Old Standards and New Hopes
I was talking to my friend Alex A. the other day while he was having potty trouble. He was on the toilet and thought he needed another wipe (just to be safe), but that would’ve entailed him getting up and getting a new roll of TP. He asked me whether he should finish then and there or go get a new role, but I hit him with option number tres: “Are you gonna be taking a shower later?” I asked. He replied affirmative and I helped him circumvent a troubling dilemma.
I have this feeling, and I can’t tell how well it’s based on fact, but I’ve got it, and it says: “Simon, you’ve become a problem solver.” I got a fortune cookie yesterday that said something like “You have a strong instinct for helping your friends,” which was nice, but also fit neatly into my new feeling. In any event, I have an internship this summer working for the San Francisco Foundation - a big non-profit that does community shit - and I’m going to try to put my hunch to the test. Do any of you ever find my advice particularly useful?
As a side note: I was eating sushi the other day with my mom, sister, my cousin and his wife. At the wedding of this cousin, the caterers served something called Hawaiian Butterfish, which was delicious. The day after the wedding I got a severe case of Keriorrhea, which, aside from being a cool band name, is also “greasy orange colored stools which results from the consumption of indigestible wax esters found in oil fish and escolar.” Apparently, since it doesn’t cause pain or serious health problems, escolar hasn’t been regulated away in the US. It is sold deceptively under many names including “Snake Mackerel,” “White Tuna,” and “Hawaiian Motherfucking Butterfish.” Anyway, the sashimi combo plate came with a few slices of the Butterfish. My mom, my cousin and his wife each had a piece, despite my warnings. Although they were small pieces, there is a fair chance that their asses are currently barfing up an oily shit-slick. Please, take some time to learn the different names of escolar and oilfish - it could save you from no small amount of embarrassment and ruined underwear. Please, if you find escolar or oilfish on a restaurant’s menu, inform the management politely of those who have suffered. If you accidentally consume escolar, stay calm, and buy some adult diapers. Seriously. The oily movements are not painful, not distinguishable from a regular passing of gas in any way until it’s too late.
NYU is a sucking, fucking, fuck-suck
The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the New York
City area; snow and high winds are expected to begin late tonight.
I have been at NYU for 13 years; because of how many members of our community
live nearby and because our transit system seldom fails us, we have rarely had
to close.
Accordingly, at this point, NYU expects to be open tomorrow, Wednesday, February
10; all classes and activities are to proceed as scheduled, all personnel are to report as scheduled.
[…]
-Jules Martin, Vice President of Public Safety, NYU
All of New York’s public school are going to be closed. All of the other universities are going to be closed. My roommates are going to have a fucking snowball fight on the roof.
I don’t have any particular point to make about how NYU is a shitty, uncaring bureaucracy. Nor was I surprised - they did the same thing last year. But I had big things planned, namely: not doing homework, smoking cigarettes on the roof, and looking at the erotica on my walls.
I tried to look for some dirt on Jules Martin, but I got bored. So just know this, Jules -
I’m watching you.
Poop Talk
Sometimes when I’m on the toilet I have some trouble pooping. Sometimes just a little nugget comes out when I’m expecting a log, and when I eventually give up, I look down and nothing’s there. Sometimes, such a time passes from the initial drop that I’m no longer sure if I pooped at all. But I know it’s behind that useless bend in the porcelain, waiting.
Sometimes when I’m not sure, I contemplate not flushing. What I stumble upon then is a Shrodinger’s cat situation. If no one observes the turd, it is both there and it isn’t. In these cases, however, I usually defer judgement to Occam’s razor and find the simplest explanation is that I’m just retarded.
Then when I’ve had a good long bout of of pseudo-constipation, I unleash Pangea upon my unsuspecting shitter and it looks like some poor misguided activists tried to save a beached whale by covering it in mud.
I find that my cleaning method has become increasingly “sophisticated,” although I’m not totally sure how effective the methods are. First I was a clumper-wiper, then I was a folder-wiper, and now I’m a folder-dabber. I would ask for input on this but I don’t think the format of this blog allows for reader comments. So just ruminate on that I guess.
I’m Prejudiced
For a while, I’ve been debating with myself the pros and cons of the two routes I can take to get home. They’re about the same distance but one takes you through the little carribean (nostrand) and the other takes you through jew town (kingston). I’m sort of paranoid walking down nostrand because sometimes there’s this black homeless guy who asks me to buy him baby formula while eating exotic fruits. He never recognizes me and when I remind him that I didn’t buy him the 15 dollar baby formula, he says “that hurt me bad.” Walking down kingston I often get asked if I’m a jew. I always say no, but I think about half of them probably know and judge me for it anyway. I met the rabbi of the youth center near my apartment and when I told him I wasn’t jewish he shook my hand for too long and gave me a sort of half-Larry-David once over. Anyway, I was walking home the other day, somewhere in between the two streets when I saw three hasids and two black dudes playing basketball. It was like the neighborhood was telling me “You, Simon, are the fuck.” Apparently everyone but me has come a long way since the Crown Heights riots.
Weird Times at Suck My Dick High
Life is getting pretty weird in this neighborhood. A few days ago, I’m walking home and I look to my right and this hasid next to me has this expression on like “you just caught me trying to take your wallet,” but if my wallet had been on my shoulder. I think he was gonna pat me but thought better of it when I looked at him. Then he asked me if I was jewish and I said no, and then he talked about the jewish new year and the end of the world etc. I feel a little bad telling all the hasids that I’m not jewish; I could totally get down with nodding to some dudes wearing all black on the walk home, but that’s a slippery slope. I do not want to participate in round-robin dreidel tournaments. I do not want to contract a peanut butter allergy. So they can all just fucking suck my dick.
Also, two nights ago I was walking home and some girl, walking with another girl and a dude, asked me for a cigarette. Long story short, I ended up in the dude (my neighbord)’s backyard watching the girl decapitate a chicken. I decided to stay until they cooked it and ate it, but that took like 3 hours and they were all on xanax and there was some drama i didn’t understand so it was like, half too mellow, half too awkward. I did get to watch an episode of seinfeld on their projector and the chicken was good, but fuck that shit. Also, the dude gave me an empty jug. But still. Suck my dick.
Thoughts, caveats re: pasta sandwich
So, now that I’ve had a full night to digest the pasta sandwich I made last night, there are a few things I’d like to talk about.
I have to admit that the whole operation was pretty poorly executed. I didn’t heat up the vodka sauce, which meant luke warm pasta; the ratio of meat to cheese to pasta was way off, although I think I put in the right amount of onions. If you try this at home, make sure your vodka sauce is warm by the time the pasta is done, or you’ll get a sandwich that tastes like it was freshly made, but then left in the fridge for ten minutes. Carefully consider beforehand how much meat and cheese and shit you want on this sandwich, otherwise you’ll end up wasting meat you won’t be able to taste in a veritable noodle jungle.
Alright, another thing I probably could have premeditated was that this would be one slippery bitch. That part was ok and kind of fun, but it made it really hard to keep the ingredients in. One potentially genius idea I have it to hollow out some kind of roll so you’ve got yourself a little pasta pod. If someone steals and patents that idea I will shoot your fucking face off.
Ok well I hope everyone tries to make this sandwich at some point in the near future because it’s a winner, and you can’t really get it anywhere.