Aquafresh and Crest: A Tale of Passion

There are two things in the world about which I am passionate. Which I am passionate about. One is classical music and the other is global politics. Oh, who am I kidding? One is travel-sized toothpaste and the other is umbrellas. When I walk into Duane Reade, I forget what brought me there in the first place and I find myself, inexplicably, in the travel section and somehow become convinced that I should get an extra travel toothpaste just in case. It's not that I travel a lot, but I might. And even if I'm not traveling, maybe it would be nice to keep one in my purse so that I could brush my teeth after working out. Or if I have garlic for lunch. Because I probably didn't steal the one they supplied me with at the Jersey City Hyatt last week. The one that pleasantly surprised me, just sitting on the bathroom vanity, like they knew something about me, like they cared and understood that I might have forgotten toothpaste and I would be happy to see that there, even after I had purchased and extra one thinking it would be embarassing to be at a conference and not be able to brush my teeth properly. Which was an extra on top of the one that I was carrying around in my purse because I'm officially obsessed with travel toothpaste. Which will eventually go in my stock of travel things in my linen closet which surprisingly is heavily biased toward travel toothpaste. My stock of travel things, that is. Not my linen clost. I have a lot of towels and sheets.

And umbrellas. The thing is that I don't carry them around all the time because they're heavy (unlike travel toothpaste), so when I most need one, I find myself wishing I'd listened to the weather forecast in the morning and taken one of the dozen or so I have lying around my apartment. Oh, maybe that's why I was in Duane Reade. Buying an umbrella. And it's usually on the heels of getting completely soaked, so sometimes I also buy a disposable poncho. Even if it's the kid sized one because it's really just a trash bag and trash bags, even in kids sizes, are pretty big.

And there's a third thing I'm passionate about and it's paper products like tissues and paper towels and toilet paper. Don't worry. I'm not going to say, "who am I kidding? It's soap operas." Because I don't watch soap operas. Well, I did for a time because there was a woman on One Life to Live who was the mom of one of my brother's friends. And that drew us in, but the plot kept us going. Religiously. But that was a long time ago. I don't get home early enough for soap operas now and I don't have one of those things that tapes TV shows and I guess I could use hulu.com but right now, it really is paper products I'm talking about. Because having them makes me feel safe. Or maybe not having them makes me anxious. Maybe those two are the same.

Black Friday

This summer I had myself a picnic in Central Park. It was unseasonably cool, and the park was inviting. I'm not saying the park invited me because the park doesn't send out invitations using Evite or even paper invitations, which I think are a lost art and if I ever have kids, I will send out birthday party invitations in the shape of Kermit of the Frog and I will bake cupcakes from scratch even though the kid wants a Carvel Fudgie the Whale (who by the way has a Myspace page if you want your brain to explode). So I took the purple plaid sheet that's become my picnic sheet because it doesn't fit my bed and also because I accidentally stole it from an apartment I sublet. But here's the thing. What I'm trying to say, that is. That it wasn't really summer when I had this picnic. It was what's known as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when a ton of people start their Christmas shopping. And when I say picnic, I kinda mean went on a trip to Walmart. As in there wasn't any food or picnic blankets or parks involved. There was only a Walmart on Long Island. I think next year I'm just gonna have some egg salad on a bagel. Because it tastes good and it's not as dangerous, unless you get the egg salad with the salmonella, but if you do that's just bad luck.

O Baby

For the past few months (96), a number of us questioned when the US would come to its senses. Now that that question seems to be answered, we can finally ask why it is that we don't see more chickens wearing tank tops and boots. Let's hope we don't have to wait eight years to get that straight.

Go Fish

I was in Oren's today, the only coffee shop near my office that's not a Starbucks. Not that I drink coffee and not that I don't like Starbucks. In fact I love Starbucks and rumors about their breakfast sandwiches disappearing from their menu make me queasy. And weepy. Queasy and weepy. Which is why they're doing it. Not to screw with me but because they end up with customers (let's call them assholes) who want nothing to do with coffee and waste precious time and space ordering bacon, avocado, aged cheddar and egg wraps. Sometimes two. But I was in Oren's for reasons that are still unclear this morning when I heard Thriller. You know, by Michael Jackson. And I thought, wow, that would make a great blog post. The smell of the coffee beans. The retro music. The 9:20 I'm already late for work so why not get a coffee anyway hustle. A real moment in time. And then I thought, why the hell would anyone care about my hearing Thriller in a coffee shop? You know, in fourth grade I played the Wicked Witch of the West in my class production of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy was played by a girl that looked like a troll. In a loose interpretation of the musical, the teacher had me do a lip sync routine to Bad. I may or may not have had a glove with sequins.

