Interviews

Jostle those brain cells awake, that's what the young do to me now. I have dusty memories tucked away in dank filing cabinets in the basement of my cranium. Yuck! The place needs to be aired out. Open up the windows!

I was listening to a young man describe his first “real” interview for a position that's not a McJob. He thinks it's a longshot but he “had to try.” It's the right attitude, you bet on a pony that might, just might pay off. Hearing him talk about how he approached the interviewer, how to act and meter just what he said reminded me of the zillion interviews I went on as a young man myself.

To him, it was a remote chance he had to take. I then remember that my attitude about interviews were about an exchange of information. I find out about you, you find out about me and if both have a spark, we're in love. If not, well...good luck to the both of us.

Most of the interviews I have been on were in the social services field, not corporate, so I didn't have to suffer through too many cheezy corporate made videos educating me about who they were. Social service interviews tend to be almost like therapy sessions, one on one and each party must vow to tell the truth about each other. They're actually not that bad since the theme in most of those kind of jobs is about personality “fit” vs. the ability to do the job. That'll come later.

Now that I think of it, I haven't been on an interview since 1998. After you've been around a while, you develop that network no 20 something kid has. Also, if you have stayed at a job for over 100 years, like I have done, you develop a known skill set, a known personality (with all the good aspects and annoying ones, but the key word is KNOWN) and you don't interview much anymore. If they're stable and I'm stable, we tend to stay married to each other for a long time.

I don't rest on any laurels as I have been through that layoff merry go round and I suppose my interview skills have molded some. No problem. It's like riding a bike. It comes back to you.

I told the young man a few stories about interviewing. A psych professor at RIC I knew, told us she was on a week long interview for a position at Brown University for a lecturer's position. The final interview was with Brown's provost and she had already, quietly decided “no” to the job but went through the motions as a matter of career etiquette.

The provost shot off a hackneyed query which is a bit of a trick question that could be looking for God Knows What. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

She tells us she sat there, looking like she was thinking powerfully hard. Finally, she looks at the provost and others around the table and says:

“Honestly, in five years I hope to find myself...to achieve my dream of becoming a real, live circus pony.”

She gathered her things and left the room. She got hired at RIC instead and was happier for it.

The only interesting story I have about interviewing was where I said word “Fucking” during one.

I forget the name of the place. It had one of those positive, happy horseshit sounding names that most alcoholic/narco rehab places have. “New Beginnings, Sunrise, Pathways...you get it. I honestly think it was called “Tidewaters,” but don't quote me, it's been a long time. This place was a last stop for teens whose next stop was jail or the grave. It counseled throwaway kids who were in and out of the Rhode Island court system for a myriad of reasons. I hate to tell you, but there are fourteen year old kids out there who are ruined for life. The interview at Tidewaters was a round table one, with about four others from the place and me, doing what I said you do in social service interviews, you commune with one another.

Of course, you get the questions about your last job and my last had been with a psychiatric hospital which shall go nameless (hint: Attleboro). One of the questioners, was a too young man in a managerial position who began digging deeper into an answer I gave. The question was about human rights and do I believe in them. I had said “To a point....” The young kid seemed a bit too gung-ho about rights as they cannot be applied globally, all the time. There are moment to moment situations that need particular decisions.

Like I said, the young kid latched onto my “to a point” comment and began to delve deeper about why I believed that. I was pretty circumspect in my answers because I couldn't violate any HIPPA regulations but this kid's inquisition began to piss me off so I gave it to him w/o using any real names.

Me: “Look, I had to deal with some pretty dangerous kids, schizophrenic ones who had a history of violence. Twelve year olds that liked knives.”

Kid: “They don't deserve human rights?

Me: “They do, but you have to realize, it's not always a black and white situation.”

Kid: “But they're universally guaranteed...why would someone who has mental illness NOT be accorded them? How can you determine that when the law has determined it already?”

