Ay, yi yi, yi

I just wrote a story that is about 1,200 words about a 4-year-old who had a brain tumor. That was a good interview. I was absolutely terrified to call the family, but the interview went well. I just hope my story is as good as I'd like it to be, even though stories never are.

Now all I have to do is find two more stories to do this week and I'll be caught up. Feh.

I also need to read the paper and find stories that are interesting, which if I don't do that right about now, I will have to do with an actual newspaper. That, like, I have to buy with actual money. Like, whatever.

Like, that's totally an awesome excuse to stop by Bulldog News after work. Maybe they will have more rockin' magazines for me to pick up and find new joy in, but somehow I doubt it.

And stop by Newslab. Maybe there will be story requests. And I should format my story so I will have it all ready to show Mike tomorrow before class.

Oh, rah, productivity.

I have nothing to talk about. All these entries lack a single focus point beyond, well, me.

Speaking more of me, I had what might be the least good meal in an Ave restaurant I've ever had last night. Kevin and I have wanted to try the Himalayan Sherpa place for awhile now--not sure why--and last night grabbed a coupon and went for it.

We ordered two completely different things on the vegetarian menu. He ordered the house special dal; I ordered the roti combination, which was some stuff and some bread. We both got exactly the same four little cups of sampler entrees, and while I did get bread, he got rice. Bad rice, according to him. The dishes were a red butter sauce with peas and cheese, some overly mushy vegetables with some dry sauce-type thing, some flavored and possibly pickled/steamed cabbage and assorted greens, and a bland, watery lentil soup. It's possible some of these things were part of what I ordered. None of them had anything to do with what Kevin ordered. The butter sauce with cheese, especially, isn't what Mr. Vegan would order. But we were so baffled that we didn't send them back. Stupid move. At least we had a coupon.

Then we went to Carkeek for a particularly pink-and-red cloudy sunset and no trains at high tide. And I had some particularly unpleasant gas.

Between the interview and dinner, I was home and saw this supposed "cleaning schedule" Chris made up. It was a completely absurd schedule that rotated daily, which makes absolutely no sense. I was very angry, and his mother--his family was in town for a few hours and catching a midnight flight to New York--said something about him making it up when she told him the compost was going to attract rats and cockroaches. Which is probably a fair assessment, but it hardly merits such a fascist cleaning regime. So, I ranted, of course, to Kevin all the way to the restaurant about how Chris better not expect us to follow that, blah blah blah.

Kevin helped me reason that Chris had obviously made it up to appease his mother, who can be notoriously demanding in terms of anal retentiveness. Which is the main reason I don't like being in my own house when she's around.

When I got home much later and Chris was home from class, his family safely delivered to the airport, I checked in to make sure my assumptions were correct. I explained that the system as he laid it out would never work, if for no other reason than I refused to abide by it. He said we needed some system, which I can agree to, and Jen came out of her room and we talked about it for a few minutes. We'll have to have a house meeting to figure something out, anyway.

In my opinion, there are really only certain tasks that are not regularly done that should be specially assigned on a rotating basis. Bathroom cleaning is one of these. Outdoors chores are probably another. Everyone needs to make a concerted effort to keep the kitchen clean and dishes washed and floors swept. People need to pitch in to make sure shared towels are washed regularly. We should also probably rotate garbage duty.

I just refuse to let it dissolve into some sick authoritarian, Mary Poppins-esque, "this house must be so clean you could eat off every surface, so spend your life cleaning" bullshit. We all have different levels of clean we are accustomed to. In order to live together, we have to adjust to the mean. If someone is more anal, I'm sorry, they have to clean more in order to bring things up to their standards rather than forcing the rest of us to clean like we were them.

But I doubt it's come to that.