaurant full of orders all at one time, the kitchen can’t help how fast the food comes out…. unless the waitstaff doesn’t care if it’s wrong, because they’re rushing too fast to look at the orders properly. So, FOH is yelling at BOH because either the orders are wrong or aren’t fast enough. BOH can’t win. BOH just goes on gritting their teeth in pain and trying not to kill anyone. The one point of respect that FOH gets from BOH is because at least it’s not them having to deal wth customers. Cooks are not great polite company. There’s a reason BOH stays there.

With cooking, there is no HR department. You just have to get used to the fact that during service, your mother is a whore and chef’s dead grandmother can cook *and* wash dishes faster than you. Also, your salad looks like crap- redo it, I’m not serving it, it doesn’t matter how many orders we have to get out in the next five minutes. FOH is just going to have to wait, those sanctimonious motherfuckers.

You just can’t help but swearing at each other when the atmosphere is that high pressure. As I have said before, it’s like doing Zumba in a bikram yoga studio for eleven hours at a clip.

I am also not impressed by food safety laws that put cooks in danger. For instance, at one of the pubs where I worked, the burgers were cooked over an open flame and we were required to wear latex gloves. It didn’t take 45 seconds for the latex glove to fuse to my skin and burn my hand…. badly. Believe me when I say the heat is enough to get germs off your food. In fact, vegetarians wouldn’t believe this, but cooks can actually fry meat and vegetables in the same fryer without cross contamination because the oil is so hot it kills all biologicals. We separate it all out, anyway, but basic science is on our side. Now, I am not advocating for using the same utensils or griddle, just deep fryer…. and there are few things in the world I enjoy more than a deep-fried Garden Burger… often my sandwich of choice with bacon, called “The Hypocrite.”

My diet is partially vegetarian and vegan because I try to save calories where I can when the food is delicious. I don’t think anyone was meant to eat meat for every meal. For instance, the chickpea burger I had was greek, with onions and feta. Maybe next time I’ll order it with bacon and let people look at me funny until I use “The Hypocrite” line on them and they fall over with laughter. I have had much success with that joke, along with “it’s a burger in which two animals don’t have to die for me to have it.” But on the flip side, when I order real bacon burgers, I always make the joke that I love them BECAUSE two animals had to die for me to eat. Why yes, I am the Diet Coke of evil. Thank you for noticing.

Well, maybe not evil, but definitely willing to do damn near anything to get a laugh. I enjoy just forgetting who and where I am, because grief goes out the window when no one knows me and I can just be funny- without ever divulging my personal problems as if people want to hear them. When I’m just funny, there are no people who look at me with pity and say, “now, how are you REALLY?” There are precious few people in the world I will let have the answer. The rest of the time, I want to laugh about deep-frying veggie burgers and topping them with bacon.

The other laugh line that made me smile last week ran thusly:

Friend: I hope you had a nice birthday.
Leslie: I didn’t get nearly enough cake.

For my birthday, I always like to go “full on fat kid.” I did that the week before, where Dan and I went to dessert and got a peanut butter mousse with chocolate on it, but not a “death by chocolate” experience- mostly because I do not like them. So, anyway, Dan had one or two bites and I proceeded to inhale the rest. It was just on my actual birthday that I should have gone to the store and bought myself some kind of fruit-filled monstrosity. You have to do that when you don’t really tell anyone it’s your birthday and you like it that way.

On holidays, though, I tend to gravitate toward white cake with white icing, all due to an old girlfriend that said something to me I’ll always remember. She said that she loved white cake with white icing because it reminded her of joyous occasions, such as weddings and birthdays. So, to this day, white cake is all about joy.

Perhaps I will buy one for Christmas as I celebrate the first woman Doctor. It’s a huge joyous occasion that deserves celebration.

