Marrow popsicles ...

If PMS me was real me, every day would be like this:

Pull into the gas station and the minivan across from me has someone exiting on the passenger side. This long-haired boy or mannish woman windmills dangerously close to my hood. Like I'm invisible and so is my car. Like this entire area near the pumps is her dance floor. Because of this, I have to pull up super close to the pump. Can't open car door all the way, close. I squeeze out, arrange to pay with my card at the pump, can barely fit the nozzle into my tank because we are so squished here, parallel to this minivan. Nothing happens. I see the screen is prompting me to type in my zip code. I type 5-5-0, the 0 is a mistake so I hit cancel. I now see that truthfulness in zip codes at gas pumps is probably not a thing. But cancel cancels my entire transaction and the screen won't reset so I can start again: "See clerk" it tells me.

It's cold outside. Like marrow popsicles cold. And it's not getting any warmer in the next, like, 150 days at least.

"Do you know how to pump gas?" It's the owner of the mini van, who has the exact same face as the dancing passenger.
I give her a look I would never give someone. I'm standing here at a pump holding a gas nozzle. What do you think? I'm just going to wing it. Fingers crossed.
"Do you know how to pump gas?" she asks. "I can't get it to work."
"Go inside and ask for help," I tell her, not kindly. I can't even exhale because she forced me to pull so close to the pump, I'm not going to try to teach her new tricks, like: Insert card. Type in zip code. Remove nozzle.

I'm never like this.

I have to go inside anyway. I tell the guy that I was instructed to "See Clerk." He resets something. "I chose to pay at the pump so I wouldn't have to come in here," I think super loudly. I've budged in front of another customer. No big. It was a close race to the counter. I go back outside, squeeze between my car and the gas pump and everything works okay. I sit in my car and wait for the air to feel at least warmer than the wind outside and the whole time I'm still super mad about nothing.

Anyway, I'm better now. This is what I made, watched and read this past week(ish).

FOODS

White Bean Chili: It is exactly what it is: A great big pot of white beans mixed with lots of seasonings and seiten and soy sour cream. Good stuff. The sauce ends up really creamy. I made a few alterations here, the main one being that I threw a veggie bullion cube into the boiling mess instead of using chicken seasoning. Chicken seasoning sounded ominous. I also sauteed the seiten before I added it to the soup because I hated the idea of boiled seiten. This turned out to be a waste of time.

MOVIES
Castaway on the Moon: This Korean movie starts out like a really embarrassing slapstick and then turns into something that is pretty great. In this corner, we have a ruined man financially collapsed who jumps off a bridge and lands on this weird island in the city. He can't get off of it because he is terrified of water (word) so he does a few things from the school of Tom Hanks' deserted island bible and a few things that are better. In the meantime, a very neurotic girl never leaves her room. She invents an online personae, sleeps in her closet and walks in place to exercise. She notices, through her telescope, this man on the island and they develop a friendship. She sends him letters in a bottle; he responds by writing in the sand.

The Future: Week 2 of gawking at Miranda July. She wrote and starred in this movie about a couple who is planning to adopt a sick cat (that can talk). The dialogue between the couple in this movie is so so charming and great.

Jesus' Son: Meh, I don't know. I think I really would have liked this story of this kid's fucked up relationship a lot better in 1998. Now it just felt like not enough ... everything.

BOOKS
The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright: This book is either super sexy or like watching someone crash their life into the ground at 180 miles per hour. Either way, it's deese.

Full review will be here.