This kid was getting in my nerves. He was spouting the wonderful “theory” of this w/o having the benefit of any past experience to back that up. Yeah, you can adhere to a theory, until that theory becomes useless in a situation where things get too weird, too quick.

I finally say, rather animatedly: “Look, when one client is kicking the shit out of another, that's where the aggressor's human rights come to a screeching, fuckin' halt! I suppose the rights of the other mean crap??”

You coulda heard a pin drop it became so quiet.

A few minutes earlier in that interview, I had figured out I wasn't getting the job as we both weren't falling in love with one another, the word “fuckin' probably solidified that.

In truth, if this place had a person like that working for them, a water walker who can't deal with situational awareness, then I don't want to be associated with them. Add to that, I already began disliking this kid and I wasn't working with him yet.

**

I told the young man I was talking to, “Don't be afraid of interviews at all, the goal isn't to “get the job at any cost,” it's all about the relationship. Say “No,” if you're not interested.”

I certainly have.

Dreams Banging On My Door: "God Dammit! I Know You're In There! Open It!"

I dream of my past. It keeps happening. I wrote about in the last entry and the subject again is the same!   The dream today was a slight reworking of the facts, but the theme of the times remains the same. Today it was the summer of '96 and the dream's soundtrack was supplied by Cool 102.

I was and am still a huge radio station lover. I will channel surf till I find a song I like, even if it's ¾ over. But there is usually one station I will park at when I'm not sitting in front of the stereo. Back then it was 101.9FM, out of Falmouth. It's the station for the Cape and the Islands and with my ingenuity (read: I taught myself how to pull something that far in with an FM antenna) I managed to receive it. Cool 102 sounds like an easy summer afternoon on an Oaks Bluff porch. I suppose I could have that now in spades if I programmed Pandora to play it all day long and ditched over the air.

The dream started off with an actual event. My brother at times would get this itch to something very spontaneous. Since the idea sounded cool, I was game for it. We visited his old time friend, Jack N. who was vacationing in Eastham, Cape Cod. He and his wife and a new baby were up in Jack's old haunts from their home in Austin, TX. I figured, “Why not?”, as I hadn't been to the Cape in eons and there was a free place to stay. The adventure started off bad with my brother driving the wrong way on 44, heading west, when I finally up and spoke. “Where are you going?” I should've thought this was a premonition.

I wasn't planning on drinking but my brother had bought a bottle of cheap vodka. When we arrived in Eastham it seemed that they ad a broad neighborhood association rule: “All homes must be weathered clapboard with cranberry trim.” Upon meeting Jack, we met Jack's wife, who wasn't keen at all to have us there. After coldly eyeing us as we walked up the to the front door, she especially eyed the bottle of vodka. We had been planning to crash on Jack's living room floor but he and his wife had a quiet,  quick conversation where she made up Jack's mind for him. We weren't to stay overnight come Hell of High Water.  Later my brother giggled when he told me he overheard her shouting under her breath: "They brought liquor into this house?!"

Gee, thanks. I felt miffed at the DIS-invitation. The daylight was ours to talk to Jack, but we weren't to be seen in Dodge after sundown.

So we rapped about old times while I sat there wondering how we were going to get back to Rhode Island before sundown. It turns out we weren't. My brother's idea was to get a motel room (good luck!) somewhere. We left Jack's house and found none were to be had. I suggested a campground where we could at least squat w/o the cops getting interested in us but even all the sites were sold off. The manager said for $10 we could park there and crash till morning. Searching around ate up to much time to head home anyway.

We both tried just to sleep out under the stars w/o any camping gear. The ground proved too hard and the mosquitos too hellish. I got back into the car and tried to recline the seat enough to where I could fall asleep. I eventually did.

