shaving corners.....

Starting with DOWN again todayI

1)   Ran into an old neighbor today on the sidewalk outside of Biddys.  (Biddy's is not the name any more, but it's still my favorite place.)  I don't know how we got into this, but she told me that I could get a TV setup from Radio Shack to watch all the Britcoms for nothing.  The plug-in thing costs about $40, and then one can watch all kinds of free cable channels for zip.  I told her that this is my path to hell.  If this is true, I could get a TV and watch all day every day, and that'd be it.  I of course gave away my TV set bout 5 years ago, but one can always get a new TV for not much from Amazon or Craigslist or a freakin yard sale.  I dunno.  Everyone is always going on about how WONDERFUL the programming is on cable and all that.  And NO advertising!!  Jaysus.  There is so much advertising now when you try to watch TV on your laptop that it's hardly worth it. 

2)  The old neighbor is a professional painter, and I ast her how that was going.  She said she was "taking a break" and "thinking of writing a book."  Fiction or nonfiction, I says, and she said, "I don't know."  Have we heard this before anywhere?  There is nothing more popular, it seems, than wanting to "improve my (one's) life."  My own life could be improved 1,000-fold and not make a dent in my contribution to humanity.  Or is this just the crap my unconscious/subconscious/imagination throws at me hourly?

3)  Anyway, I don't wanna watch TV alla time.  I want to have FUN doing things I like.  Such as cooking and painting and taking photographs of the neighborhood and so on.  And having LUNCH with my pals.  I do love having LUNCH with my pals.  Except I'm finding it very expensive to do this these days.  It's far cheaper to cook and eat at home!!  Here's a good one:  Get a nice loaf of whole-grain/seed bread and toast a couple of slices.  Take half an avocado and smash it on one of the slices of toast, then scoop some cottage cheese on top of that, plus some grated parmesan cheese, and there's lunch!  Pretty tasty.  Lots of salt & pepper.  Consume with a couple of good glasses of white wine (recently, I found a good white Sicilian for $8 a bottle, and it's lovely.  Forget the name.) 

UP:

1)  The girlfriend returned from visiting her sister today, and the whole town seems full and joyous, despite wot the Republicans are doing to wreck everything.  Eff them.

2)  I am figuring out how to work this projector, which arrived yesterday.  I also learned that Van Gogh used something called a perspective screen, which I don't have.

3)  I also discovered that Politics & Prose has a room in the basement for REMAINDERS!  I didn't buy any, but OMG, I enjoyed reading through them.

MEH:

1)  Got tired of riding the bus today.  I get really pissed off at the rudeness and selfishness when people don't help others who need seats, etc.  Couldn't take it any more, so I got off at Columbia Heights and switched to metro, rode that to Fort Totten, then switched to the red line for the brief ride to Takoma.  At least I wasn't stewing and passing judgment.  There's hardly anybody around, anyway, now that the Repugs have shut everything down.  EEjits!