UPDATE: books, food.

As of 3pm, both Danielle Steeles and 3 of the 7 paperbacks were gone.

As of 3:30pm, I rescued a shitload of food, including more baba ghanoush, though someone swiped out the hummus from under me, which was what I was really angling for.

Memories of the Clown Funeral: The Crowd.

At one point during the Clown Funeral the emcee recognized all the clowns there and we applauded each of them by name, and then she was like, "Are there any clowns out there in the audience who we haven't recognized?", and at that point two perfectly normal-looking people, including one older lady with a tired face, stepped forward.

On the bugs in the Danish Haven...

Two nights ago I crushed another silverfish, this time with my thumb, since there was no paper handy and it was moving fast. I left its body out as a warning and I haven't seen any other silverfish since.

(I was mistaken in my previous posts; I meant "silverfish", not "earwigs".)

A spider has set up shop near my lovely IKEA soft-lighting crepe lamp, and I wonder if that has something else to do with there being no silverfish the past couple nights.

I wonder why the silverfish keep being seen by my lamp. My Danish Haven could hardly be cleaner, and there's no food sources for them, apart from the olive oil I rubbed into multiple places in the floor and the 145 (now 138) books stacked directly on the floor.

Making Turkish coffee.

This morning the Turkish coffee did not go well. After my morning espresso and two hours of studying, I was still feeling sleepy, so I went to make Turkish coffee on the stove while I washed out my espresso maker. Only, I put the grounds in the Turkish coffee pot, set it down, and immediately took the pot up again and rinsed out the unused grounds since I was so sleepy. If I had tried to put my espresso maker on the stove again, I might have lost it.

New rescue mission: 145 books.

My upstairs neighbor is moving without much help and told me that she had a bunch of books from book clubs stacked up in her apartment, and since there's no Goodwill or anything like that close by, I agreed to come get her books, which I did this morning. There were 145, of which 131 were hardcover. On the way into the main library on campus this morning I dropped off on the free book cart 2 Danielle Steele hardcovers and 7 paperbacks, including "'Impulse', by the bestselling author of 'Scandalous'".

As it goes with my old rescue mission, I finished off some pasta salad over Turkish coffee this morning, since I have to go rescue some more food for the week this afternoon. I also made myself half a pita with baba ghanoush, and all I have left in the fridge is my coffee cans, a stick of butter, some broccoli stalks, and another half a pita and a little more baba ghanoush left from last week. I have this shit almost perfectly timed now.

Spanish people everywhere.

On the bus home last night there was this downpour out, and when we got back to my neighborhood, the bus was plowing through these huge puddles, and these four Spanish people near me (the women in bright clothes, the one guy with his shirt open down three buttons, the other guy balding and tiny with a Tiny Tim-like voice) started talking about something with "remo" and "Olympiada". Yes, I can understand talking about the possibility of hosting the summer olympic games here, but do you really have to call black people Uncle Remuses? I'm glad I come from a progressive country.

There's these couple visiting Spanish academics who I've gotten to know this past week since we've been working on computer terminals in the same area of the library. I was chit-chatting with them outside now -- they're taking half a day off and going downtown to do sight-seeing with a friend who lives here -- and I was telling them they should go eat a Chicago-style hotdog. They were showing me the culinary suggestions in their Spanish tourbook for Chicago, and besides deep-dish pizza, spaghetti, and hamburgers, it had "El hot dog". I loved that, how "hot dog" was italicized as a foreign word.

People making me feel unwelcome; almost channeled my mother.

It's amazing how easy it is to make someone feel unwelcome. Yesterday I went with friends to go hear some blues at the place we went to a few weeks ago (the same place that one mom-type was being consistently manhandled; she wasn't there, just three old women on stools with stone faces, Newports, and bottles of Corona), but the staff completely turned me off. I was a little late to arrive, and I asked the doorman should I call in to my friend who has the free passes so he could bring one out for me, and he was like, "Yeah," and as soon as my friend did that, the guy took it, and I was waiting for him to card me or put a mark on my hand or put a mark on the pass -- the pass was good for two people but I was the only one using it -- and when he was doing nothing, I was like, "Am I good?", and he just gave me this stony look like I didn't know what the heck I was doing and was like, "Yeah, you can go in now," like I was a dumb shit or something.

