for ages i've been ordering the same sandwich from my deli at lunch. after a while things stop tasting good, and you just get it because you get it, so i decided i had to change. i picked at random. "can i get a number 23, please?"

the guy behind the counter says, "mayonnaise and mustard on that?"

"yes, please."

"you want mayonnaise and mustard?"

i have no idea what a number 23 tastes like, and i wasn't ready for that. he said it like i'd ordered white and wheat bread. i don't know. number 23--that's turkey and roast beef on a hero. maybe there's something i don't know about that combination; mayonnaise and mustard both would be like putting ketchup on steak.

"just mustard."

he accepts that and walks away.

but then he's back. "you want just mustard on that, right?" he looks incredulous.

"yes." why is this happening?

he goes to do the mustard, and i mumble, "or whatever," and the guy next to me thinks i'm funny to say that and laughs a little at the sandwich guy with me. but i'm not laughing!

i want to plead, dear sir, i have no idea, how do you recommend it? teach me.

picture me, i'm nine years old, and we stop at perkins one christmas vacation. i don't know what i order, but it comes with five sides. fucking five sides, and i'm nine, and what satanic nine-year-old eats brussel sprouts, so i say, "mashed potatoes ... and french fries ..." and the perkins waiter goes, a bit snottily, "you want mashed potatoes and french fries?" and i'm nine!

sometimes i go to a nice place. i say "what is the fish today?" and they say "icelandic amphoteuse*," and i say "and what type of fish is that?" and they say "it's like flounder," and i say "all right, i'll have that."

but i really want to say "i mean does it have fucking bones in it or is it flat or what? i don't know what 'like flounder' means." but that's a flag of ignorance. sir, do you realize you just ordered five side items all based on potatoes? surely you jest. sir is making quite a funny joke.

yes, i have a scottish background, and althought it may seem incredibly odd, we traditionally have both mayonnaise and mustard on any cold sandwich based on a white meat and a red meat. otherwise our ancestors may have to pay a penalty in the afterlife. highly unorthodox, i know, but yes, put both on there, please.

*made-up fish name

about an hour ago, i got caught in the rain. it poured torrents, rain flying off the road in central park, a circle of people hiding under every overhanging tree.

i ran to the subway at fifth avenue, and on my way down the stairs, a good-looking couple coming up saw me. they half-smiled in fear. "oh my god," the guy said.

i was soaked to the core. when i stepped on the train, the eyes of every dry person in every seat followed me, my drenched hair, my squishing shoes, my hand waving my metrocard around hoping it would dry without being ruined. it made me smile.

people of the world, i am a beacon sent to you from above. yes, up on the street. it is pouring down rain. when you reach your stop, you are doomed. you can only hope for the best. i wish you luck. you poor, poor fools.

my favorite place to have barbecue in nashville ("at home") is hog heaven, right off centennial park. as far back as i can remember, even when i was too little and picky for eating something so scary as barbecue, it's been there, with this fatass picture of a pig painted on white cinderblocks. possibly with a paint roller.


hog heaven goes all existential

my mom sent me a post card with a new hog heaven advertisement on it, and it's got this serenely dead pig on it, with pork, the other white meat in french. my first thought is how fucking awesome.

but wait, think a second. is it no longer a shack with a screen door on it? this french shit doesn't bode well. that svelte, college-educated pig, who probably ran marathons in his earthly life--he must be a signal of something. this is an aspiration of hog heaven, going for the yuppie market i unfortunately personify.

please, don't clean the place up, and don't start selling white tea with the barbecue. oh god, it makes me nervous when something blatantly appeals to me.

everyone's got youtube fever, man. it's bigger than christmas. so totally. pitchfork did this column this week about the greatest videos or something, linking them all off youtube. go to pitchfork, and you can see all the wu-tang videos and all that.

however, i hate to tell them: the best video ever made is land of confusion by genesis. by an order of magnitude.

and i would like to point out that i mentioned pitchfork, youtube, genesis, and all kinds of things without making any links, because i suck at the internet.

there's a guy in our lab who's defending his thesis today--his name is yuhao. it's pronounced YU-how, or at least that's the way i say it. if you're chinese, you call him yu-HOW, but that's a subtle difference, i think. overpronouncing things that sound unnatural coming out of your mouth just makes you seem a little off. i find it's best to just say things with as much dignity as possible, in a way that comes naturally to you. people will get the idea.

hearing outsiders mutilate his name can be quite amusing. i answered the phone not long ago, and a perky woman said, "Hi! Can I speak to Yahoo please?" you could hear the sincere smile in her voice. so after like two days of calling him yahoo behind his back, now i honestly mix that up with his name.

which is almost as good as mixing it up with U-Haul. as in, "hey dave, when are you driving the yuhao to michgan?" which yahoo thought was funny. he's a sport.

so by the time you read this, it will be doctah yahoo to you. we have a reservation for six for doctor yuhao, right this way sir, right this way.

well. as if.

one thing i don't like about my generation is its willingness to think in terms of trivial ideas from popular culture, rather than in a more rigorous way. it's not good or bad--i just don't like it. think about it--when you say, "he's so greg brady," you're saying something rather complicated, but you're using an intuitive definition. instead of delineating what greg brady means as an idea, you're using it as the point of reference; and why not?--everyone knows who greg brady is anyway.

but, anyway. my objection is that popular culture is lowbrow and lacks gravitas. if you used characters from the iliad, i wouldn't care. i'd be hap-pay.

but sometimes, i get drunk, and then i'm perfectly willing to break my own rules. here is a fun game i have tried to play in a bar on any number of occasions, with only limited success: build your high-school self, using only characters from the breakfast club. for some reason, i think this should be really telling--what a person picks. maybe i'm wrong.

slimbolala requests such a test using the smurfs. can this be more useful than the ESTJ stuff you get out of the myers-briggs thing? here, let me start: i was 40% anthony michael hall, and 60% ally sheedy.

if you're older, just use characters from the big chill. works the same way.

and, since i just wrote that--does that mean i'm drunk? we'll see. maybe i'll post a picture of myself in ten minutes and seal the deal.