Fry’s, this week, is having a “case lot sale”. You don’t have to buy by the case to get the low prices, but you can. We went to Sam’s Club, first (where I’ve been starting my bulk food purchases, in things like 25lb bags of rice), and compared the Fry’s sale prices with the Sam’s normal bulk food prices, and on everything but oats Fry’s prices were better. So we bought the big box of Quaker Oats at Sam’s Club and then went over to Fry’s. They were sold out of one or two items I wanted to get, so I’ll probably go back to try to get them (they stock after closing, so early morning is the way to go), but we did pretty good. We got 195lbs of food for about $90. 40lbs of flour and 40lbs of sugar will go a long way toward baked goods. Yes, there are fresh ingredients like milk, eggs, butter and the like that I can’t buy up in bulk, seal up in Tupperware, and put in the cupboard (Did I mention Mandy and I are also about to make a large order of Tupperware? There’s a lot at the house, but we 1) need more, and 2) want to be sure we have our own stuff, in case at some point we want to separate off from the rest of the family. We went to a couple of big “container stores” (who knew there were multiple competing chains of big stores specializing in only container sales? Huh.) and compared sizes, prices, and quality, and Tupperware wins, hands down. Oh, and yes, we bought evaporated milk.), but barring that apocalypse/depression I mentioned, that’s not much of an issue. Will probably go back and buy another 50lbs-75lbs of food for another $35-$47 before the sale is over.

Oh, and if the economy doesn’t look to actually be collapsing further, we’ll probably put a huge dent in this stuff before the end of the year. Otherwise, yeah, rationing, eh? Gotta remember to get a couple gas cans kept full all the time, too. Hmm… Maybe I should call dad and be sure we have plenty of ammunition, while it’s still cheap. Leave your suggestions for other items I should consider buying in bulk, whether because I’m poor or because the end is near, in the comments.

I was working in the kitchen today, slaving over a hot stove and a cutting board and hoping my improvised recipe would delight and nourish and it occurred to me that all the time I spend every week, not just cooking, but also thinking about it, shopping for it, studying cookbooks and recipes on index cards and online, and all this time and effort and energy… It isn’t wasted. It never felt wasted, but it occurred to me today that spending an hour or more a day, most days of the week, cooking for my family is one of the most valuable things I contribute. Not (just) because cooking real food reduces costs, but because it adds value.

Whether because of the failing economy or because I’m failing to market myself effectively, I’m not bringing a lot of financial reward into the household right now. Yet when I’m able to put a good meal in front of my wife after she’s had a long day at work, I know there are more important rewards in life to invest yourself in, and that I’m a success in the areas that matter to me most.

My mom taught me -she tried to teach me- how to make her spaghetti sauce. If I’m able to remain a househusband, if I’m able to continue investing myself in showing my love through food, maybe in another couple of years … Maybe I’ll have the skill required to share what made her sauce so special, in making a sauce that my family will associate with love, happiness, family… We’re Italian, it’s all in the sauce, right?

I was reading someone’s webjournal this morning… or maybe it was a forum post… the context is unimportant and forgettable. Someone said something like “break me off a piece of that…” and all of a sudden, moments after eating a filling (almost sickening) Sausage McMuffin with Egg, I felt like eating a Kit-Kat. I almost got up that very moment to see if there were any in the vending machine. Sure, you can say that that was a result of latent marketing. That all the Kit-Kat ads I’ve seen over the years were effective because they increased my brand recognition and the mere mention of their popular slogan not only reminded me of their product, but influenced me to desire it. That may be true, but what I’m commenting on is my pliability to such suggestions. After lunch, I did in fact go to the vending machine, and seeing that there were no Kit-Kat bars, purchased a Twix, which I deemed the most likely choice to assuage my desire. Yum.

Last night I was watching Murder In Small Town X, and although I had not eaten supper, I was not hungry. At one point, during a meeting between the players, there were cups and wrappers visible that I recognized as being from Taco Bell, and although the words “Taco Bell” were not visible, seeing people eating what I knew was Taco Bell made me want to eat Taco bell. It is a kind of weird feeling to not be hungry and want to eat at the same time. Especially while I want to lose wight at the same time. I mentioned that I wanted to eat Taco Bell as a result of seeing it to the person I was with, and we did eventually end up going, hours later, when I finally got hungry.

