17 February 2002

I don't know who this cinnamon roll is fooling, but it's not me. It claims to be low-fat -- and I believe it, it tastes low-fat without being bad. It has that whole wheaten goodness of something that is naturally made to be low-fat, rather than something whose pleasant qualities were sucked out of it along with its fat. I guess it's the idea that "low-fat = somehow good for you" that I'm disputing. This cinnamon roll covered an entire small dinner plate. (Now it covers most of a tupperware container, and it will continue to delight me for tomorrow's breakfast.) I don't care how low in fat it is -- and, by the way, low-fat compared to what? They had no high-fat cinnamon rolls. We bought the only kinds they had. At that point, "low-fat" seems to mean "buy me to feel healthy," and I'm sorry, no breakfast roll that big is healthy for a person my size to eat in its entirety.

I didn't buy it to be low-fat. We were in Great Harvest Bread Company across the street from Zachary's, and I had spotted Swedish orange rye bread. I was doing my bread groove around the store and asked the guys if they wanted anything. (I suppose I'll share my Swedish orange rye bread with them. Educate their palates and all.) And Timprov said, "Something cinnamon smells good...cinnamon rolls!" And we spotted the cinnamon rolls and grabbed three of them for Timprov's birthday breakfast this morning, two with raisins and one without, and as we were sorting out who wanted what, the girl behind the counter said, "Low-fat cinnamon rolls and a loaf of Swedish rye?" in a really snotty voice. Like I was supposed to order them low-fat even though they had no high-fat ones in the store? I said sure and continued my bread groove, and that's how Zak and Sharon first spotted me, grooving around the store over a loaf of bread.

But I'm not ashamed of my bread groove. Bread is important. It's the #1 reason I could never go on that Atkins Diet thingy, even if I was Guinness Book of World Records fat. Even if I was "take the wall out of the house so she can go to the hospital" fat. Much less normal fat. Because if you said to me, "You can eat this lovely kung pao beef, and all these other spicy, flavorful meats, or you can eat one thin slice of this bread with maybe an apple slice," I'd be going, "Bread, bread! Ooh, ooh, bread!" and grooving my Guinness Book of World Records butt around the house over my one slice of bread. That's how much good bread matters to me. And pasta and risotto are right up there. Groove-worthy. Yum.

So yesterday I read Robert Reed's Marrow, and it was once again that close to being good. But still a hair off. If I had to rank Robert Reed and Melissa Scott on a flat numerical scale -- well, I'd probably roll my eyes and ignore whoever asked me to do such a silly thing. But if I had to, I'd probably rank them somewhere around the same place. And yet despite my extreme frustration with Reed sometimes, I keep an eye out for his new novels compulsively. Just in case he figures out what's keeping him that far off and fixes it and rocks my world. But with Melissa Scott, I feel like she's doing the best she can, and if she hadn't written the same book so many times, I'd probably want to read each of them. As it is, I'd just recommend reading one of them. The Jazz will do as well as any.

Now my two remaining library books are Graham Joyce's Requiem and Peter Høeg's Borderliners. I wallow in books. Yum.

Yesterday we had lunch with Robert at Jing Jing in Palo Alto, and they disappointed me gravely. I ordered dan dan mein and a pitcher of water, because last time I had dan dan mein, I went through about a pitcher and a half. This time I sipped politely at my water, because I was moderately thirsty. I didn't break into a sweat or anything. I don't know what was wrong with them.

Anyway, here's me with Robert:

We also saw a sign that amused us, and so we started the collection of Silly Bay Area Signs that we've been talking about for months:

Can you really place an old order?

So. We got to witness the aptly-named (if infamous) overweight Jesus pictures from Robert's dark past, and we talked about the Baltics (of course!) and I didn't tell a single one of my Good Storiesä, which means, of course, that Robert can hear them at some later juncture, and won't that be nice?

It's odd: I do have a set of stories that are Good Storiesä but have been vetoed (by me) for putting in the journal. I can tell them to literally everyone who reads this journal, if they e-mail me or talk to me in person or on the phone, or even if they were to write me snail-mail letters. But I can't put them in the journal. One of them involves the only felony I've ever committed (which was unintentional!), and the rest are omitted for various reasons.

After a short break in the afternoon, we drove up to Rockridge and met Zak and Sharon and eventually Jon and Ellen for pizza at the well-loved Zachary's. (It was a hit.) I did tell one of my Good Storiesä there, but nobody seemed to mind. Here's Timprov with Zak:

And here's Sharon, Ellen, and Jon:

We left with a strong urge to play role-playing games, since this was just the sort of group of people we played such games with in college. Rode home in the rain, listening to Cannonball Adderley and the Indigo Girls (together again for the first time?) and talking and laughing. And then I think we were all social'ed out, because it was a pretty quiet evening around here.

So. It's going to be a pretty quiet day around here, too. Some birthday stuff for the Timprov, devilled eggs and many happy things of the sort. We've heard nothing about Great Grandma Lingen and are hoping that this no news is the proverbial good news. But again, not hoping too much. And there will be some fiddling of computer parts, and some talking with the grandparents, and plans for the rest of the week, I hope.

Wish Timprov a happy birthday. He's the best Timprov I know and certainly my favorite Timprov in the world. And I think he ought to be your favorite Timprov as well. He's not as much of a birthday pro as he could be, but we're probably going to get at least three days out of this, which is pretty respectable for someone who doesn't have practice at all this.

Oh, hey, yesterday was my one year journal anniversary. You've got a whole year of this stuff! And you can't read what I'm writing now, so you might as well read what I was writing then, right...? Hmm. Maybe. A lot of stuff changed in this year, some of it directly related to this journal. Good and bad alike. Some of the bad things weren't worth the time and energy I spent on them, but I think all of the good ones were, and that's a decent enough record for me.