Maybe I’ll even spring for Cold Brew on Nitro to go with it. It’s all about balance- smooth black coffee and icing sweet enough to cause cavities all by itself. It will taste great after the deep-fried hypocrite I’ll be eating for dinner. 😛

And now it’s time to go home, having finished my, again, INSANE cup of coffee to look up where I can watch Broadchurch. Christmas is too long to wait for a Jodie Whitaker injection.

Again. Nitro? INSANE.

Do it.

There’s so much to tell over the last few days that I really don’t even know where to start. I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to work backwards, so that the thing that is the most fresh in my memory takes precedence over the ones where it’s clear I’ve slept since then.

My iPad Mini has gotten to the point where it is lagging behind app requirements, because it won’t even upgrade to iOS 10. That means that all the new features of mobile WordPress have been unavailable to me for quite some time. I finally gave up the ghost and ordered a Kindle Fire, the 7-inch that everyone is talking about because it’s so cheap. There’s a reason for that… but I have no actual complaints. Just things that I wish were different. For instance, you are tied into the AMZ universe and even though Kindle OS and Android are virtually indistinguishable, it doesn’t come with the Google Play store. It’s not that much of a problem; there’s really only one app I’m missing that I hope comes available quickly, which is the LastPass browser. It’s basically Google Chrome with LastPass already built in.

If you’ve never heard of LastPass, it’s worth checking out. The account is free and you can access your passwords from anywhere, even if you don’t have the mobile app or browser plugin. You can simply use the web interface at LastPass.com. So, I’m not stranded or anything, it would just be nice. The only password I ever have to remember is the master unlock for the app/plugin/web site. It makes it easy to create passwords that are long, random strings that would make a hacker cry (like I’ve said before, if a password takes several days to decrypt, you’re less of a target than the asshats who contine to use “admin” or “Password”). You can’t prevent hackers altogether, but you can stop lazy ones.

How do I know this? There was a hacker in my apartment complex in Portland who I asked to do a penetration test on my router. After three days, he gave up. It just wasn’t worth the incredible number of dedicated CPU cycles to see information that wasn’t very interesting. As an aside, in order to lock down a router (because this is a key you’ll probably want to give to your friends when they come over), the router will take spaces as characters and you can do a passphrase in “haxxorspeak.” For instance, let’s say, and this is just off the top of my head… @rg0 4k Y0urS3lf.

Yes, I did get that t-shirt. I underestimated just how many people in DC have seen that movie, and it has been a kick to hear that phrase yelled at me from passersby. So, fair warning, if you go to the Spy Museum and get one, too, be prepared.

Good times.

So, today was all about setting up my tablet so that I don’t have to lug around an iPad that won’t do what I want, or a laptop that will but seems to get heavier with every block I walk. By the time I get to Starbucks, it feels like it’s about 75 lbs. However, it does have a full-size keyboard and an excellent sound card so I can blast bass enough to drown out SBUX elevator music, so I got that goin’ for me.

Speaking of Starbucks, I got lots of gift cards for my birthday, and in addition to getting drinks, I also bought two mugs I’m very proud of. One is a glass replica of the classic paper cup, and the other is a dark teal with the mermaid painted in gold- part of their Anniversary Blend series. I decided I didn’t want to spend all of my gift money on something as temporary as coffee in a paper cup. It was my 40th, and every time I look at those mugs, I’ll be reminded of the day I got them…. even if I don’t actually put Starbucks coffee in them….. yesterday, it was Stash Chai with lots of milk and Splenda.

In addition to going to Starbucks, work has me chained to my desk a lot of the time. Between trying to set up a Udemy course, writing a YA novel, and trying to get that one Really Great Job,™ there are few moments in my day that I’m willing to leave my room. Though I do enjoy working in a coffee shop sometimes, I am most comfortable sitting at my desk with the 32-inch monitor. Technically, it is a TV, but I have used it for that purpose exactly once in the three years I’ve lived here. Though cable comes with my rent, I am much happier as a cord cutter. I am much more centered that way, rather than using the TV for company as it rattles on in the background. Whether I am writing or reading, I prefer absolute silence. When I’ve got things going on in the background, I have to go back and read everything three or four times to make sure I’ve understood it… especially with non-fiction.

