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I'm not a fool to hurt myself
Aug. 12th, 2007 10:30 pmOn Friday night I went to karaoke and had the usual awesome time. My new standard has perhaps become Thong Song. Yeah.
I spent virtually all day today alone, in the house, save for the 90 minutes of writing group meeting, which was great, and then getting yelled at on my way to the drugstore by a stranger on a bicycle for being a "fucking idiot" and walking in front of him. It was kinda my fault, but he did psyche me out and I thought he was going to ride around past behind me so I kept stepping off the curb but then that startled him and he had to swerve and he yelled a lot of curse words and got real angry at me in a way not proportionate to the incident, because that's what white men do when we get scared or momentarily lose any control over the world whatsoever, we get real real mad and immediately call everyone stupid.
I was committing to lounging this weekend and today I fully did it. A puttered about and did a few things, like washed last night's dishes and sorted some records to sell/giveaway and cooked some dinner and watched a movie, but I did a lot of sitting and staring at walls and lying down and sitting and reading and journaling. And on the last part, I was making this, ahem, list of a self-care plan around a specific issue and one of my items of things I love to do and always makes me feel better is grocery store shopping. That's what I did tonight. I went at 9 pm, I wanted to wait until after evening church across the street was over so I could find a parking space when I returned, and I almost didn't go, it was late, but the second I stepped inside the fluorescent lit heaven, I knew I made the right decision. I'm love in Strack & Van Til's, the new place near my house and while I was poking around at things that weren't on my list, I was thinking about my love for food shopping and my history with it.
When I was a little kid, my dad was still in the Army. Its how we ended up in Atlanta -- he was working at the Pentagon but then got transferred down to Fort Gillam. There were two bases in the area, the other was Fort McPherson and that's the one where we did our shopping at the commissary and px. Because it was way way cheaper than the local supermarket. So once a month, or once every 6 weeks, we'd make the 40 minute drive across town to the army base and I helped my mom, because we always filled two carts (we had a basement in the freezer to store lots of meat and frozen vegetables and extras). My mom has a coupon caddy and she taught me all about finding the best deal and this is where my practical math skills first got a chance to shine, I was great at dividing the cost by the ounces and figuring out the most for our money, with or without the coupon. I remember the first time I drove on the highway with my permit was with my mom and we drove to the base for shopping. In between trips we'd get milk or bread at Kroger's near our house, but nothing major. Except eventually, the commissary's prices went up, my older brother went to college, and it wasn't really worth the effort to travel so far to buy less food that wasn't much cheaper.
I no longer just calculate price savings, I also look at whether the food has more food than chemicals, is it something specifically better for me and better-tasting, so it's worth the extra dollar. It's 3-dimensional math problems now, which of course I love. And lately while shopping, after reading an article about Barbara Kingsolver's book, and numerous references by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clockwatcher about the topic, I've added "which product comes from a place closer to me, preferably within 100 miles?" I bought lots of things that originated in Indiana, including bacon, instead of the slightly cheaper one from Arizona. I got blueberries from Michigan instead of California. There are more variables for my head, that is just as pleasing, probably more so, than the community-minded ramifications of my buying choices. I mean, Indiana has not been a friend to Chicago lately, but I'm going to assume that their acting out is a cry for help, so I will patron their hog farms in hopes of healing the wounds.
There's an ongoing segment of The Raybear Show called How Did THAT Get In My Music Files? and today's guest on that segment was a reggae cover of Phil Collins's "Another Day in Paradise". I was wtf-ing all over the place with that one.
I spent virtually all day today alone, in the house, save for the 90 minutes of writing group meeting, which was great, and then getting yelled at on my way to the drugstore by a stranger on a bicycle for being a "fucking idiot" and walking in front of him. It was kinda my fault, but he did psyche me out and I thought he was going to ride around past behind me so I kept stepping off the curb but then that startled him and he had to swerve and he yelled a lot of curse words and got real angry at me in a way not proportionate to the incident, because that's what white men do when we get scared or momentarily lose any control over the world whatsoever, we get real real mad and immediately call everyone stupid.
I was committing to lounging this weekend and today I fully did it. A puttered about and did a few things, like washed last night's dishes and sorted some records to sell/giveaway and cooked some dinner and watched a movie, but I did a lot of sitting and staring at walls and lying down and sitting and reading and journaling. And on the last part, I was making this, ahem, list of a self-care plan around a specific issue and one of my items of things I love to do and always makes me feel better is grocery store shopping. That's what I did tonight. I went at 9 pm, I wanted to wait until after evening church across the street was over so I could find a parking space when I returned, and I almost didn't go, it was late, but the second I stepped inside the fluorescent lit heaven, I knew I made the right decision. I'm love in Strack & Van Til's, the new place near my house and while I was poking around at things that weren't on my list, I was thinking about my love for food shopping and my history with it.
When I was a little kid, my dad was still in the Army. Its how we ended up in Atlanta -- he was working at the Pentagon but then got transferred down to Fort Gillam. There were two bases in the area, the other was Fort McPherson and that's the one where we did our shopping at the commissary and px. Because it was way way cheaper than the local supermarket. So once a month, or once every 6 weeks, we'd make the 40 minute drive across town to the army base and I helped my mom, because we always filled two carts (we had a basement in the freezer to store lots of meat and frozen vegetables and extras). My mom has a coupon caddy and she taught me all about finding the best deal and this is where my practical math skills first got a chance to shine, I was great at dividing the cost by the ounces and figuring out the most for our money, with or without the coupon. I remember the first time I drove on the highway with my permit was with my mom and we drove to the base for shopping. In between trips we'd get milk or bread at Kroger's near our house, but nothing major. Except eventually, the commissary's prices went up, my older brother went to college, and it wasn't really worth the effort to travel so far to buy less food that wasn't much cheaper.
I no longer just calculate price savings, I also look at whether the food has more food than chemicals, is it something specifically better for me and better-tasting, so it's worth the extra dollar. It's 3-dimensional math problems now, which of course I love. And lately while shopping, after reading an article about Barbara Kingsolver's book, and numerous references by
clockwatcher about the topic, I've added "which product comes from a place closer to me, preferably within 100 miles?" I bought lots of things that originated in Indiana, including bacon, instead of the slightly cheaper one from Arizona. I got blueberries from Michigan instead of California. There are more variables for my head, that is just as pleasing, probably more so, than the community-minded ramifications of my buying choices. I mean, Indiana has not been a friend to Chicago lately, but I'm going to assume that their acting out is a cry for help, so I will patron their hog farms in hopes of healing the wounds.There's an ongoing segment of The Raybear Show called How Did THAT Get In My Music Files? and today's guest on that segment was a reggae cover of Phil Collins's "Another Day in Paradise". I was wtf-ing all over the place with that one.
