reporting in

First order of business. I had lunch with M2 at the newish vegan place in Central Square today. She prefaced her suggestion that we go there with, "I know I always complain about this place, but..." Apparently the service has gotten less incompetent and the food better with each successive visit, though the prices remain somewhat ridiculous and the vibe a little precious. But she's been eating cake and cheesecake and so forth and so on, and she just really wanted to go somewhere and eat a nice healthy salad. I understand. Sometimes you just need a vegetable.

So we went and here's an example of the precious: the salad I got was called The Sufi Poet. Did you just throw up in your mouth a little? Yeah. It did not contain any poets, so false advertising, dudes. I was saying to M2 that I hate when restaurants use those stoopid "clever" names for their foods. Like, when I go to Coven, they have the best chicken salad. It's just awesome. But they call it something ridiculous. I refuse to order it by that name. I say, "I want some of that chicken salad." Anyway, my Sufi Poet was good, but it contained approximately two tablespoons of hummus. I do not know how these full time vegan people can survive on that pitiable amount of protein.

Second example of the precious: while they serve caffeinated tea, wine, and beer, they do not serve coffee. They serve some kind of "healthy" coffee substitute. That irritates M2 to no end. We both decided to go for the tea. She had a chai latte and I had a green tea latte. Your choices for latte making are: rice milk, soy milk, almond milk, or half & half. I don't know what vegan half & half could possibly contain, but I was not gonna find out either. Almond milk, thank you!

Second order of business. I was not too concerned with the lack of protein in my lunch, because I had already had two banana muscle milks, one before and one after the gym. I think I am becoming addicted to that stuff, which is not good, because on sale at Shaws it is $2.50 a bottle and off the shelf at 7 eleven, it's fucking four bucks. Which I have paid. Ahem. But, man, that fake banana flavor is so good. I know I should be embarrassed to admit my palate is that unsophisticated, but all y'all already know my VitaminWater shame, so whatever.

Third order of business. So then I was headed home from town at the beginning of rush hour, and when you are on public transportation, whether it's the commuter rail or the express bus, at rush hour, you will find that there are people who all take the same train/bus every day and thus all know each other and are all chummy. And so they have intimate conversations. This is how I heard all about the young woman behind me's mother being upset that she is spending too much time with her new beau. "She doesn't understand, it's all new and fresh and exciting. It's hard for me to tear myself away from him. She says, 'you see him all day at work' but that's completely different. At work we're not holding hands, we're not kissing... She wants me to get pregnant, but I don't understand how she thinks that's supposed to happen if we're not alone together." Just reread that and process it for a moment. And then take it as piece of evidence #3295 that I live, if not in the ghetto, at least ghetto-adjacent.

Okay, all this vegetable eating and eavesdropping was tiring, so I must retire for the evening. Peace!

xoxo