The Return Of

I think I may have another mouse. Late at night when I am lying in bed I keep hearing scratching sounds everywhere. I try to turn on the lights really fast while staring into the kitchen, looking for movement, but I haven't seen anything yet. Possibly the building is just settling. Or maybe I am living in my own personal The Others scenario, and soon I will turn a corner and happen upon my as-til-now-nonexistant daughter, who is inexplicably old, and she will crow "Are you maaaaad?" and I will shriek and wet my pants. As you do.

So my mom, who lives about a half-hour away, came downtown to see me yesterday. We meet up like once a month for lunch and she usually takes pity on me and drives me to the grocery store so that I don't have to walk, which is awesome. Yesterday I bought a ton of food, including actual real live vegetables, since I am on that Cooking Kick and all. Which was sort of stupid, since I'll go home Wednesday night for a couple of days, and it will probably all go bad. That is the main problem with vegetables, you know. They don't last through seasons and decades and nuclear holocausts like, say, Pop Tarts. I think this is one of their biggest flaws. Apart from, you know, the fact that they are green. And that you have to chop them and "sautee" them.

Plus, and I know I am only the 9 billionth person ever to be making this observation, but buying produce for one? So sad. So so sad. You end up with a conveyor belt full of plastic bags containing four mushrooms, one pepper, three apples, etc, along with your enormous case of diet vanilla Coke. And those bags of pre-cut salad? Forget about it. Those get brown and liquidy about seven minutes after being opened, no matter how you store them. I go in cycles buying those things; I'll be on a health kick so I buy one, and then I need to eat it for lunch and dinner two days in a row, and even then the lettuce is getting progressively more, um, wet, and by then I am so tired of it I never want to see salad again. A few weeks later, salad calls me up and asks if it can come over and explain, and it gives me a back rub, so I forgive it and buy another bag, and the cycle of life begins anew.

My mom also drove me and my enormous portrait painting to class, to turn in for the exhibition, which was really nice. I can't believe I only have three classes left; the semester flew by. Now I will have weekends free again, in case I ever get less lazy and start short trips. I should really take advantage of those cheap Chinatown buses to New York.

Okay, I almost forgot: my mother is also taking an art class at the college near their house this semester. She's taking Drawing 101, and they share a studio with the Drawing 102 class, which involves figure models. This FREAKS HER OUT. She is totally anti-nudity. (I think she may shower fully dressed.) When she dropped me off at school yesterday, she saw all the paintings from our Naked Man project lying around, and she got all "Oh my god nudity in art??? What will they think of next, fire? The wheel??? about it. It was pretty funny. Then she said, "You know, in my class they separate the models from my side of the class with these screens, but THERE ARE GAPS BETWEEN THEM. I mean, I poked around one one day (???!!) and there was this young girl just lying there, and these young guys were drawing her? And they were, you know, looking at her!" (Well, usually the drawing turns out better that way. Ahem.)

That reminds me of the time when she and I were shopping for a dress for my senior prom, and we were in this huge dressing room together, and she was sitting on a bench talking to me while I struggled to get a backwards dress zipped up and then twist it around so that it was facing the right way, you know? And I didn't have a bra on so I flashed her, and she totally went "OH MY GOD! I can't believe I just saw that!" and she COVERED HER EYES and would not look again until I promised her that I had the dress all the way on. And yes, I CAME OUT OF HER so I don't know what all the fuss over my one boob was about. She's sort of odd, me ma.

Ah, enough reminiscing. Am going to meet my friend Azalea to window (yeah, right) shop and possibly see the new Bridget Jones movie. V good.