Pretty Strong, This Week

What’s new with me? FRIEND, I will tell you what’s new with me in ascending order from mildly interesting to most interesting, then back to about the level of interesting we started at before finishing big with outright boring:

• At the bar last Saturday I saw some guy groping the breasts of an older woman which prompted me to say to no one in particular: “Whoa, those breasts must be in the public domain or something!” Then I had an imaginary conversation with the bartender where I told him that joke and we high-fived.

• I made dinner for a date the other night (regular salad with a side of pasta salad — my specialty) and for dessert served chocolate cake with a single piece of ham baked inside. When she asked what a piece of ham was doing in the cake I played it off as if that’s how cake has always been made and that I was surprised she wasn’t more excited to get “the ham piece.” The search for the ideal woman continues.

• While taking my wallet out at a book sale (I was buying the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, because this is what a worthwhile purchase looks like to me) I dropped a quarter which hit the ground and rolled about three feet away from me, stopping at the toes of a young, sufficiently-clad woman. She bent down to pick it up and, instead of giving it back to the guy standing three feet away watching this nightmare unfold, put it directly in her pocket. After a moment she turned, stared straight at me, and gave me a look that seemed to say I’m not proud of what just happened. I gave a look back that was meant to convey Really? We’re both just going to let this happen? but it probably looked more like hungry than anything.

Total cost of this anecdote/lesson about the dark nature of capitalism: 25 cents.

• I woke up in a daze one morning and discovered three bowling alley receipts in the back pocket of my jeans (the fancy ones with the rhinestone studs — it was a big night). Upon closer inspection I realized all three receipts were from different bowling alleys over 50 km apart. I’ll always wonder.

• Saw about eight street lights burn out the precise moment I stepped underneath them. I bring this up only because I want to make sure other people are experiencing this phenomena. It can’t just be me, right? Because it happens so often that I’m starting to suspect the electric company is trying to get me to trip on a curb or something, which to me seems like a long walk for a short drink, but you know how those street light technicians are.

•  Movember! I grew a moustache for the first time ever this month and then after awhile sort of forgot about it the way you forget about Chinese leftovers in the back of your fridge. Turns out my facial hair grows in fuzzy and unexpectedly colourful — not unlike the hair that grows on your forgotten Chinese food, actually. But with November over and my excuse to strut around like good grooming is none of my business gone, I decided I should probably shave it off — that is, until I got a pep-talk from Tom Selleck about the wonders and magic of a good ‘stache (it was a banner week for imaginary conversations). So now I’m riding the Movember train straight through Decembeard and Januhairy, at which point I will stop growing facial hair, for this is a train powered by puns.