Samurai Chefs

I arrived at my apartment and immediately ran my utility bill over to the office to pay it. Not a bad move on my part, since they're usually gone by the time I get home, and not there when I leave in the morning. I feel quite proud of my timing, thank you. My check of a whole seven or so bucks is safely in the hands of the people I needed to pay. It always seems so stupid to write a check for that kind of amount. Anything under ten dollars always feels silly. Not that I want to be paying more than that for utilities, or anything, but sheesh. You'd think I could do cash, but that would be worse, because then I have no money to spend making copies in the library.

That's seriously something I need to add to my budget though. That damn money devouring copy machine. You'd think they would give us graduate students a card that says we have rights to free copies or something. I mean, we're graduate students. We have offices, keys to every room in the building, and the outside doors as well. We're on payroll. We have insurance. But we have to feed our dollar bills and quarters to the god of replication. That strikes me as a little unfair. We've just managed to get out of undergrad, we're still broke from it, and we're about to embark on another two years of poverty before we can go flip burgers. Give us a break with the copy machine. I think we deserve it. We ought to have the code, or some other powerful set of numbers. I had the code to the copy machine in my undergraduate school. I wasn't even supposed to, but I *looks both ways* used it to make all my copies for sending out applications. Easily used two reams of paper, and more toner than I had a right to, even if I had been a faculty member. Now I am a faculty member (sort of) and I have to stand there trying to make sure George's head is facing the right way in order to make copies. I'm a bit disgruntled. You can tell, can't you? I thought so.

Well, I made it back to the apartment sans utility check, and made dinner. Macaroni and cheese, because I felt like eating something cheesy, and macaroni and cheese is comfort food for me. I had a pot of noodles that needed to be drained in my hand and was about to drain them when my phone rang. Sometimes we do stupid things. Don't deny it; you have done stupid things, and you aren't going to learn from them. You will do more stupid things. Lots of them. Perhaps you will carry a boiling pot of noodles from the kitchen into your bedroom to answer the phone. Perhaps you will reach across your bed to the far corner where you keep your phone. Perhaps you will spill the noodles on your bed. Maybe not. The stupid things you do probably don't match the stupid things I do. I think I have gathered all the noodles. I think my mattress will dry out tonight while I sleep on my futon. I know that my sheets will be clean and dry in an hour. And I know that you can substitute your own noodles for the noodles in the box, if you somehow lose the noodles from the box. It tastes just as good, and if you have lost the original noodles, you will need the comfort food.

The people who called, by the way, never got to speak with me. I haven't yet mastered my phone. Yes, that's right. I always manage to either push the button or not push it, whichever is the wrong option. I either never answered or I hung up on them. I looked at the caller ID function, however, and it was the Blood Center. I know they had to take blood to find the mono, so I figured they wanted to talk to me about that. So I set out to call them back, but the area code was not from around here. So I looked them up in the phone book, and they are from Michigan. Why is a blood center from Michigan calling me? I called on my cell phone and got the answering machine. I was first thanked for being a blood donor, and then told that they closed half an hour before they had called me. I was not invited to leave a message, and there was no helpful beep. In fact, they hung up on me after a suitable pause.

I figured, since I had the phone book out, I would look through it. I have always been trapped by phone books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses, and all those kinds of books. Something will look interesting, and I'll hunt it down, only to be sidetracked by this other interesting thing... I have read the dictionary, cover to cover, twice. That should tell you how terrible it is for me to get lost in a phone book. I'm likely to just read all the entries one right after the other.

Well, I ended up reading the restaurant section, and I stumbled across something that, thankfully, broke my trance. I read it, and thought, I have to blog about that. And so I set the phone book down and started this. Thank you blog. What I found was this: "Shogun Japanese Seafood and Steakhouse." Its claim to fame is that it has the best teppanyaki in town, and that all the food is "prepared in front of you by samurai chefs." No kidding. Samurai, huh? They must have really fallen on hard times to be making food for Americans in a town like this one. I think they meant that the chefs wouldn't be French or something. But they said samurai, so when I go there, I'll ask about that. Although maybe that would be rude. I don't know. It's real close, apparently. I might go celebrate when summer session is over.

On a side note, or rather, a segue into something completely different, the opera/yodeling wonder wannabe neighbors have taken up yipping. If you could only see the expressions their yipping causes to flit across my face, you would fear. I think I'll develop a nervous tick in my face somewhere if they don't move on to something else soon. I actually yelled at them today. Something along the lines of: "Damn you! Stop yipping. I didn't like your singing, I didn't like your yodeling, and I hate your yipping! Why do you do this? Does it bring you some perverse pleasure when you piss me off like this? Do you want me coming over there? I have knives. I know where your vocal cords are, and I'd love to rid you of them!" At this point, there has been no response. It is strangely silent there now, but they usually stop for dinner. I wish they wouldn't. They ought to try yipping and swallowing at the same time. Repeatedly, until they finally choke to death. I'd wave a contract under their bulging eyes and have them sign it, swearing never to sing, yodel, yip, or anything like that for the rest of their lives, and *then* I'd save them. You know when something irritates you enough that your jaw clenches, your fists clench, your eyes roll up while the eyelids flicker, and then you just ... can't ... stand it anymore?

On a happy note, my interview with the crime scene went over quite well. I got three pages of descriptions, and that's not counting the two pages I have of the actual crime. This is going to be great. I'll write everything I have, and then I'll start to chop. This is a shorter assignment, which will be harder. But that's okay. Now that I have what I needed, everything will be fine. The Muse will kick me in the butt, and I'll just write away. Then later, I can cull out the superfluous details.

They're throwing a sub sandwich party for us on Friday, because they think we're all depressed and over-worked. You know what? The theory professor came and found us in the graduate lobby at lunch today, and seemed very concerned and disappointed by this party. Like it would somehow damage us to get our minds off of things. She seems to think that we should be thinking about our final projects then, not relaxing. I can't quote her exact words on that, but that was the sentiment behind them. She looked at the few of us who remained in the room, and told us that we didn't look at all stressed or anxious, and therefore didn't need this party. I told her that we didn't *look* it, no. She blinked, and then burst out into laughter. "Good answer, good answer!" I can quote her on that one. I don't actually think she wants to take this free food away from us or anything, she just feels that it would distract us, and she wants to keep us focused on what really matters, which is her class. So that's theory.


Aside from that, I have fruit flies. The whole city has them, they're everywhere. But they seem to only fly around where you are. Like they think you'll feed them if they fly around long enough, and act pathetic. I tell them it only works that way for dogs, but they don't listen. I don't think I can effectively communicate with fruit flies by means other than slamming them in textbooks. And that gets messy. Oh well. I am going to post this, and start writing my paper for tomorrow. Take care. End.