2005-08-23 - 7:26 a.m.

Oops! I slipped a little off the cliffy schedule. Again - no idea what that means. Well, yes I do. I was planning on writing an entry last night - what with the whole, "writing an entry each night" thing. Guess I'm doubling up today.

Things went a little haywire last night. And the irony of it coming on the heels of what I wrote yesterday is not lost on me. Ben and I "got into it" for about 3 hours last night. Which, on one hand, is good. And I don't think it's fair to either of us for me to go into it in detail in this forum, but where I should feel better that things are off my chest and that things have the potential for change . . . I don't. Now I just feel weird and awkward that everything is just floating out there. Which is precisely what I was trying to avoid. No, not absolutely everything was put on the table, but far more than I was prepared to originally put on the table. I don't know. It's still too soon after the fact. I don't know what to think. I fucking missed Reno and Stella because of it though. God damn it. Oh wait - I just looked, there not on until tonight. My schedule is all messed up since I worked Monday this week.

So yeah - I worked yesterday so I could have time off at the end of the week. What with all the birthday festivities. I'm getting quite excited about said festivities. Though I haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately in efforts to ready the house. And when I don't get a lot of sleep I start to get run down. And then I get a face eating tumor. And that's the last thing I want for my birthday. Well, that and a jar of Kirstie Alley's back fat.

I love how people from New Hampshire, and probably much of New England, call yogurt "yogit". Like some mammy saying, "yo git yourself off the back porch!" [And I feel I can say "mammy" without sounding racist. My white man's guilt only goes so far. Wait . . . I have white man's guilt?] I definitely pronounce it "yo-gurt", which is fine, seeing as that's how it's pronounced. But "yogit" gets me good. It makes me laugh.

So here I am, choking on the ashes of a runaway, and I realize there's still no mention of macaroni and cheese wedges. Here's what I've found about these delectable little wedges. They're impossible to try to describe to someone without shortchanging their awesomebility. But that doesn't mean I won't try. Kate and I had read about them in the Smiley's menu for some time now, and I don't know what she thought they looked like, but I imagined mac and cheese dolloped (and I'll say "dolloped") on wedges of potatoes. Why potato? Because it says "wedge". And since I was pretty sure it wasn't served on underwear creeping up your butt, it had to be on potatoes. Obviously. But yeah - not the case. Kate, bless her soul, inquired about them when we got to Smiley's on Sunday afternoon. They described them as being portions of frozen mac & cheese, breaded, and then deep fried in these little triangle shapes. They also confessed it was hard to describe them. (See? It's not just me.) Then they asked us if we wanted a sample. I don't know how well you know Kate or me, but we've never been the types to blatantly turn down free fried cheesey wonderment. And we didn't. So while we skulked about Smiley's waiting for the rest of our order to finish - me pawing over the new Gatorade flavors whilst Kate was held in rapturous attention by the Us Weekly on the magazine rack - we had no idea that our lives were about to change. Change for the better. The cheesy better. Yeah, I don't know. Seriously, this shit is SO FUCKING GOOD. It's also probably a mini-heart attack. But come on, it's my birthday week, and if I'm going to be allowed to have heart attacks, it should be now. Kate has no excuse - she just has no self control. They taste . . . man oh man . . . it's like a sweet symphony of melted cheese swirled in with the angelic breaded wings of hot grease. Does that make sense? If you've never had mac & cheese wedges, it probably doesn't make any sense to you. It's a lot like Donkey Punching in that respect. You can write all the papers you want about Donkey Punching [substitute here: "mac & cheese wedges"] and see all the free form documentaries you want about Donkey Punching [substitute here: "mac & cheese wedges"], you just can't fully wrap your head around it until you go ahead and do it. Obviously, people like Hayley and Andrea probably don't need their arms twisted to join the Mac & Cheese Wedge Brigade (although Hayley is still scratching her noggin' and saying aloud, "Why would someone punch an innocent, defenseless donkey?!") But I feel some of you may still be skeptical. And that's ok. We're all human. Well, some of us are alien fuckwits, but the point still stands. Now, I'm going to try to show you a picture of it, knowing full well that you'll look at it and go, "that's it? that's ambrosia? that would make me leave my wife and children and live on a bus in Arizona?!" Again, I don't blame you. But soon . . . soon . . . you shall come to understand this, what's it called again . . . "new way."

Drink in its majesty! Or, you know, eat it in. But that's not really the phrase, so yeah . . . hey, what's up?!

Ok, quick note: There's a million and 1/2 things I want for my birthday. Here's some things I don't want bought for me as they have already been claimed by others on the shopping express: Chuck Klosterman's new book, Muppet Show Season 1, Sin City DVD, a lock of Maura Tierney's hair, Sopranos Season 5, a bouncy castle. That said, there are still a zillion things left. From Paperback Bazzar gift certificates (for those not easily creative) to Curb Your Enthusiasm Seasons 3 & 4 on DVD, Entourage Season 1 on DVD, the newest White Stripes CD, the new Frank Black CD, any Pixies CD outside of Surfa Rosa, the first Fiery Furnaces CD, anything sweet with Spider-Man on it, Hellboy DVD, canolis, any Spoon CDs, a really nice edition of Huck Finn, Undeclared Season 1 DVD (this is high on the list!), Dairy Queen goodness, Simpsons Season 6 DVD (even higher on the list!). Sure, this could end like the Risk debacle of '88 when I received 3 copies of the board game because I told all my Aunts that's what I wanted for my birthday. But damn, 3 Risks? That's pretty sweet in itself. If any of the above were being planned as a present by you, my dear reader, do not worry, just anonymously leave a comment stating for the rest of the masses to back off any such gift. I can't make this easier. So no bitching about how it's "hard to buy for Zach." Blim blam and blorg!

Also, Napoleon Dynamite merchandising tie-ins? Enough. We get it. This cow is long dry.

It's been real,

Zaxxon

ps - Stay tuned for tonight's installment where I no doubt talk about helping Aly & Alex move (which hasn't happened yet, but will have happened by then) and I didn't have time to mention Jimbo's little adventure, so more on that then. Poll update has been moved to tonight as well. Bite me.

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