As I have said before, I am reading David Halberstam’s somewhat snarky account of the conflict in Korea, called (appropriately) The Coldest Winter. I have only finished parts one and two, and here’s what it boils down to so far. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong did… and not in a comedy of errors kind of way. MacArthur purposefully cut out intel from the OSS/CIA so that he could give orders from his own flawed confirmation bias…. for instance, OF COURSE the Chinese weren’t going to invade Korea… and if so, it wasn’t going to be THOUSANDS of soldiers…. that would just be crazy talk.

Americans were embedded with the ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers to support them, but support is relative when you can’t communicate with each other and the higher-ups are giving you wrong information all day long, anyway.

I’m actually not really all that interested in war. I just love Halberstam, and I have read everything he’s ever put to paper. I’d read a phone book if he wrote it. The day he was killed in a car accident was the first time an author’s death floored me. It was just so surreal.

As was showing up to McGinty’s Public House on Monday night and finding out they had a trivia game going. I originally showed up to meet my sister for dinner, but I got there a little early and by the time she arrived, I’d already won us a free drink. I am always amazed at the amount of useless knowledge I possess…. For instance, how in the hell I know that the capital of Croatia is Zagreb is just beyond me… Mostly because I know that random fact, but don’t ask me to find it on a map. I am way too dumb to geography. I can’t even be trusted with the layout of my own neighborhood.

However, I know where the mall is, and that’s really the most important thing, is it not? I mean, that’s where the pub is.

Lindsay and I ordered more food than we needed and gorged ourselves silly as we talked and joked. It really is true that I see her just as much now as when we were both living in the same city. In fact, the meeting she had this time around was actually in Silver Spring. Since she works on federal legislation as well as state, and Maryland is one of the states in her territory, there are very few months of the year in which we don’t get a few days together. During Maryland session, she’s here three or four days a week for (generally) five weeks in a row. It’s been fun showing her around “my DC,” and my little town in particular.

I’m also glad to be that person in town she knows, so that she can let her hair down after work and just blow off some steam, rather than feeling isolated in her hotel.

In turn, she’s shown me “her little town” as well. The capital of Maryland is Annapolis, and I’d never spent any time there until she arrived. It’s gorgeous, just a love letter to the Chesapeake… poetry in motion all over the place and my now two favorite words…..

Dress. Whites.

