Yes, I will pay you the premium, now leave me alone

Those GNC clerks are worse than used car salesmen. They really hover. Do they actually think I’m going try to make a break for it with one of those huge tubs of whey protein? Note: the Vitamin Shoppe staff is much better, by which I mean totally indifferent to my presence. They may not be helpful, mind you, but at least they don’t stalk me through the aisles, trying to sell me “discounted” add-ons. Even better are the vitamin sections at Whole Foods and Westerly. They don’t even need to upsell, their stuff is marked up so much already!

No Tom Waits

Wow. Scarlett Johansson’s new video features a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube-man. I knew that girl had taste.

K-me

My Korean American friend Taylor has a theory that every Korean knows a Grace Kim. So far, this theory has held up. By which I mean: I know a Grace Kim. He knows another Grace Kim. There was a character in one episode of 30 Rock named Grace Park, who was probably based on a Grace Kim. This is not the most scientific of theories. But try it out, it’s fun(ish).

Recently, at a party, my mother was challenged as to why she had adopted a Korean baby as opposed to one of Chinese or Vietnamese origin. Well, why not? Korea had a dependable supply back in the day, and its discarded infants needed homes as much as any. If I hadn’t been imported into New York City, I might have gone to Oklahoma or Texas to become one of those beautiful big-haired girls featured in the high school graduation spreads in the adoption agency newsletters. (Texan me would be just as short as actual me and consequently would probably own a gun.)

My tribe, if it exists, of Korean-born adoptees, is likely one of limited scope. In science fiction, mine would be a dwindling race. It had a birth, a population plateau somewhere in the mid-late seventies, and as of now it has given way to the Chinese girls, the Vietnamese, the Guatemalans. But these are my brethren in the same way that all Americans (in theory) are brothers and countrymen as well. We can say, and be backed up by research, that we will never grow up to be our mothers, because nature tends to trump nurture on the personality tests. We have been gifted the ultimate American option, to be unmoored by history and past generations, a freedom to self-invent. Which is difficult, so thank god corporate interests are there to tell me what to buy/be.

Yesterday, I made body lotion out of avocado oil, borage oil, and beeswax. Today, my chronically chapped knuckles might actually be better. That would be nice.

Made ice cream with xylitol, which took longer to churn but ultimately had a better texture than the batches sweetened with oligofructose.

For some reason, my right foot hurts when I walk, which makes no sense because I didn’t do anything with it yesterday. I wonder if I should run on it. Working out with an injury is sort of a crapshoot. Some days you’re fine, some days the exercise helps, and some days you make the injury much worse. The trick is predicting what is likely to happen today.

Got to Be a Chocolate Mamet

Saw “Redbelt” with a friend from martial arts. Not particularly deep, but it does get at the politics, hypocrisy, and corruption that pervades the martial arts world. Bonus: Mamet dialog and Chiwetel Ejiofor (yummy)!

And we saw the trailer for “Baghead.” The most hilarious thing about this was the end of the trailer, when the title “Baghead” came up on on screen. Baghead!!!

While walking around Union Square, we saw (on two separate occasions) two different women in bright orange jumpsuits. Is prison chic getting totally out of control now, or what?

Also, in the course of browsing through about 10 clothing stores (my friend needs summer clothes for a trip down south), we discovered that every single store is now offering…metallic gold bikinis. That’s right. Metallic gold bikinis. Shinier, even, than Princess Leia’s getup in “Return of the Jedi.” We also saw one strapless denim coverall and a plethora of bedazzled shirts. The design/production staff of the entire fashion industry is, quite obviously, high.

After a fruitless search for a decent ice cream shop, we finally gave up and went to Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man (upgrade!), where we quite enjoyed the chocolate granitas and then made ourselves sick on an item called the chocolate mess. Mental note: never order the chocolate mess for two unless you are in a group of three or four. It’s like competitive beer drinking; the air bubbles in the whipped cream will fill you up till it’s no longer possible to consume the cake, ice cream, bananas, melted chocolate sauce, and crispy chocolate bits without considerable pain. Mental note 2: next time, order the popsicle fondue.

Tempus fugit

Still slower in specs. Wearing glasses instead of contacts adds roughly 3-4 minutes to morning routine, possibly because I can’t keep the multiple household digital clocks in my peripheral vision. While this might not sound like much, any New Yorker will tell you that 30 seconds is the equivalent of countless missed opportunities: trains, buses, green lights, phone calls, elevators…the list goes on.

Deep breathing and mindfulness does not so much reduce stress, because then you obsess about toxic air quality. Geez.

I can haz…bionic eyes?

My ex-roommate (and eye care professional office manager/technologist) likes the new glasses…just definitely not on me. When pressed for details, she begrudgingly admitted that they make me look beady-eyed and “like a shrew?”

A charming fact about the ex-roomie: she cannot lie or hide her feelings whatsoever. Nor can she convincingly backtrack. For example, the time she said of Kristen Bell on Heroes: “Her face annoys me.” To which I replied, “Well, she probably can’t help her face.” To which she replied “Oh, lots of people have annoying faces! I have an annoying face!”

Her unconvincing backtrack for the whole glasses thing: “The same thing happens to me! Even more!” So I am forced to recognize that these are indeed her true feelings, much as she would rather me not know that.

Fair enough.

This is a bit like the time a bunch of friends had that debate about whether I was more like a bulldog or more like a pug. (Verdict: pug.) It kind of makes me want to lose 10 lbs, just so I can show them.

And then I remembered that one of my main reasons for getting glasses in the first place was so that in case a near apocalpse, I wouldn’t be quite so dependant on a dwindling supply of contact lenses and disinfectant in a post-nuclear world.

Today, my office building creaks like a ship. It does not pitch like a ship, although it is fun to imagine it doing so.

The glasses are good, though I still blink and think like a person in contacts. I still work faster in contact lenses, but am getting up to speed in specs.

For the first few days, the visual effect was that curiously flattened feel of a 3D movie; objects had a narrow red halo on their left edge and a blue halo to their right. There was a faint tenderness (gone now) of the flesh on the back of my skull, about where adhesiveness meets philoprogenitiveness on the phrenology diagrams.