Just a few more days

Last year for Thanksgiving, I sat at home at the old hellhole of an apartment by myself, picking at some left over tofurkey a friend had given me. I had no way to get home, and no money at all. I had just gone to Seattle on a whim to see a guy I met on a train back in October (We're still together, got to see him this weekend!). It was cold and dark, and tofurkey tasted like ass but I ate it for a week because I had nothing else. It was a real low point.

This year I am also not going to see my family(Though I suspect they will try to kidnap me on Tuesday). My Dad has bailed on Thanksgiving for the past five years or so, and this time he'll be there. So I must keep up the disappearing family member tradition this year. I am cooking along with Lila and Caroline for Caroline's family. It's an exciting time. I get to do something I love and have Caroline's family foot the bill. We have an organic turkey purchased, at least. Everything else is still up in the air. I'm pulling for some kind of braised winter green or an orange-fennel salad. Oo, or brussels sprouts and bacon. Caroline's mom is a diabetic, so we have to keep the sugar content to a minimum, so a savory sweet potato dish has been settled on instead of the sickly sweet mash that everyone loves so much. The food blogs are going mad with all this Thanksgiving prep and I fucking love it. So many ideas bouncing around!

I've been swallowed by the school monster!

Since school has started I haven't had very much time for anything else. I always have something to do, and some pretty interesting ways to procrastinate on it. But, like every school year that I can remember, this procrastination has done me in again. I have a large assignment in every one of my classes all due this week, Thursday in fact, the day that I am flying out to DC. It's not that I'm bad at this stuff, I'm actually kind of good at it. I have a terrible time getting started because I feel that I am not very creative and I am afraid of failure. Everytime I don't turn in an assignment it's because I feel like what I have is too mediocre to turn in (or I forgot about it). I do my best work when I'm in a state of emotional turmoil, when it's life I need to avoid for a while. My life has been too stable for that.

Bake!

Today is my neighbor Jamie's 61st birthday, and in his honor I am baking him a cake. It's Lemon-rose with a orange and Razz rum glaze. I know he doesn't really eat cake or anything but vodka, but this is what people do for birthdays, so he's getting a fucking cake. Jamie is my favorite neighbor, he's the guy who's always there for you with a coffee mug of vodka and sassy advice. He was Miss Gay Wisconsin 1975 and recently recieved an award for founding Milwaukee's Pridefest. He's the youngest 61 year old I know. Love ya, darling. Here's to you.

WAA!

Time out for self-indulgence.

Work today, ew. I look exceptionally cute today, and I have to go put on my nasty black(though there's red bleach spots now)uniform. I sent in my resume to Anodyne yesterday, and I'm waiting to see if I get called up. I have bad luck with getting hired at decent palces. Though, there is a certain comfort in having a job that you don't value. I can take outrageous amounts of time off to go be with my boyfriend in the warm part of the country, for one. Speaking of the boyfriend, I cannot wait to be in DC next weekend! I miss him tons, and you all know I'm not the mushiest person in the world. I'm worried about when we might see each other next, it might be a while since he's going to Utrecht soon.

My roommate is acting lke a bitch and I can't wait for her to move out. My new roommie is an incredibly nerdy dude who just got back from Taiwan. School is alright, except I can't remember to do the assignments because they're on D2L. Who thought that was a good idea? I hardly remember when I have something in front of me reminding me.

I'm getting sick and I have my period, so I'm whiny and cranky. I'll be over here pouting, guys.

I am going to lose my shnitzel, yo. I will put up with a lot of shit for a job, but we're approaching the deal-breaker threshold. It all started a few weeks ago, with the 5-year anniversary of the store I work at. There was a party outside that the employees weren't allowed to go to, but that I cooked most of the food for. I didn't have to, it was not my job but the buck was passed to me. No one ever said thank you.

The next day, expecting a return to normal, I waltzed in with a grin on my face. The store was pandemonium! People everywhere, all demanding my attention. I hauled sound equiptment inside, not realizing the pain I was about to be subjected to. Four solid hours of acoustic guitar! It just kept getting worse the next day: an electric guitarist with Muzak beats behind him.

Now it's keyboards. For HOURS. I have to hide in the back, ears covered and tears in my eyes. I cannot describe the intense emotional pain this man's playing subjects me to. It makes me want to hurt myself. I must quit this job, for once and for all.

The Neighborhood Bitch

I knew I wasn't well liked, but I never thought I was the neighborhood bitch. I had to call the cops on my neighbors tonight, some friends actually. I might've started a neighborhood war, but I think I made a good decision. When someone is screaming and another to get the fuck out of their house, and another neighbor is already yelling for them to shut up, it's time to shut it down. I am now the neighborhood bitch.

What ever happened to going out to a field to party? Aren't you supposed to hide your vices when you're seventeen.

Co-ops

When I was a kid, the co-op was where my mom would go to buy chicken feed and hay. You could get all sorts of stuff for your farm: silage when you were low, equipment, and gasoline. I remember it was across the street from the ET Lumber and the elementary school I went to. It's not there anymore, but now I go to a different sort of co-op.

I started going to the Just Local food Co-op in Eau Claire after running across a carrot mural during one of my nightly walks. Soon, I discovered if I got up early enough I could get a free cup of coffee from them at the farmer's market that took place on campus. It was my favorite place to stop during a bike ride.

Recently, I joined the Riverwest co-op here in Milwaukee. I had been there plenty of times before, and was always off-put by the icy hipsters that bumped into me as we tried to squeeze past each other. But the last time I was there, Everyone was so helpful, and I got a nice big bag of not too pretty, but totally edible veggies for free. I joined up that day.

I had been meaning to do that for a long time. I work at a corporate grocery store, where employees are treated poorly, no one gets more than minimum wage, and all the supposedly 'fresh' foods are shipped to us in bags from a factory. It's a sad state. I will no longer buy food from the deli section now that I know where it comes from and how it's prepared. Oh yeah, and this is a fancy grocery store.

I'm no stranger to the health store thing, we had one in ET called Nokomis. My best friend worked there, and would snag me day old loaves of bread before there were given to the cows to eat. It was the best bread in the world, there were days that I would eat nothing but their Farmer's bread; with cream cheese, with Peanut butter, with nothing at all.

Then one day the oven broke, and bread production stopped. No bread, no customers, and Nokomis was bought out by the organic farm next door. I miss that wonderful bread.