A sign at Macado’s, our local Guinness seller.

I love this “sense of urgency” business. I do not think I am suited for this job.

Next:

Hot Pot is probably the best term for this unholy meal. It doesn’t look too scary in the picture but here is the list of ingredients:

1 Lean Cuisine Chicken Primavera frozen bag dinner (about 2 years old)
1/2 bag tortellini
Leftover hashbrowns
6 frozen fried breaded chicken tenders
1/2 bag baby spinach which mysteriously froze in the crisper

Unholy? I’ll let you decide for yourselves.

Then there are these shopping carts for Midgets:

And I wonder if “midgets” is seriously rude and un-PC but really what else can you say? I put “shrimps” on Flickr when I uploaded the photo but somehow that seems even worse. Shrimps/ Midgets/ Short People– they exist but what can you politely call them?

I think this is yet another example of the elephant in the room like today in Art History class we were asked to compare Matisse’s naked man statue to Rodin’s Walking Man and nobody pointed out that Matisse’s naked man has frankly a giant nutsack while Rodin’s has none…

I have just purchased a milkshake at Sonic.

I think that cookies and cream milkshakes, though harder to drink, are also more rewarding.

But this one is ridiculously thick. I am going to have to add milk.

Also today I learned that there isn’t really a place to order at Sonic if you are not in your car. That inviting door just leads to the kitchen.

Fantastic weekend. I love this photo of Alaina and Brutus:

Me: How big and what color is the rug, and how much are you asking for it?

Craigslist reply: Um not good at dimensions. The rug is in excellent condition (about $50 in Walmart). Um getting lots of inquiries about the rug. Highest bidder is now at $25. Will sell to highest bidder by Friday.

Hmm. I’ve been looking for something cheap and not too offensive to basically use as a dropcloth that I won’t trip over constantly. I’m having a hard time seeing myself involved in a bidding war over this thing, especially since the picture he sent still doesn’t begin to say how big it is:

But you have to admire the constant use of “um” in his reply.

My neighbor’s apartment smells awful- unwashed male apartment, body odor funk. I went inside the place one time and it was among the worst smells I have ever experienced. It’s far beyond the ordinary locker room odors. It’s more like a sun-ripened hobo in the summer.

And now the smell has become so extreme that it’s spreading beyond his apartment. You are hit with the unspeakable stench when you walk past his door or his window. And I fear that the smell is now oozing through the walls into my apartment, though it could just be my overactive imagination.

And if it is really happening, what next? I’m trying to think how to approach this in a tactful way and I can’t think of one.

“Hey… I’ve noticed that your apartment’s funk has crept into mine. How about washing your sheets?” Obviously not. Maybe I’ll slip a Febreze odor killer under the air intake of his window heating unit?

More intrigue here in my personal mystery novel of tedium.

Where is this book by Danto? The Radford library wants it back.

AUTHOR: Danto, Arthur Coleman,
After the end of art

The choices are grim:

1. stuck in some box upon moving from Blacksburg, never to be found again
2. returned to some other library, never to be found again
3. Steve stole it in retaliation for my loudness

Downstairs Neighbor Steve. Together we have straightened out the thumping and lumbering. We came to an agreement that this place appears to be built out of cardboard, and might fall off the hill at any time.

He pointed out he can hear everything I do, and I pointed out that I can hear everything he does, at which point he went white as a ghost beneath what I have to say is an extremely swarthy tan. So apparently he has a deadly secret. I wonder what it is? Something I overheard was interesting. But what? What?

He also claims he wasn’t home at 7 AM, which means… intrigue. Somebody was lumbering around downstairs. Maybe the place is haunted. This would explain some of the odd smells and probably the fact that Steve thinks I play guitar up here, and drums, which I definitely do not.

Yes, living here is a bit like living in a fairly bad mystery novel, full of suspicion and men named Steve.

And the odor of kitten diarrhea- turns out to have been elderly butter mingled with the sweet aroma of blueberry bagels. Man, that stuff is rank. I’d been wondering why my toast tasted kind of like socks.

It’s 7 AM. I am, inexplicably, awake, and I can hear Steve lumbering around downstairs.

At least I think that is his name, my passive-aggressive downstairs neighbor. He’s sort of like Mr Heckles from Friends, someone who yells – and probably someday will pay visits- asking me to keep it down up here when I’m doing fairly quiet activities such as putting on my shoes or closing the refrigerator or knocking my head on the exposed beams in the loft area, all of which cause the entire building to shake. I’m not an engineer, but if putting on my shoes causes the building to shake, and I can hear the other neighbor’s phone ring… and his TV, and his yelling encouragement at people on the TV playing sports… I’m thinking that the sound level in here isn’t really something I can control while living normally.

This has been quite a one-sided and self-serving blog post.

And now back to doing jumping jacks in tap shoes right over Stevie’s bed. With the entire cast from South Pacific.

I’ve noticed two hateful and divergent trends.

1. Overly friendly, gushing, zany copy in job descriptions that implies we are seeking a job in order to find a new group of scintillating friends. “Send us a resume that will impress us! We don’t care about your haircut!” Spare me. Advertising is like this too. It’s all too cute. This is destroying civilization.

and then

2. Grim and off-putting Creed clones all over the radio interspersed with what appears to be an unholy combination of Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera that has developed into an unrelenting and uninspired academic style of processed and conceptually vacant music. I am inclined to think that the existence of this music implies that civilization has already been destroyed, possibly by the gushing ad copy.

The library at finals week never seemed particularly relaxing. But I like the idea of games and crafts, giving a carnival atmosphere to what, to a traditionalist, seems like a much- needed study environment during a difficult time of the semester.

So sad that this connection was missed. Smartass plus retail worker is a match made in … well, apparently Charleston.

Is a pretty cool shot. At least this is what I think.

Last night, I went over to the middle school to wince at a tone-deaf Christmas recital. As I and a companion wandered amid the squeaking din, we found the following fine examples of artwork from our (apparently disturbed) youth.

The iconography is not always easy to read in these images, but I will do my best.

First, we have a guy falling off a cliff?

And my personal favorite, a child chasing a pig with something that might be a golf club or Little Bo Peep’s crook:

She said it cost her a pretty penny to get it painted- $500. Yikes, I thought.

Then some lady came by and asked me if she was the cutest girl I had ever seen, or what, and I really didn’t know what to say so I just stared at her in confusion.