Then, inside was packed, and I had to stand in the aisle to get a beer, and I had a small backpack with me -- I was studying outside at a coffee shop before joining my friends -- and the waitress just pushed on through and gave me a look for having the backpack and then asked me if she could do something, not in a nice way, but in a "what the heck are you doing here?" way, and when I told her I wanted a beer, she turned from me to the bartended and told her to get me a beer (and she had cut in front of me and took the place that opened up in front of the bartender!), and then waited there with her back turned to me. She was young and had a t-shirt hung down on her shoulders and was very self-important. I almost channeled my mother -- in situations like that, my mom can get bitchy, not in a demanding-customer way, but because it's almost like the waitress is imposing on you to show you her attitude. In situations like that, or when someone's repeatedly making bad jokes and you're not laughing or giving even a polite laugh, my mom will be like, "Excuse me, but I didn't sign up to be your audience."

Coffee: New can, almost destroyed my espresso maker this morning.

I got a new coffee can yesterday, this Italian brand I've never seen before from a yuppie market I stopped into yesterday before meeting some friends to go hear some music. It's an attractive silver with red accents, and brings my collection up to fifty-two cans.

This morning I had my espresso maker on the stove and I went to do something in the living room and then decided to take a shit -- it was probably from all the baba ghnoush that I rescued last Friday and have been eating pretty consistently; the shit itself was just a shade tanner than the baba ghanoush, and a little more stickier-consistent, though it smelled nothing like mint with a hint of tahini -- and the next thing you know, I'm wiping my ass and the espresso maker's burbling like no other. I ran out to turn off the gas on the stove and everything was fine, but when I went to clear out the grounds they smelled a little burnt, so you can tell the espresso maker was overheating.

(Years ago I destroyed my first espresso maker because I was hung over and forgot to put water in. I kept thinking where was the coffee and why it was taking so long, and the next thing you know I smell burnt rubber and when I go to take the handle to take it off the stove the handle gently broke off, since the plastic was so over-heated.)

(Also, back at my old house, the stove was of such a lesser caliber that I could put on the espresso maker and take a shit, and it would just start burbling when I came out. My stove now is so strong that I have to watch the espresso maker like a hawk.)

Karen Carpenter vs. Toni Tennille.

I've been asking my fellow students what they think of Karen Carpenter vs. Toni Tennille. Not a single Karen Carpenter fan has turned up, though some people know people who like her voice, and one person I talked to's ex-boyfriend had the album of Carpenters covers and played it incessantly. But, everyone really likes the song "Love Will Keep Us Together", a lot. It's a shame Toni Tennille doesn't get more credit as a performer and artist.

Got decently trashed last night.

I got decently trashed last night. Upon getting home, I was hungry, and decided to boil a cob of corn. That was a new one.

The best part of YouTube is the user comments, often.

Like with this clip of the Captain and Tennille singing a shitty cover version of "Shop Around":

DA90027 (2 weeks ago)
Her hair is gorgeous here, that bowl cut sucked!

tennille1998 (5 hours ago)
I think the bowl cut was cute. It didn't suck. Her hair looks gorgeous any way! She looks like a beautiful blonde goddess!!

Well, shit on me (again).

YouTube is the best time-waster ever.

Well, shit on me.

Big Bird's got taste, but who's the woman?

I think I like the Captain and Tennille more than the Carpenters.

I was listening to some Carpenters music the other day, and I actually found it quite schlocky, not nearly as compelling as their life-stories. Their great patron, Herb Alpert of the Tijuna Brass, would look for good acts no matter what the genre, but somehow I can't listen past their music to hear how good they are.

