DOGGEREL, SELF-INDULGENT MASTURBATORY TWADDLE, AND THE TRANS-PACIFIC SLAW OF DEATH

(Listening to Pink Floyd)

I completed an irritating shift at Big Green 90 minutes ago. It was annoying because, in addition to the usual "background level" of irritation brought on by customers, it seemed to be a fertile day for people to bitch to me about their problems. If I invite someone to unload their cares into my ears, fine. I take satisfaction from that. It you're just going to be a martyr, shut the hell up. "I try and take care of every little thing around here, and this is the thanks I get," Saint X told me this afternoon. We'll just call her Saint X for the protection of the innocent. Oh, boo-hoo for Saint X; no one works hard but her. She's universally loathed at work. She looks 15 years older than her self-proclaimed 42 because she has smoked like a steam engine since she got her first period, and her repugnant self-absorption makes her resemble a stereotypical, kibbutzing old woman.

(Listening to Orishas)

When I self-righteously whine here in this blog, you are able to click away and look at cookware, mortgage calculators, or farm animal porn. When she bitches and whines, anyone within earshot must summon all possible fortitude. Unless you walk out on the job, you've got to listen to it. If you confront her about it, ugh. You'll wish you had just sucked it up and waited for the end of the shift.

More importantly, I came home and made slaw. I sliced up half of a head of green cabbage with my handy-dandy Santoku of Death (thinner and sharper than a standard Chef's Knife, and thus better for thinly slicing firm vegetables). I threw some tasty items into the Mini-Prep of Death:

A couple pieces of crystallized ginger
A demi-handful of candied tomato chunks
One garlic clove
2/3 cup or so of mayonnaise
A squeeze of lemon juice
A generous glug of sweet chili sauce
A packet of Texas Pete left over from takeout barbecue
Several tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
A tablespoon or so of sesame oil
A few shakes of coarse Kosher salt

It vibrated and shrieked in its characteristic manner, and I mixed the resultant goo into the bowl of cabbage. Tasty shit. A bit spicy. I call it the Trans-Pacific Slaw of Death.

(Listening to David Gray)

Ah, sometimes I get nostalgic when I listen to this album (White Ladder). It takes me back to the time I spent on Madison Street in Carlsbad, California. I had fallen in love with a black hole. The Emotional Black Hole wasn't her real name; it's just an affectionate little nickname I've given her. She was no worse than any other depressed, selfish stoner, but being in love with her was what a severe heroine addiction must be like: completely irrational, excruciatingly painful, and quite unhealthy. What a big ball of suck she was! Ah, those were the days. I extend my heartfelt thanks to all those people who endured my insufferable idiocy in those dark times. It took me quite a while to enjoy this album again, but I do. It's mine again.

(Listening to Eminem)

Ugh. What's this crap doing in here? Go home, punk.

(Orishas again)

Much better. My lovely and loving wife will be home from work soon, and we will have barbecue and Trans-Pacific Slaw of Death together. Perhaps we will go for a stroll in the sultry North Carolina evening. It's so wonderful to be alive and awake. It's great to be free of the Brown Pit of Sauron.

(Listening to Justin Timberlake)

Hmm... strangely catchy. And he boned Britney Spears and left her. No fool, this man.