All posts in Apt 235

I’m sitting alone in the apartment for the first time in a long while. Ah, what to do? I better use TJ’s bathroom while he’s away…it’s almost as cool as using the handicapped bathroom. I kid, of course. I only feel like I’m getting away with something when I use TJ’s closet.

This morning I had an English test…good ol’ British lit. I have to say, when I looked upon that test (one of only 3 that I have this semester in that class) I remembered why it’s so cool to be an English major. Three questions, all of them easy and subjective. Oh baby! How can you go wrong? I remember back in the day when I’d have math and science tests up the wazoo. There was so much pressure and I always felt like my head was going to explode. For my test today, all I did was study for an hour or so, irresponsibly stay out late on Mill last night, and go take the test. Cake…

This weekend holds many exciting things…pretty much all oneplace related. Tomorrow is leadership training for the small groups all day. I’m really looking forward to that. I don’t really know what to expect, but the thought of Greg and I being involved enough and trusted enough to have positions of leadership makes me pretty happy. Also, the second preview service is Sunday. I sorta have the butterflies in the stomach feeling about it because I’m supposed to read a poem between a couple worship songs and I don’t want to screw up and look like a big idiot. Not that anyone would care because everyone’s cool, but it’s just a personal thing I have. I’m really looking forward to the service for a lot of reasons…some of it has to do with new people coming that I’ve just told about oneplace and I want them to dig it, but mostly I’m just excited to see what God will do through the whole experience. Ok, honestly, I’m just looking forward to wearing my confidence pants again. These pants only come out when I want to make an impression. They’re my favorite pair and I always feel cool when I wear them. I’ve never had such associations with clothing, but I guess that’s cool…whatever it takes to give me confidence enough to be an effective “roving greeter”.

In about a half hour I’m going down to Oktoberfest on Mill. It’s one part desire for tasty bratwurst and one part manifestation of my “obsession with fall” phase. Every year I go crazy around the beginning of October and want to be associated with all things fall. I guess a big motivation behind it is just being homesick for Wisconsin with all the leaves changing, etc. It seems like I should be suiting up in a jacket, jumping in the car, and heading down to the apple orchard to get a few bushel baskets and some cider or maybe making a cool cornstalk scarecrow guy for the front yard. These were the events of my childhood and honestly, I miss them a lot. Anyway, my obsession with fall causes me to do some strange things. Here’s a few:

- I just bought $7.50 worth of apples at Safeway because they remind me of going to the orchard.

- I leave the back door to the apartment open all night so I can feel the frigid bite of autumn in the morning.

- Every morning I check the Fall in PA website’s foliage cams to see if the leaves have started changing.

- I buy tons of Halloween decorations, candy, etc and try to get everyone to do Halloween related stuff, like the annual horror movie marathon night.

- I watch stuff that reminds me of fall…

- I take every opportunity to stand in the seasonal section of Target…I know, it’s sad.

- For the last couple years, Greg, TJ, and I have taken a “trip of reflection” up to Sedona. We listen to somber music all the way there and when we arrive we hike all through the forest looking for signs of autumn and thinking about stuff.

I suppose I’ve gone on long enough about my psychoses and various idiosyncrasies. Enjoy your weekends, everyone…I’m not sure how much posting I’ll be doing because the rest of my weekend is looking pretty busy. Take care ye all and hopefully I’ll run into most of you.

Big news at the apartment. We switched from paper plates to Styrofoam plates. The choice had never been a big issue: I always assumed paper to be cheaper. However, the dilemma of choosing paper or foam arose when I realized I could save 13 cents by going foam. Now, the two were on equal ground. The choice hearkens back to other great questions: paper or plastic, mayo or Miracle Whip, Ford or Chevy, white or wheat, leather loincloth or mahogany grape slings. Here’s the roundup:

Paper Plates:
Pros – Heat resistant, good for the environment, edible, fits well in our pantry
Cons – Flimsy structure results in inopportune food dumps, sometimes you grab two or three at a time, not soak-proof

Styrofoam:
Pros – Sturdy, soak proof, difficult to grab two at a time (unless you are a fumbling dope or Helen Keller)
Cons – every plate probably kills three squirrels and eight hamsters, not heat resistant

The choice seemed obvious at the time. Sturdy plates?kill the hamsters…Styrofoam it is!

I didn’t regret that choice until tonight. I cooked a hot sandwich up for dinner, ate it and enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I realized I had JUST BIT THE HEAD OFF OF A HAMSTER!