The dream reworked that event though to this. I was in the car, trying to get to sleep to no avail. So the dream tells me to think nice thoughts as it can lull you to sleep. In the dream I thought this: My Mom's dead and that horror story was out of the way and I had my life back. I had finished up a second degree and was starting up a new career. I had a girlfriend finally, after my career as a nurse to my Mom ended. I had a house drop into my lap due to inheritance law. I had a newer car vs. the piece 'o' crap I had de-fibrillated enough times to keep alive long past it's useful life. I had motivation, direction, optimism, hope and the ol' magic of touching things and making them turn into gold was coming back. I got my life back and was quickly turning it towards the direction I wanted.

It takes a dream to remind me of what was true back then. I kinda had forgotten all about that stuff. And all of this had the background of Cool 102 playing.

**

I was reminded of something else too, but this was from a conversation from a young 20 something man. He tells me he's sick to death of working the same job for nearly a decade and wants to change. He currently works in a job that has nothing to do with his degree so of course it irks him.

Upon hearing this I realized that this is just the natural ambition of a young man. We all have it at that age. He should aim his life, move it forward, to what he wants. Not only that, it's what can generate that lasting satisfaction of purposing your life towards a destination and seeing it trend toward that. You're making plans! You're getting there! Stagnation is what kills you at that age. If you stay put and watch all your friends make advances, it just is a double whammy on your self esteem and energy to watch it happen. My 20 something acquaintance is smart to realize this and want change, even if it involves unknown risks.

I would have to add it's stagnation that kills you at any age.

If my entire life has a soundtrack to it, or rather I can pinpoint periods of it by hearing certain songs, then this period I inhabit is no different. Currently I park the station on WERS, the Emerson College radio station on your 88.9FM preset. I love my 70's oldies but I also need newer music to feast upon. Eating cheeseburgers all the time is boring.

College radio seems to be the soundtrack to my a plan now that I've been formulating for over nine months, betting on the ponies on Wall St. I used to do this with some regular success many years ago but then drifted away from it, due to the massive collapse in '08 no doubt. Yes, it's dangerous and the future is never guaranteed. Hell, it's even more dangerous now with everything in a state of flux with the central banks being unable to prop up anything now. But nothing in life is fixed either. Volatility can be your friend if you play it right. The high you get from succeeding, putting those proceeds to what you want and the gross simplicity of making money by clicking a mouse, is amazing. To me it is.

I need this. I need some of that natural ambition instead of indifference. I will force another period in my life to arise. Time to write a new chapter and either it ends well or not. But it needs to be written.

I'm not alone in this thinking. If you breathe air you too must be thinking of a “What if...?”

The Past(s) Becomes Clearer

Again, afternoon dreams are matchless to me. The vividness, the retention and message are all clear cut. I had yet another one that reminded me of a time which I was very happy, due to some ugly circumstances.

The reason why I was pleased was because my Mom had kicked the bucket and took with her the stress, duress and subduing nature of chronic illness. This isn't new. I once had a funeral director tell me that (learned throughout his career) the end of a terminal illness was liberation, not only for the one afflicted, but for the family as well. This is true and I can attest.

I won't go into detail about the leaps and bounds I made after being “freed.” I detailed that here in a piece where I speak of the reason why “El Condor Pasa” by Paul Simon figured so much in my life in 1996. Simply put, I was like a dog that was off a leash finally.

But what's got me thinking is why now, in these past few years, do I have dreams similar to this one where aspects of my life are replayed again. Who knows. Perhaps this is what happens when you get older and the perspective of time allows you to recognize clearly just what went on all back then.

I don't immediately recognize the images in the dream. Sometimes, some very inconsistent juxtaposition of image, sounds and whatnot are in the script. After a while of chewing on it, I come to find they weren't disparate at all, they were integral to the narration of the dream.

See if you can discern just what the hell this picture is all about? It was in the sky all throughout the dream I had. In the dream, I was fixing up the house, bringing into completion of what I envisioned it should be and not just a reminder of the past. I was working on a screen door, when I looked over my shoulder and saw this in the sky.

100 points if you said, “International Space Station,” because that's what it is.

