NOT THINKING, DAY TWO

You know, I think I may actually think in my sleep. I woke up this morning feeling suspiciously like I had been thinking during the night. Clearly, I cannot be trusted.

It's a beautiful day outside, which normally would be a good thing, but may actually turn out to be yet another fact designed with the sole intent of making my life a little more difficult. You see, Peter had planned a big barbecue this weekend, but then he saw that the weather forecasts called for rain, so a few days ago he called everyone up and cancelled it. Obviously, he is doing nothing but complain this morning, and 50% of it is devoted to the weather and lack of barbecuage going on in the back yard.

However, on the bright side, the water heater decided to break this morning. I knew something was up because as I sat in my room pretending to be asleep, I heard him running around the apartment saying, "Sh*t...sh*t...sh*t," at the rate of approximately one "sh*t" every five minutes. Next time I should consider plotting this on a graph so that I can give you more accurate details.

Howe'er it was, this was the greeting which awaited me this morning. Mind you, this is not terribly unusual. I spoke with Sarah the other day--Sarah being the one who set me up with said roommate--and she mentioned that Peter is from some other planet. I said, "I wonder what the weather is like on Planet Peter," and she said, "Oooo, very dark, cloudy, and rainy all the time," which is pretty much an accurate statement. The man is a little bundle of gloom. So anyway, hearing a series of guttural sighs, expletives, and groans accompanied by little footsteps padding around the house is pretty normal.

At first I was worried, because I remembered that I cooked something last night and had washed the pan in the sink. I thought that maybe I had not left the stove to his liking, or perhaps had inadvertently clogged the drain (heaven knows how) or something similar. Fortunately, however, it did turn out to be the water heater, so there's no possible way that I can be blamed.

Keep in mind that this is the man who hides the vacuum cleaner in his room for fear I might touch it incorrectly, and you'll understand my initial trepidation.

I did point out that he can be glad that the barbecue was cancelled anyway, because if the water heater had broken on a day when he was going to have a zillion people over, he'd be very upset. I think he was almost disappointed that there was a silver lining to this particular cloud.

He's been bugging me relatively constantly about whether or not I will be moving out on June 20. I have made it pretty clear all along that things will depend on how my job search goes. It has been less than two months, and frankly his constant questioning is starting to really irritate me. I finally figured out that this is probably why he has helped me to apply for a job with the BBC (where he works)--he just wants to have some kind of clear answer on whether or not I will stay there and continue to pay rent.

I'm not being unkind here, by implying that he has a selfish motive. He told me less than a week ago that he was worried about me being sick, because he was planning on going away for a week, and if I was sick he wouldn't feel comfortable leaving me to watch the house while he was gone.

He's a funny little thing.

Anyway, on a totally unrelated note, I think I may have to travel to Sandwich and eat a sandwich there. I don't know why, but it seems like something I should do.

I've been thinking quite a bit about sandwiches lately, because I have found ordering one from a deli here challenging. Basically, if you ask for "chicken salad," for example, they take "salad" to mean "with lettuce and tomatoes," and give you sliced chicken on bread with lettuce and tomatoes, and they ask you if you'd like mayonnaise as well. As near as I can figure, what we would call chicken salad, they call "chicken mayonnaise." I'm not positive; I'm just basing this on the fact that egg salad is called egg mayonnaise, and tuna salad is called tuna mayonnaise. Actually, you almost never see "tuna mayonnaise," because more commonly they combine the tuna with what appears to be canned corn, and they call it "tuna sweetcorn," which in addition to sandwiches they also occasionally put on baked (or "jacket," as they are called here) potatoes, and frankly I find the whole concept quite disturbing.

Er, I don't mean to say that they put sandwiches on baked potatoes. I mean that they put "tuna sweetcorn" on baked potatoes. Oh, never mind.

As far as the "salad" vs "mayonnaise" thing goes, I can kind of see their point. Lettuce and tomatoes do seem a bit more like "salad" than mayonnaise does (which leads one to wonder what they call potato salad, if such a thing even exists on this side of the pond), but on the other hand, well, in the States when we make a sandwich, lettuce and tomatoes is assumed unless specifically stated otherwise--I mean, what kind of crappy sandwich has no lettuce and tomatoes on it? Someone tried to pass one of those off to one of us, we'd revolt.

Of course, they generally include the cucumber as a Bonus Item in the salad, but since pickles seem relatively unheard-of as a sandwich topping, well, it's just the same thing sans vinegar, so I'm not quite sure how to feel about it.

I did find out about the toffee disclaimers on packets of Rolos, by the way. It's basically a guarantee that at least 40% of your Rolo is, in fact, toffee, and not preservatives or something else. Yes, I actually asked this question at a party last night. I'm telling you, people must love me. The belle of the ball and all that. Anyway, so that's the deal with Rolos.

I also found out something about the synagogue that I picked up trash at.

I had heard some people say that they thought that members of the nearby mosque had been responsible for the desecration, although the rabbi of the congregation said that he doubted it. At any rate, I thought that this was a horrible thing for someone to speculate, because most of the religious Muslims I know are really lovely people, you know, of the nice peace-loving variety. And I thought it was terrible for someone to try to incite some kind of religious thing between this little synagogue and some perfectly decent Muslim people.

Well, it turns out that the nearby mosque is a well-known extremist fundamentalist/anti-Jewish one. All of the rabid extremist guys that you read about go there. The shoe-bombing guy was a member there, and the guy who posts all of the hate literature around town (the one Ronson wrote about in "Them") is also a prominent member. So I guess it's actually not a crazy thing to suggest after all.

I've been thinking that maybe I should go back and do some more trash pickup soon; the back yard was pretty awful. I am not sure that in the present circumstances, though, they'd appreciate a complete stranger wandering around their property. I mean, after all, they have no way of knowing I'm not just an anti-Semite. I suppose if it came down to it, all I'd have to do is show them some ID, because the odds of an anti-Semite having an Hebrew first name are *probably* quite slim.

Well, I'm sick of the guy sitting next to me here in the Internet cafe hitting on me, so I'm going to sign off now and go enjoy the sun.