See, the cravings don’t seem to just fade away; they stick with me for hours or days until I take care of them. These aren’t the crazed cravings of someone with a real deficiency, these are just mild, frequent reminders that I want to eat a certain thing. Which is nice, because then I can usually subdue them until a reasonable time comes along that I can consume those calories without it being overeating. Like the Taco Bell. I have found that a very important thing in not gaining weight (and losing weight, as well) is to stop eating when you get full, and try to avoid eating when you aren’t hungry. Balancing that against getting plenty of food and numerous meals provides a challenge, but I think that is where weight loss comes from. If you plan on eating 5 times in a day, and also only eat when and while you’re hungry, you can’t eat five big meals. You can’t even eat three big meals. There simply isn’t room.

Of course, there’s plenty of room in my clothes, so … I COULD go ahead and eat again. And again and again and again and again and again. Maybe I’ll even feel better afterwards.

Is that what you are doing now? Sighing, trying to pay attention as I type miles of text about my own trivial experiences? I thought at first that the idea of an audience would just encourage me to write, but I think now it scares me. Some of the people who know that they can find me here… I don’t know… I just feel like I can’t be myself when they’re around. I have no way of knowing whether they’re around, either.

Look, if you don’t really care, why are you still reading? Is this some form of rubbernecking? Are you hoping to see a glimpse of someone else’s pain, and willing to wade through everything else I spew out? If you do care, why did you let them remove the nearby Taco Bell?

Apparently, kissing me is very satisfying. I am glad to know that even without regular practice the deep understanding of the kiss remains a powerful force between any two people. I remember when I was young I used to use the secret to more fulfilling kissing as a gateway to solving the mysteries of the universe and unlocking the secrets to life itself. Ask me someday about it. Or just kiss me deeply a couple of times and I think you’ll begin to be on the right track. It’s all about letting go and giving up.

So, from one idea to the next very quickly, and back to Taco Bell. Mostly because I’m hungry. If it gets to be too bad by the time I finish up here (or really, really bad and I stop in the middle, wracked with hunger), I’ll probably go melt some cheese into my belly. Not the burrito I had in mind, but it will have to do. Silly body, needing fuel to keep running all the time.

So, some of you are aware of a very sweet little project I’ve been working on for Sara, where I read The Princess Bride aloud to my computer, and it reads it aloud to a magical disc of plastic, which in turn reads it aloud to Sara. I read three entire chapters to my computer tonight. Two of them were very short chapters, I will admit, but the next one is nearly 100 pages long. Luckily, it is broken up into several distinct parts. I plan on making separate tracks from each of the different parts of the chapter, and splitting it between two CD’s in the most appropriate fashion. I find the experience very fulfilling for many reasons. First, because I love Sara very deeply, and I know that this is something that she will be able to appreciate not just this summer, but as years go by. I have long promised to read to her, and this book in particular deserves to be read aloud; we have simply not had the opportunity to sit together and read the book before. Additionally, I am making use of software and technology that I have long been interested in, and I have already learned quite a bit about how to manipulate audio digitally to get it to behave the way you want it to. Heck, I love The Princess Bride. I’ve read it many times before, and in order to do this, I have to hear every chapter no less than twice, often three times. I am not getting sick of it; it is well written, and I am loving the story while picking up William Goldman’s writing style a little more.

Of course, picking up and thinking about the writing style of a well-known, widely published and appreciated author is one thing. Actually beginning to write is another. I am trying to create an interface that will make it as easy to write a page or a chapter or whatever of a book I would like to write, as it is for me to post here. In fact, for those of you familiar with my monkey-related religion, you know where it will be kept. I’ve even already set up the visual style of the thing. I’ve just got to configure the back end now to work more easily with writing a single, coherent work of fiction.

I like the idea that it will be there for me (or the people I invite to look at it) to give me feedback about whenever something occurs to me. Not limited by the width of the margin for making notes, I can go back to a particular passage or page and make comments forever, re-writing as I see fit. (I hope. Traditionally when I write, by the time the words reach the first draft, they are the final draft. I realize that this is not really the best way for most people to write, and I would like to see if I can benefit from this weird “re-writing” thing that everyone seems so fond of.

