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You know what's fcked up? I just went to create a google news alert with my grandmother's name and the Mississippi town where she lives, so I can find out when the obituary is published, because I don't trust my family to notify me until after the funeral. Except, I had already created one. There was no recent news that prompted this -- she hasn't been doing to well healthwise for a couple years now, and it's always on a steady decline, so it's sort of just a matter of time. But damm.

You know what else is fcked up? This morning I drove up to Evanston and listened to WLUW which plays Amy Goodman's Democracy Now in the morning. It's not my favorite show, I can't hear it every day (she's no Rachel Maddow), but it's way more interesting than anything on NPR or other news. So today was this guy who'd written a book on Donald Rumsfeld, and they're talking about his history, and how after working with the Ford administration (um, dude is old), he became head of Searle Pharmaceuticals. See, the Searle family were buddies of his, as fellow privileged rich north shore Chicago folks, and the company was starting to sink and go under, but they had created (accidentally) this artificial sweetener that they were calling aspartame and were trying to get the FDA to approve it. Except, studies showed it caused brain cancer so the FDA was saying no way. So they hired Rumsfeld as CEO with his politico connections to help get approval because they knew it would make them buckets of money. Except, see, Rumsfeld wasn't able to make it happen. He's no business man, he was a lobbyist, and apparently not even a good one of those. Well, not until Reagan got elected, and he booted out the head of the FDA and the new head of the FDA said, wait, it doesn't cause brain cancer, let's approve it.

Searle went on to sell its empire to Monsanto. And now we drink Diet Coke.

Well, not 'we'. I hate diet sodas. Because I don't like how they taste and I'm a paranoid freak about certain health things, like brain cancer, and the possible link to aspartame (this started in high school when my high school bio teacher taught us about the controversy). But I know lots of people who rely on it for caffeine intake or because they're diabetic, and that's just fcked up to have it peddled on us like it is.

Which reminds me of last night, and how I reached my own personal tipping point of these attorneys at work constantly making sarcastic comments about how 'healthy' the dinner is here. Now, don't get me wrong -- they aren't always the most balanced meals, but if you have moderate portions of the fried meat and large portions of salad and then maybe add a banana or apple that's usually lying around, you're doing okay, plus, really, they probably are eating out all the time at places that are no 'healthier'. It's really just anti-fat bullisht bias. Last night though, I just cracked. I had a half a plate of salad, half of plate of baked ziti, with a piece of garlic bread on top, and one of the attorneys walked by and said, "that looks healthy" (their sarcasm isn't even especially clever), and I'm like, mtherfcker, you go through two cans of diet coke in the last hour I see you, so you probably drink 5-6 cans a day, which is half a gallon daily of toxic aritificial chemicals. I am eating a plate of a food that a country in southern europe has been eating for centuries and they are alive and well and doing just fine.

Wow, I didn't realize how ranty I was feeling until I started typing.

I sent an internal memo to myself, declaring a temporary moratorium on the following topics (in regards to this journal) as they have been transitioned into the private sector:

1. detachment/analysis regarding my parents
2. writing my novel
3. my daily practice of prostrations and sitting
4. the reading about and drinking of wine I've done to dive into my campaign to become "That Asshole"

So....those crickets you hear chirping are to fill the gap in my inability to generate something else to write about.

How about food.

I get free dinner most every night at work, ordered in bulk and served buffet style for the 8-20 people who are usually eating. There was a campaign from some of the attorneys to get a different menu of choices, and the two main complaints were more healthy options and more meat. This first resulted in having a choice of two salads, instead of one, and a side of sliced grilled chicken arriving on the side. But this week, we had fried chicken. Twice. On Tuesday it was with roasted potatos and salad. Tonight it was sort of maybe oven baked, but like, fried first, then baked with some sort of garlic cheese on top. And the only side was a fruit plate. So I had two pieces of fried chicken, about 30 grapes, and several slices of melon. I thought it was a great dinner. I'm sure there will be complaints tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm throwing the residual ham bone into a big pot and making a potato bean soap that I'm very excited about. Winter is back with us here in Chicago, and I've become sensitive to it, unable to quickly adjust to even 30 degree temperatures. Except most every night in the two block walk from the train station to the house, I like the chill because I think about how good it will feel to put on slippers and curl up on a couch and drink a glass of heavy red wine and loll off to sleep.

Isht, I just violated rule #4.

I had a rather decadent sandwich for lunch -- brie with herbs, brown sugar deli ham, and sliced pears, melted on rye bread. Except I melted it open-faced so the pears were added last and still cold. I'm all about the McDLT effect in sandwiches. Actually in most food. While cutting my sandwich, because it was too unwieldy to eat whole, I was thinking about sandwiches being cut for me as a child, and I can remember graduating up from 1/4 cuts to 1/2 cuts, and how my mom always cut her own sandwiches into triangular wedges, but I wanted mine cut as rectangle. Now as adult, I slice is made in-between the two, into generic trapezoids.

I love that if you add a combination of cinnamon/clove/nutmeg to anything, it becomes "holiday-flavored". Or, alternatively, mint.

I am making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, my father's quasi-secret recipe and I think...and I know this is kinda sacrilegious but, I think.....they are better with margarine. Not butter.