Not really, that was for shock value and another excuse to say hamster again. Actually, I noticed afterwards that most of my sandwich had melted Styrofoam on it.

These non-posting weekends are getting to be the rule rather than the exception these days. I must say, apologies all around.

This weekend was one of the finer weekends in recent memory. Friday was an awesome night of hanging out with my good friend Shannon (Word up, Shannon…you made it into the blog! Hope you don’t mind). I had the privilege of introducing her to the fine experience of boba tea, but she didn’t dig the boba balls. I don’t understand, but to each his/her own, I guess.

Saturday was, as many know, the oneplace bbq. It went incredibly well, lots of people turned out, and as far as I know, everyone had a good time. I played basketball, managed to fall down and hurt myself, and generally shamed myself by missing 80% of my layups. Ah, yet another activity that I’m mediocre at. I’m still sore from the whole experience, but I had a good time.

Today I went to the second to the last oneplace Sunday discussion meeting. Next week will be the last one for the week after onecommunities start. I’m really excited about that, but I’m a little bummed that the Sunday things will be no more. I get so much out of them, but alas, we must move on.

And now for the part about bidding adieu. Yes, I’m sorry…I’m moving to a Portuguese sheep plantation and my access to the internet will be limited at best. Ah, I kid. Actually, next week “Logorrhea of the Chimp” will be administered by the fine and talented Cori, for I will be doing my weeklong stint as blog writer on the oneplace site. Starting Monday, continue to check out my writing here, and stick around here to see what zaniness Cori comes up with.

I don’t know what it is, but come mealtime, I never can come up with something satisfying to eat. It’s uncanny…I think I’m well stocked in the food department and then I walk out to the fridge and there’s nothing worth eating there. It seems like it’s all condiments and fruit. I know this isn’t the case because every single week, sometimes even twice a week, Greg and I go shopping. I spend in the neighborhood of thirty or forty dollars every time. Somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of this apartment there’s something satisfying. It’s of no consolation that it’ll probably be rotted when find it.

This apparent lack of satisfying food seems to stem from my reformed diet. As the vast majority of people I hang around know, I’ve been on a diet since January and I don’t really deviate from it much. I remember back in the good ol’ days when I was a large and unhealthy man I used to be able to get by on 30 bucks of groceries a month. You’d think this was a paradox…I ate more, but I spent less…how could this be? Well, mostly it stems from the cheap, unhealthy food that can be had by the pallet-load. Safeway has these awesome burritos that are 2 bags for 5 bucks…so good, so filling, so unhealthy, so cheap. I used to pound those puppies three or four at a time. I love the results of being healthy now, but man, I miss those crazy burritos. And hot pockets. Mmmm…drippy cheese.

So anyway, I get to the fridge and there’s nothing there. What usually results is one of three things:

1) I get ambitious and bust out the George Foreman (yeah! free advertising) grill and make some chicken or fish.

2) I get lazy and microwave a tasty, but miniscule lean cuisine meal. Although the portions are small and the price is large, I regret purchasing them not a lick. I think part of it has to do with my amazement that something so tasty could come out of what is essentially reconstituted cardboard and flavored ketchup.

3) I concoct some ungodly meal by amalgamating whatever is lying around in the fridge. This is always scary. I have to push to the back of my mind the quote from the Nad’s hair removal cream commercial: “Made by combining things from our own kitchen!” I know they’re probably referring to combining bleach, dish soap, and oven cleaner, but I can’t get past the nagging fear that something I make will dissolve my tongue or cause periodic lycanthropy. I’m hairy enough as is. Some delights that have come from experimentations: rice burritos, cottage cheese and yogurt slurry, rice sandwiches, egg beater surprise (egg beaters combined with the first three things I see), rice with various condiments poured on it, or corn/tuna mash. (Yeah…we do make a lot of rice).

Well, all this talk of food has made me hungry. To the infernal kitchen…may my doom be postponed another day.

Dag nabbit.

My roommate is Photoshopping my pictures and putting phallic symbols on my once inoffensive family pictures. The worst part of this whole ordeal is that I hooked him up with the graphics software that he’s now using to deface my memories. I need him working in Photoshop about as bad as I need another sausage added to my favorite summer camp photo.

Bought four of these beauties at the store this week:

Can’t beat the price either for a delicious meal in one convenient pie tin. 400 degrees and 45 minutes later, I dropped half of them on the ground.

And they landed face down.