i'm fully aware...

that every time i gripe about my farmer's market competition i sound like a bowl of bitter beans. which i am. i'm fully as privileged as the riverdale yuppie moms...except i'm worse because i feel a sense of entitlement to the produce based on an elitist meritocracy where professional cooks rank higher than susie and sam q. homemaker. i'm an a**hole who wants rhubarb. i snooped around every veggie/fruit stand and grocery store on the strip today and no rhubarb anywhere. wtf? am i all wrong? is it not the season or something? i grabbed some gorgeous, heavy, round globe artichokes and a tonne of fava beans...artichokes are destined for a pasta tomorrow with peas maybe and the favas will be turned into a crostini for one or another of our dinner guests this weekend. the weekend has already filled up completely with social engagements.

i had a giant indian buffet lunch with dr. rei today, so i think i'll take it easy for dinner...the lunch buffet at kathmandu on yonge is such a good deal! they always have chat papri and i love it. chat papri (as i understand it) is pieces of crispy samosa-type wrapper stuff (just the wrapper) in a yoghurty dressing with chickpeas and spices. it's served cold. so good! and they always have a goat, beef, and chicken dish and the best spinach ever.

embarrassing admission time. most people who know me superficially come away with the impression that "soft" is not really an apt adjective to describe me. i'm not sentimental in the traditional sense, i think i got over high school romance in high school, and worked out the need for that kind of frenzied, orchestral, keening dramatic love. i'm well past the sell-by date for furtive, whispered, acutely intense telephone conversations that end with a staccato flurry of, "you hang up first" "no, you hang up first" and "i love yous" with all the finality and weight of the infinite reaches of space and time. i'm way more into the everyday, the mundane, the ridiculous laughter of two kindred souls palling around together. the tragically ludicrous, the ludicrously tragic, that's me.

so, it is with great surprise that i watched "27 dresses" on the airplane and found myself CRYING OPENLY at the narrative crescendo when the shakespearean-lite comedy of errors rights itself in true romantic comedy fashion and our heroine walks down the aisle (in true heteronormative fashion) with her one true love. yep, i cried all right. dr. rei roused herself from her contorted, half-slumber to peer up at the screen near the end of the movie, look at me, and say, "those guys are idiots, eh?" before realizing that there were tears streaming down my face, at which point, her mouth dropped open aghast. yup, i'm a movie-crier. bigtime. i mean, past history has shown that i'm curiously susceptible to schmaltz (my sister can recall to this day the snot-encased sobs that rattled from my 10 year old chest into the silence of the theatre where we saw "dead poet's society"), but i didn't think "27 dresses" had the stuff to do me in. it was missing some of the major triggers: old people, fat kids, poverty, racism, insurmountable odds. i didn't think maudlin romance could do it...maybe i was just jet lagged. although, truth be told, i cry all the time at television and motion picture stuff that wouldn't phase a more stalwart viewer with a less deeply buried, tender heart. i really am the chinese veronica mars. as wallace fennel so rightly said about my beloved ronnie,

"That might play with the masses, but underneath that angry young woman shell, there's a slightly less angry young woman who's just dying to bake me something. You're a marshmallow, Veronica Mars. A twinkie!"

i'm off to go for a run now...we'll see how i do. i wore a new pair of ebay shoes on monday at work and bequeathed myself with a giant blister. blisters effin' suck. they're just big, open wounds with all the sensitive nerve endings exposed. if you want an approximation of what my foot was like when the plastic surgeon first peeled the bruised, dead, skin off, imagine a deep blister covering the entire top of your foot. everything that touches the nerve endings (air, water, anything that's not matched to your body's ph) burns and stings so acutely, it makes you catch your breath.

this twinkie is outta here!

fin.