Peptomaniac

Stuff:

Far better than Tums, Rolaids, Mother's Milk, Norwegian cuisine, the sugary pink goop tempers my stomach's digestive crises. Wonder how it would taste with some wheatgerm and soy protein supplements? Naive, arrogant shit that I am, I thought my stomach could forever withstand the most brutal pummeling; hot peppers? Sure, pile 'em on! And what's with only four cheeses on these nachos? For the love of all that's unholy and evil, didn't you attend culinary school? I'm going to add myself to the stomach transplant list, and hope that when I'm senile (in a few short years, probably), and can't eat oatmeal without having to move my personal affects into my bathroom, there's a willing young, uh dead, supplier of a fresh gastronomical tract.

This isn't all about my unquenchable thirst for pink goop, though, even though I know you all wish it was. I saw my sister's apartment for the first time this afternoon, and shot baskets under neon Budweiser signs in the garage above which they live. For a bachelor, this is lovely, but I wonder how conducive it is to furthering couple's love-lives when they have to get up at 3am, wander down rickety wooden stairs in the dark to access the commode that serves to clean grease from old weed-whackers, and you don't know if that's antifreeze on the floor, of if your aim is just suspect.

My apartment building is undergoing its most radical transformation ever, as old friends and acquaintances move out and are replaced by nameless strangers. Whereas once I used to try to engage everybody, invite them in for bad wine and even worse food, I have now no inclination to care. These are not my people, and I'm not theirs. Part of what made my building so special is how interconnected we all were when we first moved-in. Half of us were still serving coffee, which was a source of comfort, even as we struggled against poverty's daily savagery. I know enough people now, and my needs are met without any inkling of curiosity about the origins of unfamiliar cooking smells slithering beneath my door.