1. I started out my day on Saturday by heading out to the Waffle House in Dumfries, thinking it was close to the blood drive I’d signed up for. Two things wrong with that. The first is that I should have checked. It was not. It took me an hour to get from the restaurant to the hospital. I figured since the address was near Dulles Airport, I was golden. And, in fact, that wasn’t my only dumbass attack that day. I was getting a Gatorade and a water bottle at 7-Eleven before going to said Waffle House and locked my keys in my car. I’d taken my debit card out of my backpack, and accidentally dropped my keys in, along with my wallet, and closed the door behind me. I have a plastic key in my wallet in case I get locked out, therefore my key and my backup key were both as useful as a spork on a ribeye. All the time I would have spent stuffing my face with waffles and bacon was lost as I went to find a mechanic to bail me out. He arrives, has a hell of a time getting the door open, and about 15 minutes go by before he realizes the hatchback is unlocked. I have no idea why. I’ve needed a certain key for it since I got the car- copies won’t work, and it has never been unlocked in the history of the time I’ve owned it. The only thing I can think of is that I might have loosened the locking mechanism with a wire hanger, because I did try the hatchback before I ran to get the mechanic. The only good part was that when he discovered that my car was unlocked, he gave me half my money back.
2. I got to the blood drive 45 minutes after my scheduled appointment, having signed up to donate whole blood. But then an idea came to me. I said, “do you have more need for whole blood or for platelets?” They said, “oh my God… bless you… we have WAY more need for platelets.” So, I get all the testing done and my iron is too low. Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick. I should have known. I haven’t had any red meat in ages and it’s the second day of my period. I mean, come on. Who doesn’t know that? Despite not actually having given anything, I’m still eligible for a t-shirt and a Redskins game ticket. I chose Redskins vs. Vikings for nefarious reasons. I already have a Vikings jersey (Chris Kluwe, who is a punter, but when people ask me what position he plays, I say “blogger“). By the time I got there, Santana Moss was already gone, so that autograph was down the drain, even though I brought a Sharpie for my t-shirt.
3. I’d heard about Munch ice cream from a newspaper article… I think it was in the Washington Post, but I’ve slept since then. It’s in Annandale at a collection of indoor food carts at The Block. I figured since I don’t get across the river that often, I might as well go there and check it out. I got a pork belly bánh mì at Balo Kitchen, complete with french fries, which did not leave me any room for dessert…. however, being full has never stopped me from eating dessert before. At Munch, I got a blueberry earl grey ice cream sandwich, which they make by putting the hard packed ice cream on a donut and running it quickly through a panini press. Then, they top it with condensed milk and your choice of cereal. I said I wanted fruity pebbles, but I got frosted flakes. Close enough. It was delicious…. and if that weren’t enough of a good time, the University of Houston football game was on a projection screen in front of me. Since I am only 5’2, I’m pretty sure the players were bigger than me, wrapped in their “redvolution” glory. I didn’t stay for the whole game, but I should have. I was in such a food coma that I almost fell asleep at a red light…. and this was after the world’s largest Diet Coke. Maybe I should have ordered coffee with dessert. Life lessons for next time, because Munch is only the greatest and best excuse for crossing the river in the entire world…. Next to selflessly giving blood, of course… selfless… yeah, that’s right :::wearing free t-shirt and looking forward to a Vikings win:::

Today I went to the mall for some much needed time with friends. Well, not exactly friends, but people I see over and over when I go out. First, I got a haircut from my favorite hairdresser. Then, I went to my local Irish pub. A black bean burger, Shock Top, ice water, and ten unanswered Redskins points later (can I get an amen because THAT doesn’t happen often), it was time to come home. Now I wish I had stayed for the whole game, but hindsight is 20/20.

The funniest thing that happened to me today is that when I got my hair cut, I saw the cover of GQ and this guy had the best haircut on the front. I got through the wash, blowdry, and style before I realized that it was Robert Pattinson. So I feel I have to explain to my hairdresser that I’m not a Twilight fan, I just love the haircut blah blah blah because when I realized who it was, I just sat there and blushed until my toes turned red. A burger and a beer was in order after that one, even though my hair turned out ridiculously cute.

The bartender and I have become somewhat chummy, and I feel like it’s “my place.” He treats me well regardless of whether I order alcohol or not…. probably because I’m a good tipper. 😉 Though he is black, wears glasses, and has shaved his head, he still reminds me of Lars from Steven Universe because he has the same big ear spacers that Lars has. Totally cute and nerdy, and he has the personality to match. I was watching the game and nerding out over food and drinks with him at the same time. I’m not a huge football fan, but thanks to Dana and Friday Night Lights, I know most of the rules and more about the players themselves than I know about the game (I support the #rethink #rename campaign, but I’m not going to abandon “my team” while they work that shit out). “My team” is in quotation marks because when I married Dana, I knew as much about football as a bag of hammers… also, if you live here, you can root for the Redskins, or you can move. There is no in-between.). As an aside, I told the bartender about Irish margaritas (Bushmills rather than tequila), and he told me he’d try it and maybe put it on the menu as a drink special.

The guy next to me ordered a Smithwick’s, and all of the sudden I was transported back in time to when I came up with the recipe for Lanagan’s Pub Chili at Biddy McGraw’s (Now the O’Neill Pub in Portland, OR). It’s my one legacy… if it’s a) still on the menu 2) still called that. But at least back then, my name was on the menu. I don’t think it would have worked out so well for me if my last name had been Jones.

