Mary Mota

My new pot dealer, Mary, is now selling hash! (She is, of course, continuing to offer her kind, green bud as well. She's so cool. She rides around on her bicycle delivering shit. I think she might be nutz (not 'cause of the bicycle, per se, but just generally (well, actually, the bike often does factor heavily into her weirdness (either the gears aren't working just right or she fell off of it and hit her head ("...good thing I was wearin' my helmet...brains woulda been like chili on the street...ha, ha, Bloody Mary!") or she's asking me if I "think the law sez [she's] gotta carry [her] bike light around even during the day so that [she's], like, ready for the night when it comes?" or some such shit))).

Another weird thing is that it seems like there's always some sort of a pig (OPD, BPD, BART, whatever) who just happens to be stationed right there or who's driving by or poking around or whatever whenever and wherever Mary and I meet up; we often have to wait a couple minutes or else we have to walk around a corner or something in order to do our bizness. (At first she kept suggesting that maybe all the pigs had something to do with me (and I kept arguing that there's just too many pigs around, that's all, and that neither of us was a narc (while simultaneously intimating that, for all that I knew, it was she who was the narc)), but by now we've pretty much learned to accept it as coincidence. It is weird, though.)) Hash!

Slow And Steady Wins The Race

I'd like to have a turtle with a realistic likeness of my face emblazoned on its back. That way, since the turtle would presumably outlive me, it'd be like I'd always have a little me crawling around the apartment...hanging out on the floor, sleeping, molting or whatever. I can't imagine why I wouldn't make pleasant company. And I mostly eat lettuce (very slowly), so it'd take only pennies a day to feed me. I wonder if I could learn to crap inside of a cat box or something.

Happy New Bug!

A Very Immigrant Christmas

The Little Saigon market was pandemonium this morning. My mother and the other old ladies were all cutting in front of each other at the butcher's counter, everybody was elbowing each other out of the way for the best head of lettuce, etc. Mom even shoved her way past some disabled woman (who was using crutches and who was arguably a little person) as they were rushing for the 15-items-or-less line. It was a glimpse into the decades of trauma that these war-torn people have experienced. Every aisle was a jumble of carts and Vietnamese, and I guess you were supposed to just smash your way by if you wanted to get through it. It was scary. It's really no wonder they kicked America's ass.

Now my mom keeps referring to broth as "the juice." (I keep telling her that it ain't juice unless you squeezed it out of something, but she won't listen.) She also keeps insisting that broth has the same nutritional value as the meat from which it's made. Her ignorance is astounding. Still, it's nice to hang out with Mom for the holidays.

Cheeseburger Wasteland

Why isn't there an In-N-Out between Pinole and East Oakland?! What the hell? North Oakland, West Oakland, the Lake Merritt neighborhoods, Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany...this whole fucking place is crawling with burger eaters. There's so many goddamn French fries...I'm constantly having to make my way through smushed up French fries scattered all over the goddamn sidewalks; it actually slows me down. (One could easily slip and fall on that shit...totally fuckin' dangerous.) In-N-Out'd make a fortune here! We love special sauce. Are they stupid? Or is it some sort of a Christian thing (I've heard that they're owned and operated by fundies; I've even seen scriptures cited in tiny print on the bottoms of their cups), some faith-based scruple that keeps them away because the East Bay is pig Latin for the Beast? But if that were the case then the East Oakland and San Leandro In-N-Outs wouldn't make any sense. So what the hell is going on?

Juicy Lemons

I won't know how many lemons I need until I know how juicy they are. Or less ambiguously: until I know how juicy they are I won't know how many lemons I need. Or even slightly less ambiguously: until I know how juicy the lemons are I won't know how many I need. Or least ambiguously: until I know how juicy the lemons are I won't know how many lemons I need.

Diff'rent Wipes For Diff'rent Types

When shopping for items, I tend to buy whichever product brand that happens to be on sale, and so I've tried dozens of different toilet papers over the years. And, of course, I've defecated many times in bathrooms for which someone else has provided the toilet paper, and so I've experienced even more kinds of toilet paper than I've purchased.

The various brands of toilet paper vary greatly in terms of texture, ranging from the soft and pillowy and fluffy to the coarse and stiff and dense. Public restrooms are usually supplied with the coarser, stiffer, denser paper, whereas I often encounter the softer, fluffier, and more pillowy paper in the bathrooms of friends and relatives.

I prefer the coarse, stiff, dense toilet paper. This is because I've found that the fluffy toilet paper often tatters and turns powdery when subjected to friction. I want my feces to adhere to my toilet paper, and the last thing I need is for my toilet paper to be adhering to my feces.

People have told me, "Il Vermicello, the purpose of toilet paper is not merely to faciliate adhesion but also to facilitate comfort," but I've never really understood these people. I, for one, have never used any toilet paper that was so soft or so fluffy that it made wiping myself in any way pleasant or soothing. Conversely, I've had to wipe myself plenty of times with newspapers or grocery bags or the Yellow Pages, and it really isn't all that bad.