So what was that doing in a dream I had? I had to ponder that for a bit when an old memory hit me, I had seen this in the sky at one time. It was the late 90's while watching Gary Ley glibly chatter about the weather when he mentioned if you ran outside now, you could catch the ISS craft flying over head the north-western part of the sky. I did just that. I came back quick to get my brother to see this too. I consider the late 90's a time when I was rebuilding my life after having devoting much of it taking care of other people a short few years before. Everything was falling into place and what I touched, turned to gold. It's a great feeling to have.

I don't consider dreams to be predictive. If they were, I would've had dreams of flying monsters and witches appear in my real life. They never did appear.  I do think my dreams are “reminders,”  excepts of my life up to this point. Anyways, that's what they seem to be. Hell, it was nice to be reminded of a time when things were great.

Feral Little Savage

Nicknames can be fitting, or not. We knew one guy we nicknamed “Sputz” only because it sounded silly. Saying Sputz nearly makes the spittle come flying out of your mouth. Sputz signified nothing. I think we called him that for a month and a half until we became bored with it.

I have several, all given by others, as you are NOT allowed to nickname yourself. Over the years I've been called, Barroter, FangFace, May, Perfesser, Animal, Ronimal. FangFace was cruel. As my adult teeth came in, the right upper canine came in a bit above and over-hung the others. I did have a singular “fang” that was prominent. It has since relocated to a point where you'd have to really look to notice any unusual positioning of it. But when your a young teen, your peers do and say things that would make a Japanese WW2 POW prison commandant blush. Perhaps the worst nickname I heard, given in typical teen maliciousness, was “The Missing Link” to a kid I barely knew in high school. The poor kid, going through puberty, which doesn't make things better at times, had perhaps, not the most handsome face that a teen boy could have. Flat black hair, thick glasses that distorted his eyes when you looked at them and a mouth that pooched out due some weird jaw genetics. Ok, in a word, he was ugly, but that moniker was mean in my estimation.

What strikes me about Ronimal and Animal was that I was given those two nicknames by people who never knew each other. Add to that, it was decades apart. Hmmm...there must be something there for two groups of people, in very different times, to come up with such similar nicknames.

“Animal” was given to me when I was 15 due to my behavior in gym class. I wasn't then, nor now, any good at sports that had rules, methods or anything else that regulated it. That needs coordination and that I had little of. What sports I did excel in and loved, were any that were a free for all. No rules, no regulations and anything goes. “MurderBall” was one of my favorites. You know this game, divide up a bunch of kids into two teams, throw out 25 basketballs and the object is to hit the other guy with a ball and disqualify him from the game. I was great at it! I loved it! I loved it so much that apparently the look upon my face was of wild abandon. I could rampage across the floor as much as I liked. Most times, I won it. I was the last guy left standing. Why did I like it? I suppose because I could do any damn thing I wanted on that floor. No rules! No laws! When I was “deregulated” I was at my best and the real talent could show forth. If I could get my adrenalin flowing in torrents, God did I enjoy the feeling. I might have made a good Viking raiding a village?

You know, thinking on it, there was a third person who considered me an animal as well, my bitchy neighbor Mrs Crabbitz. Mrs. Crabbitz and my Mom never did get along and they would have bickering, wifey disputes at times. Mrs Crabbitz sneered at my Mom's lack of housekeeping skills and my Mom loudly denounced Crabbitz's self-appointed Queen Bee status of the neighborhood.

I think were were around 13, when Jim and I decided to have our own light saber duel in my driveway using...are you ready?...axes. We two were play fighting but with dangerous tools. That made it more “fun” and thrilling you know. We both weren't trying to cleave one another's skulls open, just make the tools hit, clank and thump and we would parry the weapons off one another. Stupid? Yep. Hair raising? Yep. As we were doing it, Jim hit my axe pretty hard as I was trying to swing, deflecting it right into Mrs Crabbitz's little white fence that separated our driveway from her yard. It bit the fence deep enough where I had to twist and yank on it to pull it off. As I was doing this, guess who's looking through her curtains, Mrs. Crabbitz. Shit...