I ended up at the mall because the International Spy Museum was about to close up shop for the day. I’d originally planned to go there because I got an e-mail from them saying that their Argo @#%& Yourself t-shirts with the museum logo on the sleeve were on sale for ten bucks, and I had leftover birthday money to spend. It’s been my favorite movie since Jesus was a boy… or at least, since the movie came out (you can teach a rhesus monkey how to direct in a day). I was forced to buy the Blu-Ray back in the day because Ben Affleck was on the Today show talking about how, since Blu-Rays hold 50 GB of information, they were able to load it with information about the real people involved, and along with the INCREDIBLE, NERVE-WRACKING DRAMA from the Argo Main Theme to Clearing Iranian Airspace, incredibly funny (brace yourself… it’s like talking to those two old fucks on The Muppets)(Jack: It is my duty to inform you that if you get caught, the Agency will not claim you. Tony: I should have brought some books for prison. Jack: Don’t worry- they’ll kill you long before prison. [Paraphrased… my memory is compromised in my elder years]).

The reason I want to go to the Spy Museum shop rather than ordering it from their web site is that even though I live rather close to the museum, the shipping is still outrageous… about 70% of the cost of the shirt. That is a Grey’s Anatomy “SERIOUSLY?” if ever I heard it. Today was just not that day.

Today was football and a sparkly vampire haircut.

The week before my birthday, Dan took me out to dinner and I took her out for dessert. On Friday, I went to both lunch and dinner with friends, and to the zoo in the middle. Therefore, on my actual birthday, I spent the day responding to Facebook notifications and going “off the grid” just to read and relax.

And then donations started pouring in, and I cried for the love of them.

A few years ago, I was having a horrible day at work. A case came across my desk and I dialed the number (I was working as tech support back then, so basically I thought I was calling to help them). A woman picks up and says, Doctors Without Borders! My heart dropped into my stomach as I realized what a selfish git I was being- only focusing on what was going wrong with me and not seeing the forest for the trees. I was safe inside a terribly cold office in 105 degree heat outside. Whatever was going wrong in my life, it didn’t include medical supply outages or the fear of accidentally getting bombed in a war zone.

Since then, I set up my Amazon account to donate to DWB every time I made a purchase.

Now, Facebook has this thing where you can donate your birthday to the organization of your choice. Doctors Without Borders was one of them, and I was able to raise $260 for what I believe is one of the best organizations on earth.

It was such a relief that I was able to get away from my fastidious navel-gazing ways and do something for others. Writers are notoriously introspective, often missing the world around them. I am glad I didn’t miss this opportunity to stop.

Thank you to all who donated- for their sakes, and for mine.

So happy to say that I am spending my birthday week with friends, and in one case, meeting someone new offline that I’ve been chatting with on. As I have said before, I am now averse to the all-online relationship having been both burned in some ways and set myself on fire in others.

Tonight is dinner with my precious Dan, invaluable to me on so many levels. She’s cute and funny in a way that’s infectious, and we’re also able to have next-level conversations because she’s one of the few friends I have that has also lost her mother. It’s not that I don’t value friends who still have them, it’s that a parent’s death is a certain ocean into which you’ve been dumped…. one in which people don’t learn to swim until they’ve been dumped as well…. and at first, you’re so far under you can’t even see the waves.

It’s taken me a long time to stop feeling a little bit bitter towards my friends who are much older than me and still have their parents, as if the slight was personal. Logically, you know it’s not. But emotion is often inversely proportional. My logic is right side up, while my emotions are upside down and backwards. It’s been making those two things slowly come into alignment that’s made me feel better.