The Captain and Tennille, on the other hand, are magnificent. In the concert footage I just linked to, you get not only a catchy song, but a look into what Americans looked like in the 1970s. I also like this comment from a YouTube user:

He's not a faggot. He's captain of the keyboards.

The back-up singers are also something else.

Got my haircut today.

Just kidding, I got all of them cut!

Seriously, though, I had a new person do my hair today. The place I go to is run by a Japanese woman and is made up to look like a Japanese spa, and not only have a student haircut price on Mondays and Tuesdays, but they also do a really nice job, but today for some reason this stylist I've never had before was there to cut my hair. She was black, and I didn't quite catch her name when she said it, and so when I left I asked her her name again, and she gave me the store business card and wrote her name and hours on it, and as soon as I saw it, I was like, "Oh, Tennille, like the Captain and Tennille!"

As it turns out, she was named after Tennille from the Captain and Tennille, because her mom liked the sound of the name. She likes the name too, but doesn't like people coming up to her and being like, "Hey lady, where's your Captain?"

If I were a Hebrew teacher...

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum!

Seriously, though, if I was a Hebrew teacher, I would teach mnemonic tricks to my students to help them memorize unfamiliar vocabulary, and encourage them to come up with their own tricks, perhaps holding contests for a few points extra credit each week if they could come up with really memorable ways to remember vocab items from the week. For example, you can remember the following words the following ways --

dag = "fish" -- dogfish!

yam = "sea/west" -- the potato was brought in over the sea from the western hemisphere!

My favorite one I came up with, though, is this one --

yrsh ("sh" as in "shiver", not two separate letters as in "Soho") = "inherit" -- "Shon, the family wine shellar ish yoursh!"

Some Gypsies in Madrid.

Like a month or two ago a friend of mine had some visitors in town from Madrid and when they were down in my neighborhood I went all around with them and showed them it and I was talking with them quite a bit. Somehow we got on the topic of gypsies -- I love talking with Europeans about gypsies! -- and the guy ("Luis") was telling me that there's these gypsies who put up a tent on the corner of the street he lives on in Madrid not too far from the windows of his apartment, and that they're there all day and night dancing flamenco, so when he leaves for work, they're there dancing flamenco, and when he comes home from work, they're there dancing flamenco, and when he come home from a night out at like four or five or six, they're there dancing flamenco, and when he's hung over on Sunday and just wants to sleep in, they're there dancing flamenco and have the music turned up at six or seven or eight in the morning and they always wake him up.

"Oh," I was like, "So they steal money from people who stop to watch them dancing?"

"No," he was like, "They sell cocaine."

"Oh," I was like, "So the dancing is a cover" -- I quickly realized he might not know this word, and so tried to think of something that would probably have a Spanish cognate -- "you know, a deception, so they can sell cocaine?"

"No," he was like, shrugging, "They like flamenco."

Second careers in Orlando.

One of the people I went to the concert to with last Friday was talking about how last week she was down in this bar in Orlando and two guys came up and one guy was like "Oh, my wife's coming in a second" before the other guy started hitting on her. The main point of her story was how the guy who was hitting on her was a former NFL player who now owned a Mercedes dealership and how he kept telling her that he had to be careful around women because he had a lot of income to protect, but the best part was how in a little while the other guy's wife came up to the table and immediately started being like, "I'm so drunk, I've had eight drinks!" and talking about a lot of shit, like how she wasn't really the one guy's wife but was divorced with kids and had been seeing this guy for years since her divorce, and how the other day she was at a doctor's office "and the boxes said single married divorced or other and I didn't know which one!"

She also said that "Naked Sundays" were the best invention ever, but you could only do them every other weekend, because on the other weekends you had the kids, "and on those Sundays I cook pancakes and I'm Mom." She also said that she found her childhood diary the other week and in it she found out that she had wanted to be either a moviestar or a cowgirl. She was saying that it's too late to be a moviestar, but she's wondering now if she can still be a cowgirl.