A week or two ago, Iain said that He was going to Fry’s electronics and asked if I would like to go along. The normal answer for this is yes, but I am always interested to know what Iain is going for, so I asked him. He said he was interested in picking up a copy of Quicken so that he can keep track of his budget easier. So, since I’d been designing spreadsheets and coming up with intricate plans involving whiteboards and cork-boards to try to get myself organized and get all my financial information into one place, so I can see where my money is going and what I can afford (especially with the increased upcoming expense of living alone), I did a little research about Quicken and its competitors. Since its competitors basically comes down to a Microsoft product, and because Quicken does everything I need and some stuff I’d like to learn to do (that being the business side of the program), I decided to pick up a copy of Quicken 2001 for Mac.

When Iain and I went to Fry’s, I picked up Quicken and he decided not to. Whatever. I installed it and tried to get it to automatically get my account information online, with varied success. Actually, the software on my laptop doesn’t seem to be able to get ANY information over the internet, whereas the companion website (which is supposed to integrate with all the information I put into my local copy of quicken, but I can’t seem to get that to work yet either) quicken.com is at least able to get all of the information about my Discover Card account. Not that it can share it with my Quicken software, but I’m sure that if I can figure out how to get the help files installed I’ll be good to go in no time.

So, I spent all afternoon today manually entering information about all my various accounts and all the transactions and interactions between all the accounts between about mid-February and the present (I’ll keep entering data pre-Feb as time goes on. With some of my accounts there is no way for me to have complete historical data, but with others I will be able to show every transaction from day one. Mostly my recent loans.) and it all seems to work pretty well. The more data I have already entered, the easier it is to enter more data. The more closely I follow the guidelines for how to use the various fields, the more information I can get about my accounts, and the more tightly they integrate. It seems to be quite a powerful program, with thousands of features I hope to learn about over time. Again with me, it is all about ease of use. Because it is easy for me to post here at any time from basically any location, I am more likely to do so and for it to occur to me to do so. The same with accounting; if it’s easy, I’ll do it.

When I started typing this, it was just after midnight and I was a little hungry, and I thought the title “Midnight Snack” was cute and appropriate, since I though I would basically be giving you a little something to chew on. Who know what it’s turning out to be,though. My mind is getting pretty drowsy. I was up a little extra late last night (definitely not regretting that) so it thinks it should get the chance to sleep. As far as I’m concerned it can just fuck itself to hell for all I care. It didn’t respond appropriately to Caffeine. I didn’t get a chance to go back to the grocery store to pick up more dMD, so i accidentally quit caffeine again on saturday. I actually complained on Sunday and Monday about not getting any ill side effects. Then again, when I got up to consuming 3 times the dose considered an overdose without even getting jittery, and still wanting to sleep eight to twelve hours a night, I was complaining about that, too. I guess my body just forgot what caffeine was after not seeing it for so long. Oh well. I guess that will save me some money.

But it means that I have to decide to sleep less and be more active without the use of drugs. Fine, I can do that, obviously. I think sticking to it is the hard part. Like, some people who are aware of my mild cyclothymia (like bi-polar disorder, except it is the difference between a square wave and a sine wave) thought that I have been on the “Up” part of the roller-coaster lately. Nope. Been melancholy lately. Really down in the dumps. Trouble coming up with motivation, feelings of desperation, feelings of loneliness and isolation; all that fun stuff. I just don’t let it stop me from continuing to live my life. I figure that if the preferred method is to be happy and live your life at the same time, then being depressed and living your life shouldn’t be any more difficult. (Yes, I realize most people who just live their lives aren’t as happy as the depressed are sad, but you get the idea I’m trying to get across, right? Feelings should be a part of life, not instead of life.)

Okay, obviously getting a little too wacky in the head there. I guess this is where we part ways for a little while. Looks like my stomach has found a way to digest its own liner, so I should be able to make it until morning. Unless you stop by with a Burrito. I’ll get up for a delicious burrito.

Mmmmm…. Burrito….

Not close enough!

Damn Taco Bell. Damn to Hell.