Small things:

I picked up a tilapia filet on the way home, and cucumbers were fairly cheap, so I got one of those, too, along with a few other sundry things. It's really nice to have a decent grocery store on the way home from work - I can start to work in healthier meal options with little stress, because I have a natural aversion to making excessive trips out in the car. Too many years of city living has me feeling quite stubborn about going somewhere unless I can plan it out to a certain extent. I actually sort of resent not being able to hop onto a bus and have my brain to myself as I zoom along a massive grid system, yo. I miss it.

But the tilapia was $1.32 for a decent-sized filet, and I also got some polenta and some chicken sausages that have feta and spinach in them, of all things. I am excited about broiling those little guys and stir-frying some vegetables some time this week.

Making dinner tonight was comforting - I reheated part of the huge mass of breakfast style potatoes I had cooked up on Sunday and mixed up with a tofurkey italian sausage and a mess of chimichurri rice from TJ's and stuck that in a bowl, and sprinkled it all over the top with cold tiny chunks of cucumber that had been dill'd and lightly salted. The fish, quickly fried up in a small pan, got slid on top of all of that, and I watched two episodes of "The Middleman" as Squeaky lounged happily next to me.

"The Middleman" really gets to me, and I don't know why. It's an incredibly squeaky-clean show, which usually turns me right off because it so often feels like a bleach job on reality that leaves me as an audience member feeling marginalized and uninvited. I mean, OK, it's not generally a serious issue - it's entertainment - but it's gratifying to get my escapism from places that feel rooted in a life I recognize and relate to. Anyway. "The Middleman." It's goofy and silly and, like I said, pretty squeaky clean, although they do have a good healthy dose of the kind of double entendre that made "Veronica Mars" so enjoyable. I am sad the show didn't get renewed. It is super-charming.

And now I am sitting in my computer nook with my big dorky headphones plugged into my tiny iPod Shuffle (named Shuffleupagus), listening to songs that Dasro put on here the day I sent my car off on a trailer to California. We sat on the floor of my empty apartment and he took the Shuffle and put a huge swack of his library on it, and I still haven't cleared it off.

what I often see in the morning:

This is a sunrise shot from my porch overlooking the small lake/pond out back. There are houses now, across the way, and so I can see their lights at this hour, as well as in the evenings as I am getting ready for bed. When I lived here before, most of those structures weren't even built yet. This area's hardly changed, but there so much new stuff, all at the same time.

Anyway, pretty. I miss the vanishing point of city streets compressing down to a tiny point in the distance, my breath in large cloud puffs in the cold winter air, waiting for the bus, hearing the rumble of trucks and car horns, etc., but this idyllic peaceful stuff is quite alright, too.