So...the yelling erupts, getting my Mom to come to the door to bitch back to Crabbitz.

“Oh for God's sake...they're BOYS!” my Mom yelled. God...this could only happen in the past when we kids weren't really chaperoned too well. Today? Axes? Making Evel Knievel ramps for our bikes? BB gun wars with guns that weren't dry fired? Ugh...no fun with supervised play dates with helicopter parents now, is there? Where has all the amusement gone?

Crabbitz in the end says, referring to me and as a final fuck you to my Mom: “He should be LOCKED up in a cage!”

Cages are meant of animals...aren't they?

Now the nickname Ronimal was given to me couple of years ago. This is odd because I'm pretty damn sedate now, being in my 50's, compared to when I was a 15 year old kid. The idea of sitting down appeals to me now at my age. So does wrapping up my knee with an Ace bandage when I feel it needs it. I don't go on sprees too much anymore and yet, I was adorned with the nickname.. Hmm? Perhaps now, I am an animal at heart still? God knows how I betray and telegraph those traits in me that I had so long ago?

Dream Work, Rehoboth and the Such.

I love afternoon naps, if I can get away with them. Nothing's better than feeling your eyelids get heavy and that wave of sleepiness hit you and you realize you can lie down for a bit. Do this in late spring with the window open with sound of the birds and breeze wafting the curtains. All that's missing is the crash of the surf. The feeling of satisfaction is complete.

What I like about them too are the dreams. I find the dreams are more meaningful vs. the ones I have late at night. They seem more vivid and I can remember them. The memories of dreams I have at night, if I should wake up right after them, dissolve like fog in the sunlight.

An old friend long since passed, Vin, was a psych professor at RIC and we developed a friendship for years after I graduated there. We would hang out on occasion and we would rap. Rapping for those who don't know what it means....

Since Vin was a full blown psychologist/therapist/voodoo priest, I told him of a dream I had that once struck me. He surprised me with his caution about reading too much into them. He said it was borne out that dream therapy, was kinda total horseshit. The images, scenes and things you encounter in a dream are highly specified to your life, not humanity in general. Falling in a dream does not always mean loss of security, going out of control or whatnot. To you and only you, falling has it's own definition.

In the dream I related to Vin, I was living atop a mountain. It was rocky, lacked any vegetation and quite windy. Also on the summit, was a very cubist looking sculpture of perfectly angled bars.

Vin thought for a few seconds then said: “Uh-huh...What wasn't in the dream?”

I sat there perplexed for a minute. “What wasn't in it?”

He asked again, “Ron, what wasn't in the dream?”

I thought for a few seconds and said: “Other people. It was just me up there.”

“That's more important than any Cubist sculpture you'd encounter in real life on any summit!” he tells me. This little trick was done to me to further flesh out what I was really thinking about the dream.

**

This afternoon I had a pleasant dream about being a 51 year old adult riding my old Murray banana seat bike down by a part of East Providence where Dr's and lawyers live in homes built during the 1700's. It's a nice area bounded by a lake, woods and is pure New England in feel.

At times, the lake would have 14 foot swells crashing on the shoreline, soaking us with seawater. As dreams do morph, this one then morphed into me riding in a Mercedes convertible with a rich guy I felt I knew well but was a stranger I had come across anyway. We rode to and fro, in that neighborhood which had the feel of one in Martha's Vineyard. I was taking pictures all along the way and being told about “life” by this said rich stranger. After a while I was dropped off by that lake again and told “I'm not in your life like I was, but I keep up with you on your blog.”

I woke up, sat there wondering, “What the hell was that all about?” It wasn't an unpleasant dream, just a weird one that seemed to lack any identifiable anchor within it.

