January's Time Has Been All Jagged

I have even less awareness of time than usual since I am on "vacation." And I am forced to use the term lightly. It isn't much different than my usual life except that I am 400 miles from where I normally waste my Time, and am being somehow even LESS productive. I'm at that point where I would have to start breaking shit and fucking with everyone else while they are trying to do their work to get any less productive than I've been being. But I kind of like it.

Strangely, as I must complain about something all the time, I have discovered that my hip hurts. It feels as though my hip socket is wearing out and that I am starting to hobble down the path that leads to the fake hip that old people are equipped with. Only I'll probably have it when I am 27. Or, I will if I ever get health insurance. Otherwise I will have to fashion one myself out of tree parts, cheap cloth, and twine. And somehow surgically implant it in ways I dare not think of at this moment.

I am still having a fine time here, though. Despite the fact that it has become unrealistically cold. Tonight, when we went out to eat, I felt like my face was about to freeze solid and then drop off, leaving my skull and a few face muscles exposed to the world. But I wouldn't bleed from it because my blood would be frozen solid. For certain though, all of the moisture in the inside of my nose abruptly froze. It was the most maddening sensation because it feels like your nose is doing something god-awful. And you think that passersby will be horrified because your nose looks like it is turning inside out or something like that. So I'd continually be rubbing at my nose, thinking that that would somehow improve my situation. I actually didn't know what was happening for the longest time, until I was like "Is my nose-moisture freezing?" And my friends were like "Yes, probably. It is ten below zero and the wind is blowing hard directly into your face."

Then I ate sushi.

It is a logical cold weather food. Sushi. Because when you are walking and freezing to death, nothing sounds better than uncooked food. Raw fish conjures thoughts of warmed bellies, doesn't it though? An interesting thing happened while at the Japanese Restaurant. Mark was recently telling tales of horrible service from the waistaff of many different eateries in his life. I found myself at the other end of the Service Spectrum tonight. We had service so good that it was actually a little annoying. I don't know, now, if I would find it more irritating to sit around waiting impatiently for my waitress to ask me if I needed anything else, or if it is actually worse to have a variety of waitresses coming by every 35 seconds to check on me. You sit there and try to have dinner conversation while 3 little Japanese ladies are cleaning your freshly dirtied dish out from under your face, while it is still in use, and having a fresh plate immediately put in its place. And having the water refilled after every third sip. It's a bit much.

I am guessing it's a cultural thing. I am not too learned on Japanese Culture at all, but I would imagine that being so attentive is just to show the good manners and all of that stuff. Whereas the American culture creates waiters and waitresses who let you know just how much they resent having to serve hungry people, and how much they resent having to work at all, by practically telling you "I am just here because I want to buy things for myself. I hope your dining experience is shitty."

I don't like bad and angry service, I've decided. But I also am made uncomfortable by waiters who are TOO attentive. So, I don't know. I'm all middle-of-the-road on this matter.

I did get to have a big raw slab of octopus though. omg mmmm

Good Times!