There are only five days left in my 39th year, and then I will face my first birthday without my mother there to tell me the story of how I was born at 9:59 AM, which she did faithfully every year no matter what time zone I was in. I’m also not going to get a Peter Pan or Mickey Mouse cake, and now I am absolutely sobbing as I write this. Now I just want my mommy, and I haven’t felt this small in ages. It’s a good thing I can touch type, because I can still get emotions out when my eyes are closed. My fingers fly over the keys as easily as she played the piano.

And trust me, writing that in the past tense rips my guts out.

I am so glad I am seeing Dan tonight. I just want to be held by someone who knows, you know?

I have to remind myself that it’s a happy thing to have a birthday. I have never pictured myself as a 40-year-old, but I’m about to find out what it’s like. If there’s anything I’m hoping to gain, which I already have in some cases, it’s the ability to see what’s important and what’s not. Hurricane Harvey was a great reminder that having food, water, and shelter is a blessing in and of itself…. especially since my family is right in the middle of reconstruction afterward.

They were not flooded, but they’re working to help others. My dad and stepmom are medics on a church team. My sister took a temp job with the City of Houston organizing the relief effort at the George R. Brown Convention Center (she’s back at her “real job” today). It’s a very helpless place that my friends and family are all helping with relief and I’m sitting here high and dry…. although it’s not impossible to imagine Silver Spring flooding during Hurricane Irma, just unlikely due to its current course. If the unthinkable does happen, though, I will be the first to put on a mask and hang drywall.

Thanks to UMArmy, I do have a bit of experience in house-building and repair. I’ve tiled and put flashing on a roof, I’ve glazed windows, and I sort of know my way around a hammer and nails. It’s difficult for me in terms of being able to hit the nail straight on every time with monocular vision, but I do my best. I am not the most skilled “handyma’am” out there, but I am definitely enthusiastic.

I am glad that focusing on hurricane relief efforts in this entry has led me away from sobbing onto my t-shirt, but the devastation in Texas is just as tear-worthy. Again, watching it from afar is a very helpless place, as I’m sure some of you feel, as well. There are so many “Tex-patriots” out there, and I have met SO many in both DC and Portland. There seems to be some sort of unspoken rule that if you went to UT Law, you end up here. 😛

Look at that… a smile.

One thing I hope my 40th birthday brings is the ability to smile more. For the last two to three years, finding things to smile about has been difficult at best. Both Dana and I had our hearts ripped out upon finding that we weren’t as compatible as we thought…. and I am somewhat guilty about how long it’s taken me to move on. But grief has its own timeline, and I shouldn’t fault myself that it hasn’t been linear, or in fact, made any damn sense at all. I suppose the one thing that has made sense is that I needed a large grieving period due to how much we shared in the seemingly infinite number of years we knew each other.

I still remember being creeped out that she was serving lamb for Easter dinner… as if we were roasting Jesus over the coals… and made the joke that the day after Easter we could have leftover Jesus sandwiches. I think I made both Bamberger girls choke with that one.  Wordplay is pretty much the only service writers offer, so take it while you can get it, okkkkkkk……

That Easter was the first time we’d ever gotten together, and my advice to my younger self has always been, and still will be, when Dana invites you to Easter dinner, go. Because of course I was terrified of hanging out with someone I didn’t really know that well. Had I known how fantastic we were for each other at that time in our lives, I wouldn’t have hesitated.

I can only hope that someday, another one of my friendships will catch me off-guard and I’ll get butterflies in my stomach the same way (but not with Dan- she’s old and married and I’m just old [I may catch hell for that one because she’s quite a bit younger than me- I love you, Dan. You complete me.]).

What is it about writing that can allow me to go from sobbing at a paragraph to laughing at another? I’ll never know, but it works. Because of course, at “you complete me,” I lost it laughing about “Dorothy Boyd…. and THIS FISH.”

And on that note, it’s time go shower and get ready for dinner. In the words of an old friend, I thought, ‘what’s that smell?’ Ohhhhhhhhh, it’s meeeeeee…..

