Back To (Home) School

I feel like I've spent the last few weeks in a whirlwind of capitalist ecstasy. I have been shopping, y'all. And not a package of underwear here and a t-shirt there, but full fledged (well semi-full fledged. I'm still a poor person and I still love thrift stores) back to school shopping for the Kid. I haven't been able to do that since 2007. I have had to do things in tiny pieces with crossed fingers that the Kid wasn't going to have a growth spurt and suddenly not have any pants that fit. Kid needing new shoes would create a fiery pit of fear and worry in my belly. And then there was the incident just a few months ago when I asked the kid where he was going to store his socks and underwear in his new room and he said "you mean my 3 pairs of underwear?" Oh the heartbreak and guilt and shame of not being able to properly clothe a rapidly growing child is something I hope none of you all ever has to feel. But thanks to employment, the Kid is clothed. New(ish) pants and t-shirts and long sleeve t-shirts and button down shirts and jeans and hoodies! And a dozen new pairs of boxers! New school supplies, and books. Oh I might have gone a little crazy with the books. This year's science is biology and because my favorite part of biology was making the cell drawings, I got El Nino the biology coloring book. And the Outsiders. He's a good age for it and Hinton is a woman who wrote the book about teenage othering of poor kids while a teenager. Better than reading Catcher in the Rye, in my opinion. And then there are the many "how to write a paper" books, since that is definitely an area that the Kid hates but that must be done this year. And Howard Zinn's illustrated book on empire and and and. Today was the end of it. Kid got new shoes and socks. Provided he doesn't have a freakish growth spurt, he's all set till spring. I don't even. What. How. I.. Shit. The long running list of shit that MUST. BE. BOUGHT. is down to half a page of notebook paper, and except for a memory foam pad for my bed (hello fibro-fucking-myalgia! Thanks for making sleeping torture!) it's all want and not too much need. Is this how normal people live? I can't even remember. It's been so long. Now I have to do some serious saving of the money for the most extravagant of luxuries- dental work. There will be root canals and crowns y'all. And cleanings. Think about that.

Discovered at the Grocery Store

Cherrums- plum shaped and sized fruit that tastes like a plum-cherry hybrid. So fucking awesome I may eat a dozen right now (not really, that's like drinking a week's worth of prune juice in one go).

I have discovered, after years of subsisting on one meal a day plus copious amount of coke(a cola), that I actually function much better if I 1) drink coffee and tea 2) eat lots of little snacks like a cut up piece of fruit or a yogurt 3)eat an actual lunch, no eating the convenience store muffin I tossed in my bag just because it was easy and calling lunch, that I feel much better. And do my job better too (I get graded on job performance every. single. day. So I know when I am slipping).

Good lord, I hope I am not on the verge of becoming a virtuous foodie. Feel free to shame me if I do. But until then, try a Cherrum! They are way better than pluots!

It's Labor Day!

And I should write a big, meaty fucking post on that. But I am just burnt the fuck out from work. Thank the FSM that I have today off. Thank the FSM that I have a job and today off (paid, shocking, nez pas?) Thank the FSM that I have a job, today off, and make almost a living wage.

And we all best be thanking an imaginary deity for that shit, cause lord knows the weasels-in-charge of governance of the masses for the elites ain't doing diddly fucking squat for the unemployed, the semi-employed, the employed but not making enough to live on, the employed but my heath insurance ate my paycheck, etc, etc.

Alternatively, thank a Union. For it is to the mighty (not so much anymore) Unions that we owe 40 hour work weeks. Thanks to the Union, I earned 60 bucks in overtime last paycheck. 60 bucks, that's a half a week of groceries. Used to be a whole week of groceries, but wages as we all know, have not kept up with inflation the last 30 years or so.

Speaking of groceries, I am off to buy some. This working full plus time really cuts the fuck into my dinner making time. So I am stocking up on sammich makings and frozen pizzas. Truth is, Americans eat like shit because we don't have time to shop and cook and pay tribute to the mighty gods of Corporation Welfare.

We need shorter work weeks. If our productivity is so high now that we produce an extra month's worth of work every year, we should both be making more actual money and working fewer hours. But that seems way too logical to the weasels-in-charge to get.