I found that incredibly endearing, this tanked-up woman from Orlando who must be pushing forty still thinking about whether she can become a cowgirl. It's very sweet, in a way.

In the Chinatown Christian bookshop...

Yesterday I met a friend for lunch and we ended up going to Chinatown, and my other friend who I was going to go the movie with got out of shit she was doing earlier and ended up coming to meet us at Chinatown, so we rendezvoused at this Chinese Christian bookstore I love going to. While we were there, my one friend who I had met for lunch picked up this $4.95 inspirational pen that was written all in Chinese and you would click and in the window in the side of the pen, and a different quote in characters would appear. Anyways, my friend had picked it up and was clicking it, and the owner of the shop was walking by to go to the back room and saw him playing with the pen and went up to him and was like, "Can you lead that?", and he told her he could pick out words since he had taken Japanese, and she was like, "Rearry?", and then he started looking closely and was like, "'Blood'", and she was like, "Velly good, velly good," and then he picked out for her the words for "new life", "heaven", and "God" in some other quotes on the pen.

More on black women: Chinese name-painting.

On Friday after a concert I was walking with some friends downtown and we were passing a bunch of teenage black girls standing around a Chinese woman street vendor who was making one of those signs where your name is painted with dragons and lotuses and other vaguely-Chinese-looking shit, and all I could see on the sign was her writing "Shamaini...", and there was space for about another four or five letters in the one black girl's name.

Hissed telephone conversation on the bus.

There are types of cell phone conversations that I like to overhear, and then there are some that I don't. I don't like to hear college-age white girls talking, since it's mostly about what they're doing this weekend, okay?, and, like, if they're totally going to friend someone on facebook. When I hear shit like that, I'm like, I didn't live this long and am pushing thirty to be subjected to this bullshit. But, on the other hand, I like to hear grown black women's conversations, often.

Anyways, the other day this woman behind me on the bus wasn't talking loudly enough, but she was speaking fiercely and almost on the verge of hissing, and the only thing I could pick up was her saying "You act like you got some sense. You work this out between yourselves, you understand?" I wonder what that was about.

How sweet -- parents of a blind girl.

On Friday afternoon as I was going through the main gates on campus to go home for the weekend there were these tourists there, and they had their teenaged blind daughter with them. The mother took the girls hands and put them on the huge ornamental lock-and-keyhole of the gates and the girl was just standing and feeling them, since she was sightseeing on vacation.

Reason why I was in Yuppieville last night: "Pierrot le fou".

So, the reason why I was in Yuppieville last night was to go see the Godard movie "Pierrot le fou". Me and my friend were talking with the hipsters who work there -- they were outside smoking while both films were running, since there's no reason for them to be inside -- and they were telling us that a lot of people had been walking out during the movie, but I ended up enjoying a lot of it. Bits of this one scene at a cocktail party is fantastic -- I've totally been to parties where people talk about nothing but the shit they own and what they're going to buy next.

Yet, when we were in the lobby beforehand -- my friend was going to the bathroom -- I asked a woman who had just gotten out of the other movie and turned out to be French if she had seen it, and she said that she and her husband had left after twenty minutes and went into the other movie. Her husband came out of the bathroom while she was saying this and joined us -- he was this black-wearing jackass with a shaved head in his early 40s -- and he just came right into the conversation and was like, "The film hasn't aged well. Godard was perhaps amusing in college, but not now. 'Pierrot le fou'? Try 'Pierrot la merde'," and he choked out a few laughs at his own joke.

Was pissed off in Yuppieville last night.

I was in Yuppieville last night with a friend to catch a movie at an arthouse movie theater that's up there and everything I saw kept pissing me off, especially the whimsical store signs. This one wineshop was called "Que Syrah". At a certain age, the frat guys start growing beer guts and the women who love them go for whimsy. It's a type. That's my new saying, "It's a type."

Pleasant foyer.

When I came down this afternoon to go out the little foyer of my apartment building where the mailboxes are smelled inexplicably like bacon.