It’s 11:24, so this will be short. I need to get it posted before midnight. My niece, Hannah Alexis, was born today. She is Wi-Phi’s  (William Philip’s) younger sister, and gets no less nerdy of a nickname. I call her “Hannah Solo.”

As you can imagine, I am wild-eyed with impatience at meeting her, but for now, she’ll just have to accept my presents in the mail- a Star Wars-themed onesie and a Washington Post, because the Houston Chronicle will not be printing anything for a while.

Hurricane Harvey is the main story in the Post, too, but luckily my family was not affected today. They were concerned that they were going to need to deliver Kelly at home, but the waters receded enough to get to Methodist Hospital in Sugar Land.

Although it is interesting to note that had it come to my sister delivering at home, she would have been fine. My dad took EMT I all the way through Paramedic II, so he’s delivered three babies.

No matter what, things would have turned out perfectly. Hannah sure did. She’s a screaming bundle of joy and it is such a relief to hear her cry loudly over the interwebs because Wi-Phi’s birth was so anxiety-laden. For those of you just joining us, he had to have heart surgery as soon as he was born. He is absolutely 100% perfect, but at the time prayer flowed through me like water, and I just had to hope that it was enough.

This birth was better than textbook. After one push, Hannah was here. “They” were even at the office until her water broke. I’m going to remind myself of that every time I get the sniffles and start to complain.

Virtual pink bubble gum cigars and champagne for everyone. I’m going to go look at my niece’s adoring face and see which of my features she got (this is a joke- her mother is my stepsister). If I have anything to do with it at all, maybe when she’s older she’ll have my smirk, because my dad will have taught it to her, just like he taught it to me.

Goodnight, sweet Hannah. Welcome to the world, baby girl. Let me read you to sleep.

In an old house in Paris
All covered with vines
Lived 12 little girls
In two straight lines….

-Ludwig Bemelmans, Madeline

So, off I go to Dollar Tree to get my few essentials for the week. I bought a lot of things to cook, but no snacks. I am hungry to the point of exhaustion, and need food RTFN. I notice that there is an authentic Mexican panaderia in the parking lot a few doors down, and think to myself that a piece of egg bread or a cookie will tide me over until supper.

I go into the panaderia and start ordering. I decide to get some stuff for breakfast, too, and then I realize I don’t have any cash. I say, “tomas tarjetas (you take cards)?” What I think the woman says is that we have a five dollar limit on cards. Oh, boy. Do you know how friggin’ hard it is to spend five dollars at a bakery? I think everything I ordered was 50 cents each, if that. When I get to what I think is five dollars, the woman says, “no, you have to have TEN dollars.”

Christ on a cracker.

I have already exhausted the number of conchas I can eat by about three dollars already. Conchas links to a Wikipedia article on sweet bread, and if you look at the list, I probably ordered at least one of each. Now we’re up to seven dollars.

Finally, I realize they have a cold case and get a large block of queso fresco. Why I didn’t think of this before is beyond me. It’s like, six dollars all by itself, and infinitely useful in just about everything.

My bread purchases take up, like, three bags, because not only did I buy sweet bread for breakfast for the next eight years, I also bought a few slices of cake and some cookies.

Who am I kidding? Nine years.

I get home and make some macaroni and cheese from the box, but I do it the way I was classically trained to do- mix the fat (I used margarine) with the cheese and flour to make a roux, then add milk. Once that was set, I added shreds of cheddar, salt-free seasoning, and the aforementioned queso fresco. The queso fresco does not melt all the way- it’s a very hard cheese and tastes comparable to Romano. The sauce and pasta mix together beautifully with these tiny chunks of cheese and it is heaven on earth.

And that’s when I realized I was out of Tupperware…. or rather, I’d bought four packages of Zip-Loc throwaways and they’d all been used up by my roommates. So, I put some in a Zip-Loc bag and ate the rest.

That was probably a mistake. I must have had like, four helpings. It was worth it, though.

Even if I am too full to eat ALL THAT BREAD.