I thought on it...”Who was that guy in driving the car? I wondered. I started to put one and one together, the area, the wealth, the time. My dream was just a few miles off. It was Rehoboth I was dreaming of, not the finer areas of EP. There was only one person I knew who fit that description who lives there too, a man nicknamed by us all, Lobo.

Lobo was an ad/exec, writer, and gadabout who was with the magazine my brother worked at a long time ago. Lobo had the luck of being born to a Dad who was filthy rich. Lobo and I eventually became on again/off again friends and he showed me around the finer/richer/most fucked up party spots in Providence. It's where I learned the more well heeled people were just as fucked up, if not more, than any workaday schlep in the middle class. I wrote about this before in detail before. The jist of what I wrote? The rich have the time, energy and money to cultivate some real neuroses. You and I, who work, don't have the time to raise our particular problems into monster ones.

Lobo was bored with life as I could tell. When you have access to anything since you were a kid, you tend to burn out quick on excitement. It needs replacing and the fix doesn't last as long either.

His home was something to see though as I remember it. On his coffee table, cut from some mahogany tree, sat Civil War relics as decorations. There was a ratty looking round of canister shot, a cannonball, one of those fat bastard 44 caliber capshot pistols and an old American flag that looked like it would turn to dust if you touched it.

“That must've cost plenty.” I said, pointing to the relics.

“They were free...five fingered discount.” Lobo tells me as he waves his fingers.

“You stole them?” I ask.

He did. He was in a museum out in Pennsylvania with girlfriend #64 and for a thrill, for some fun, he started to drop museum pieces out an opened window that was nearby. Since the museum was dead empty on a weekday, he figured no one would see this happen. There were no laser nets, motion detectors or ancient security guards that would've caught him once he removed the items. Pretty lax precautions.

He and the girl left the building and drove around to the side where the relics had landed and scooped them up and they were on their way.

Another cheap thrill and the memories lie on that coffee table.

I never met a real, true gang member before. I did through Lobo once, three of them. The Latin Kings, or soldiers from them, showed up at his home to watch a football game. Three black men, all accessorized in red (I guess “colors” do mean something) sat down around the TV with Lobo and I. Why were members of the Latin Kings in his home? I come to find out that if you want buckets of cocaine, you go straight to the source, and Lobo had one hell of an addiction, so bad he was having seizures from it. This started ten years ago he told me.

One of the Kings kept looking at me suspiciously. I guess so, my straight white hair makes me look like a judge that would send him up the river. The other two were more amiable and would talk. The game ended, they left and I never met them again. It was a little disconcerting, as I never ran in those circles before. I wouldn't by choice either.

A few weeks later, I get a panicky phone call from Lobo who wouldn't tell me why he needed me to drive him to some spot in Providence that night. I asked about his car, it was fine...then why me? I got no answer.

My personal smoke detector started screaming. I never showed up. I haven't seen him in over 13 years.

As Vin would've asked this time around, “What wasn't in this dream.” I asked myself that and realized this, when I was driving around in that Mercedes, I wasn't comfortable. There was an air of “threat” in that dream as I had it.

I wonder where Lobo and his inherited money is now?

Sir?

Not much happening so I'll bore with day to day trivialities.

I used to dye my hair. I had been doing it on and off since I was twenty-five. By thirty-five, I was completely white, Steven Martin hair if you will. At that age I was still young enough to believe I was still “with it” and vain enough. A few years ago, I gave it up as it's a pain in the ass and I'm not paying CVS their outrageous prices for Miss Clairol #14. Painting your hair is nearly the same as painting the ceiling, you ought to put drop clothes around to avoid the splatter. Guess what I didn't do when I dyed my hair. Hint: Clorox takes colorant off your bathroom walls.

Now that I have this mop of white hair, there are times when I'm reminded how people will judge me for it.

