How to Dress a Chicken...

Hey World,

This morning I was reading from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones, a source I often turn to for a creative jump start, and she suggested dressing completely out of character and seeing where it takes you with your writing.  This seemed like a reasonable suggestion to me.

So I put on an old biker jacket, some bowling shoes, and my son's Darth Vader mask.  I did look fabulous, as you can probably imagine, and it was fun entertaining my boys with my "Darth Vader as Wyatt from Easy Rider only with Bad Shoes" imitation. 

"Luke....LUKE....why didn't you tell me? Why didn't anybody tell me anything?...What are you doing to me now?...Shut up!...How could you make me hate you so?...Oh God, I hate you so much for letting me buy these shoes...."

But as much as I enjoyed the experiment, when I sat down to write I still had nothing.  I started and scrapped two or three posts and finally decided my time could be put to better use cleaning the fridge.  I have two things to say about cleaning the fridge:

1.) How does dust manage to gather in a refrigerator?  I mean, does a crowd of dust particles gather and hover around the door just waiting for someone to open it, and then when someone does open it, does the whole crowd rush in and take up residence under the meat tray?  Do they think they are on vacation in Aspen?  Do they get high on the cold air, procreate, and multiply exponentially?  I think that is probably how it happens. 
2.)  Why do I have so many salad dressings and why does no one use them?  Today I threw out all of these due to expired dates.

I guess we can add Salad Dressing to the list of things I waste money on.

This would be in addition to my insane ritual of going to the grocery store every Sunday and buying a multitude of fresh greens and vegetables only to throw them away the next Sunday.  Every Sunday, as I enter the grocery store, I warn myself, "do not get carried away with the veggies because you know you are a lazy sod and even though you have every good intention of sauteing spinach and creating healthful salads it WILL.NOT.HAPPEN!"  That's what I tell myself, but within 10 minutes of entering the store, I'm surveying the many varieties of lettuces and peppers and imagining all the colorful, nutritionally balanced, delicious meals I can make with all of these beautiful vegetables.  It's like I'm channeling fucking Alice Waters.  And before you can say TOTALLY INSANE CHICKEN COMING THROUGH I have the cart loaded down with roughly 3 million dollars worth of vegetables, which are inevitably destined for the garbage bin even though I well know that somewhere people are starving.  Then I have to justify my actions or have a complete neurotic breakdown, so I tell myself I'm supporting farmers and promoting the local economy. I really believe that stores use subliminal messaging.  Sure, it sounds like Harry Chapin wafting through the sound system, but underneath that a soothing voice is saying,

"youwantplumtomatoesandbeefstaktomatoes, youknowyoudo, youneedthem, that'srightseehowredtheyare, youlovetomatoes...."

My pantry reveals a similar pattern:

I counted five different kinds of beans in there.  Do you know when the last time was that my family  sat down to a meal of beans?  Like...let me see.....Never...And yet, I somehow felt the need to be all stocked up.  In my defense, I do not feel as though this kind of stockpiling is a true waste of money.  Under normal circumstances, it is true that my family will not touch black beans regardless of how much cheese I disguise them under.  However, we do live in the Northeast where the weather is unpredictable.  We get hurricanes, blizzards, and torrential rains.  I am ready.  It is conceivable that my family might someday benefit from my wackadoodle bean buying forays in the event that a nor'easter arrives unannounced and knocks out the power for a week necessitating meals prepared from the canned goods supply. We'll also be prepared if, God forbid, a Zombie invasion takes place like it apparently did over in the Bloggess' neighborhood yesterday (and I missed it.  Damn).  Now if I only had the Mannix's wine cellar to go with my beans, I would truly be prepared for any emergency. 

Well this has been fun, World, but I've got to make a grocery run.  I need some fresh veggies and I'm almost out of salad dressing; not to mention, I'm out of large red kidney beans and chickpeas. 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Chicken out