duck-shaped pain

Tuesday is the day they get new things in at the local thrift stores, so I went around to some of them today (remember, I was planning on Getting Rid of Things earlier?). I bought a couple of books: an anthology of travel writing by women, and another copy of Ava by Carole Maso.

The latter is a novel about the last thoughts of a dying woman: it consists of very brief descriptions of fleeting memories she keeps having. It's a fantastic book. Unfortunately, I lost my first copy of and I haven't been able to find another one until now. She was once a guest teacher in one of my English classes when I went to the University of Denver, which is where I first ran into this book.

They put out a lot of books today, but those were the only good ones. There weren't even any worth buying to resell later. But there were a lot of those types of books which seem to be released directly into thrift stores: crappy romances and diet cookbooks.

I made good food for dinner. Our cherry tomatoes are taking over the backyard, so I took them and a cob of corn and grilled both of them. I then combined them (after de-kerneling the cob, of course) with some butter, basil and pepper and put that on spaghetti. I'm happy when I can feed myself so well.

I ate really, really crappy food for many years. I never really learned to cook much when I was growing up, so when I first went out on my own, I was heavily dependent on microwave burritos. I used to buy them in enormous quantities (Little Juan Hot and Spicy Beef and Bean, if you must know). Then, I stopped because I hated the way I felt. I had a small microwave burrito relapse when I first broke my leg. I was restricted to only pocket-sized foods for awhile, since that's the only method I had of carrying them. Yogurt, granola bars, microwave burritos -- that's what I ate. Bleah.

I have some people coming over for dinner tomorrow and I'm trying to decide what to make. My usual standby when people are coming over is to make Chile-Rubbed Chicken with Garlic Sauce, but since a) I don't feel like cooking or buying meat and b) corn is in season, I might just settle for corn risotto or something like that.

Today, I was thinking about my relationship with my address book. I've been thinking about buying a palm pilot when I get more money so I can store lots of random information on it, which may or may not include addresses. I'd hate to replace my address book, though.

It's a tiny, tiny address book -- smaller than the average credit card. It's brown and sort of mangled, the latter as a result of a trip in took in the dryer a few weeks ago. I've had it for about seven years, and the fact that I've never lost it amazes me. It has evey name, address, phone number and (sometimes) email address I've accumulated over those years. I can track every different place I've lived, worked, and every place lots of my friends have lived. There's a lot of random stuff in there. I have the late Allen Ginsburg's address in there, for example. Alex, this guy I used to hang out with, once stole my address book and added some flourishes of his own, like the above. [2] I love my address book. I'm afraid to replace it, even. I've tried giving its information a new home, but it's never worked, never really seemed right.

Some anonymous commentator [3] sent me this URL the other day, completely out of the blue. The dumb parts of this are really dumb and the true parts are really funny. See if you can guess which is which. [4]

Now playing: Kiss The Sky Goodbye by The Ah Club, one of my favorite CDs as of late. I'd give you some links, but this band seems to have no web presence whatsoever. [5] They're from San Francisco, and they're two women, one of whom plays records and one who talks/sings over the other's record playing. It sounds precious, but it's very good. You should buy it.

[1] Confusing the issue futher is that it's called Pea Green Corner on the USGS topographical map of the area (Olathe Quadrangle). Who knows.

[2] His mother was an instructor at or had some other sort of tie to the Naropa Institute, and that's how he got said address. Their library is named after him, and he was a frequent visitor/lecturer.

[3] Anonymous meaning, I have no idea who the hell it was who sent it.

[4] I sent my friend S. to look at this site, and he thought it was hilarious, esp. the picture of the Asian guy with the headphones. This must be some sort of generic "hipster" stock photo, because we've both seen this photo everywhere.