There's a Quickie Mart nearby my house, run by a group of Jordanians. I hit it up enough so that the owner knows my name. But last week, he had hired another much younger Jordanian who was in his early 20's and he was running the register when I showed up. He had no idea who I was.

As I was leaving the store, with a stuffed bag full of 2 liter Coke bottles and a ProJo in the other hand, I was trying to open the door, with some difficulty. I have a habit of that, doing things on my damned own no matter how incapacitated I may be. So, as I'm fumbling with the door handle, I don't see the young Jordanian run up behind me and say:

“Sir! Sir! Let ME do that!”

Before I can say a word, the kid takes the soda and opens the door, goes to my car, opens that and puts the goods on the passenger seat. He spins around with this silly smile. He looked like he just earned his “Good Citizenship” badge for the Boy Scouts.

I'm now stuck in that situation where I have to thank the kid and at the same time, feel a bit miffed as I'm not 75 yet.

“OK...thanks” I say.

I ride home, miffed still and look in the rear view mirror and see that pile of white hair. “Jesus...is that what ALL 20 somethings see if I happen to pass by?” Guess so...

**

I got a laptop the other day, so I can have access to the great Internet anywhere I may go. I need the power of a computer vs. a damn iPhone. So, after stripping out all that pre-loaded crap that Microsoft loves to put on, I install my own programs. Most of this went well until the damned thing hung up and wouldn't install a defragmenter I use vs. Microsoft's.

“God Dammit! Do it you fuckin' abacus!” I then smacked the side of it. I then had a flashback to my own Dad when he was trying to get a mower running one summer afternoon. He was yanking on the cord, priming the carb with gas and swearin' and cussin' and hittin' the machine. I hate to say it but watching Dad get infuriated with a dumb machine was kind of funny, though I was careful enough not to laugh out loud.

I sat at the kitchen table and realized I was doing the same thing to the laptop.

Like father, like son...

**

In Stop and Shop today...

“Excuse me...Sir?” I hear from behind me.

Oh, Christ..there's that “Sir” again. I turn around and there's this little, dried up raisin of an old man.

“Can you reach that? The jelly..the Trappist jelly? The marmalade one? He asks.

I get it for him. He drops it into his basket and tells me that he'll eat that jar in two days flat. “I don't care anymore...I'm 77...I eat anything I want now.” He ambles off and gets three boxes of Count Chocula for his basket as well.

Sound thinking for a 77 year old. What? His future includes winning the Iditarod?

When I shop, half of me is chiding myself for purchasing calorie bomb type foods, the other half is throwing a temper tantrum about getting it now! Alot of times, I walk away and get the more sensible foods. I then think of that elderly guy I met minutes ago and then shove that kielbasa I was eyeing into my basket.

“Life's short...do it up.” I say to myself. C'mon...400 years from now this decision won't even matter!

Here's a recipe for Glop I adore.

Make enough rice to feed Peking. Get long grain and not that crap Minute Rice. I've had that “rice in a mesh bag” and it tastes like the mesh.

Slice up red, green and yellow pepper, celery. Dice some onion, smash some garlic. Amounts don't matter, just do it to taste. Slice up the kielbasa into coin-like pieces. Got snow peas? Great, use them too. Anything else lying around in the fridge? Toss it in!

Fry up the kielbasa halfway to release the grease and remove for later, then toss in the veggies to saute to your liking. Remove. Put the kielbasa in again and then fry that to Kingdom Come till you get that carmelization on the pan. Don't be an idiot and go to the next room to watch TV, you'll burn it!

Either toss in water or white wine (if you're feeling snobbish) to deglaze that pan and reduce it, but not all of it. Toss in your rice and mix around til it turns into a disgusting brown, greasy mess. Add the veggies, kielbasa back and toss around again. Salt the fuck out of it if you like that and fill a bowl with too much and eat it. Get up again and refill that bowl to eat again if you so wish. Realize your adding ounces to your waistline and remember why you did this in the first place. Because a little old man reminded you of how short life is...