Leaving the apartment lately has been hard. I think it's because of a new fish plate I have. If you're wondering whether I've missplled d-i-l-d-o as fish plate, you need to get your mind out of the gutter. And give my spelling a little more credit, although I'll readily admit to screwing up autumn in a spelling bee, but the n at the end of the word is dumb anyway. So as of late, I've come into a plate in the shape of a fish. Which can be put in the oven. It's three dimensional. I think. I never quite know what that means. It makes things sound more exciting. Like IMAX. So what I'm saying is this: if you end up with a plate in the shape of a fish, I hope you like your apartment because you probably won't be leaving anytime soon.

Is that ketchup in your top desk drawer?

I know the IT guy is wondering as he sits in my cube fixing my computer which was auto set to install updates and restart automatically at inopportune times like when i've been working on a spreadsheet all morning and haven't saved it but now realize i don't have administrator rights to tell my computer to restart later so it will do it now because it's 10:53 am and automatic updates happen when they want. Like schizophrenics in the subway. Can't control them. But yes that is ketchup in my top desk drawer. And I keep it there with all of the other important stuff like spare apartment keys because if I forget my keys and come back to my office I open the drawer and see the ketchup and get happy. In my bottom drawer is where I keep cereal. Don't get me wrong. I like cereal a lot. I sometimes stop and stare in the cereal aisle and wonder if today will be the day I break down and buy something naughty like cocoa puffs or continue on a boring but practical streak with shredded wheat. Or Cheerios. Not the honey nut. Just the plain ones. Which is a throw back to the fact that my mom never bought us the sugar cereal I lusted after. She also never bought chocolate syrup. I think I would have drank a lot of milk had she bought chocolate syrup. But she didn't and my teeth suck and I don't blame her, but I do think I need porecelain veneers. But back to cereal. I like it, but I don't love it like ketchup. I'm glad it's not my child because that would be a crappy thing to say. I like you, but not like your brother. And why does the IT guy think that's weird? Not the thing about the children, just the ketchup.

Tripe? Oh, I Couldn't.

I think that if the corner luncheonette has tripe on its menu, you probably shouldn't order it. Not because you don't like the taste of tripe because it really does taste like intestines even though you've never eaten an intestine before but it's what you would imagine an intestine to taste like and although you fully realize our ancestors didn't let anything go to waste and we're a wasteful society and you're hoping to make up for those twenty Poland Spring bottles right now by not wasting an intestine and go to sleep with a good conscience tonight you reason that you're simply not willing to have organ aftertaste in exchange for a good night's sleep. Not becaue it's weird that they have it on the menu as an add on with either linguine, spaghetti or ziti. Not even because you're a vegetarian. But more because they probably don't go through a lot of it so it's not fresh. And the only thing worse than fresh tripe is rotten tripe. Over ziti.

Fry Guy

I want to make a suggestion. No, a mandate. I would never do anything to put Grimace's primacy in question. But the Fry Guy? I barely remember what he even looked like. Which is fine, because I just found his replacement. So here goes. On a recent night out on the Lower East Side, a 4am kind of night out, I stumble into a fry and frozen yogurt joint. Because those two things seem to go together naturally for the fry guy. He's about 80. He works until the next person comes in, and he doesn't worry about exactly when that is. It's not a shift to him. As my grandmother says, if you love what you do you'll never work another day in your life. And he loves it. You can tell by his grin. Although he doesn't have teeth, he's got a dazzling smile. He eats his potatoes, as he calls fries, everyday. Sometimes with an egg on top. Even if you order a small size, $4, he gives you a large order. Or maybe the small is really large. Like Starbucks. The menu's a formality, but the customer service is genuine. I have no reason to linger, but I stand there for twenty minutes, enraptured as he talks. About the truck he gets his potatoes from. Which he assures me sells everything, except his "medicine," a value-sized bottle of Metamucil he proudly takes off a shelf to show me up close. I thought you're supposed to hide stuff like that in the bowels of your medicine chest. Not the fry guy. There's something extraordinarily endearing about people who share their Metamucil the instant you meet them. And his fries are good and there are a lot of them. Unless Grimace personally escorts me to McDonald's, I think I'm through with them. For everyone else, go find a place called Beglian Fries at 113 Avenue A. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, there are a whole eight other people at Yelp who agree. Or is it "a whole eight other people at Yelp that agree." Shit. I've gotten off topic. Just get the fries.