gotta go save that princess, don't interrupt me

I totally didn't go see Mike Doughty at 3rd and Lindsley tonight. I even bought a ticket in advance.

Instead I stayed home with Austin and Jenny and Patrick and ate good food and played Nintendo. We made Curried Couscous with Roasted Vegetables and Cilantro Yogurt, yum yum. It gets better every time I make it, I think it's been the biggest breakthrough hit meal of this year. Cilantro Yogurt would be good in a bowl with a spoon, let alone with lots of spicy things smeared around on the plate with it. And then Double Hot Chocolate Pudding for dessert, with cayenne and Dutch-process cocoa (direct from the Netherlands, thanks Sherraden) and chopped Ghiradelli bittersweet and cinnamon and espresso powder. Four hours later, I'm thinking, Geez, why am I not sleepy? Oh. Caffeine-loaded dessert, duh.

Now I'm listening to Austin talk on the phone to his brother (one of my greatest joys in the world) and tossing out a wuss-ass blog so I can get back to the blue room and keep hacking away at Super Mario World (or whichever version it is, I never remember, the one with Yoshi).

And I'm not even pissed at myself that I skipped that show tonight. I went out last night (to see the Long Players at Mercy Lounge, which was, of course, amazing, but boy was that a weird crowd, all those old people out after 9 pm when it was like 40 degrees out. It has been a long time since I have thought, I'm too young to be here.) and I had way more fun tonight piled up in bed with Jenny screaming and cursing at the video game and remembering all the retarded names we had for the Mario enemies when we were little. I am sure I'll address it more later, and I still feel superstitious talking about it, but I'm so glad J & P have come home to Nashville. It makes everything feel less urgent somehow. More normal.

Oh, and there are lots of lame things about my job, at least one of which is my boss being totally random and inconsistent, but sometimes that comes around to be a good thing, like when he decides to give us Veteran's Day off, a day that no person who doesn't work for the government, or who didn't actually fight in any wars, deserves to take off. But I'll take it, for sure. My plans are to (still) wash my makeup brushes (I swear it) and run the self-clean cycle on my oven so my turkey won't start any fires. Thanksgiving oven fires = bad. And to dig around in my garage until I find the 86 page Super Mario cheat guide that I printed off the internet a couple of years ago, so I can figure out how to beat the secret in Donut Flats 2.

I didn't promise you anything insightful tonight. Sorry. Gotta go spin jump on some koopas.