In an interesting experiment today, I made dinner in 20 minutes flat set to some heavy metal goodness. The recipe is as follows:

~--Prologue: Witchery->> Fast as a Shark (Accept Cover)--~
Chop/Prep Veggies
Boil water, Turn off, Add cous cous. Set aside.

~--Body: Barilari->> Amo de la Oscuridad--~

To 1 tablespoon of peanut oil
Add a pinch of cumin
Add 4-5 small thai red chillies (chopped), saute for 10 seconds
Add julienned onions, saute for a minute
Add salt, pinch of turmeric powder, a pinch of black pepper powder
and a pinch of coriander powder
Add chopped Zucchini and saute for a minute
Add chopped carrot and sweet peas, saute for a minute

~--Epilogue: Grave Digger->> King Pest--~
Add cous cous and salt to taste
Stir Stir Stir

~--Conclusion: Deep Purple->> Rat Bat Blue--~
Dinner is Served!


;) ~--Postscript: Motorhead->> Smiling like a killer--~ ;)

So, get this! I work on the same floor and in fact, the same department as another (e:strip)per (yeah, not imk2. We are at WAR.) and I didn't know this for a WHOLE of three months!!!!

I was lounging in his cool office-space the other day and I noticed this very familiar picture on the desk. I thought it was (e:jim). When I looked closely, it wasn't (e:jim) but I was convinced it was his brother or some cousin. So I bust into the same office today and point to the picture and ask, is the last name of that bloke in the picture, Lindley? He goes, "No, why?" I blabber on and on about how I know this Jim who is totally like that person in the picture. He exclaims, "That Jim who does all the cool photos etc.". I nod and then he says, " Hey! Do you know Paul Visco, who works in the Washington Building". I then take over and rattle off a string of (e:Roswell)-Rippers, and he says, "Yeah, I know most of them". And then it dawns on me and I ask, "WHO ARE YOU??" Turns out its none other than (e:boxerboi), that avatar with the hot red Tee, the sun-shades and the uber cool back pack!

So I guess Buffalo is a tiny world and all cool (e:strip)pers do work at Roswell*. Haha. :)

PS: *Yeah, (e:imk2), you don't get mentioned. I don't care if you wear the most amazing clothes and see niche movies. You absolutely withheld important information. So, we are officially at war. ;)

It will be a whole year since I moved into Buffalo, next month. A leap year with an extra day, no less. Unbelievable. One year has gone by and it seems so unreal. I swear time went by faster here than any time or any place I have lived.

The management stuck the extended-lease agreement to the milk box on my door today morning and its time to reconsider whether I want to live here or not. Let's see:

Pros:
1. It does have a nuclear shelter. Though, I imagine 97 households huddled in the basement with noisy washers, dryers and a spooky gaping hole while the city is being nuclear-bombed might not be so much fun as it is chalked up to be.

2. I don't need to hang up any curtains. Come on, spiderman and superman are not real, kids.

3. The floors are hardwood and shiny. I found a dead flattened mummified mouse under the carpet in my last flat. I suspect it is still there, because as we all know, mummies are best left undisturbed. Carpets are thus modern equivalents of the pyramids. Q.E.D. I hate carpets.

4. I can hear the police sirens at odd times. Believe it or not, it makes it feel like home.

5. My calves have been conditioned pretty nicely this past year, without having to invest in a stairmaster. I just need to figure out why my lungs can't take to stair-climbing as easily as my calves can. Puzzling.


Cons:
1. The leechy management hiked the rent by $30 - takes it to >$600 with utilities. Money doesn't really grow on trees as the BMG seems to think. (BMG is the management company.)

2. The heating is disastrously bad. But its summer now and I can't recall how bad it was.

3. I think I have too much junk. Living in the same flat for more than a year is injurious to the Simple Pliny Project. The idea is to be nomadic enough to get rid of *everything* unessential.

Not many cons. I remembered that moving also involves actually finding another flat so I went for a walk around the neighbourhood and learned some useful things:

a) Hotel Lenox is also an apartment complex. Imagine the cool factor in being able to tell people that you actually *live* in a hotel. You could also constantly claim that you really haven't made your mind up about Buffalo yet.

b) The Westbrooks Apartments has a restaurant in the building - called Amaryllis. Hmmm... I wonder how it is for the residents. Honey, its time for dinner. I think they are serving baked crab with crumbled feta cheese downstairs.

c) The residents who live in "the North" park in a parking on North and Park streets. Sweet.

d) Is the building across from the massage clinic on North (with the anti-war signage) empty? I couldn't tell. If it is indeed occupied, then the tenants/owner have an odd knack of using billboard ads as curtains.

The Question lingers. I have four days to decide before the rent goes up $40. Aaargh. Tyrants.

The votes are in. I put in my ballot for another year at the building with the hollow lions, terrible heating and lukewarm water.

Here's why. Living in and around Linwood has suddenly become very fashionable. Rumours abound that it is going to become the next gated community north of California. The direct effect of such hearsay and feigned snobbishness of the neighbourhood are crazy rents.

I spent four days hunting for livable and affordable flats around the place and frankly, I am so overwhelmed that I have reached a state of compromise where I think that $600/month may not be too unreasonable a price to pay for a simple studio! Though I have signed on the dotted line for yet another 365 and 1/4th of a day of lukewarm shower-serfdom at the Mayflower, it still seems quite outrageous to me that I managed to find no other place half as reasonable as my building!

The rundown of the hunt (and these were perhaps the only flats available within my budget range):

1. Target at Summer and Linwood (Not my building): Horrible smelly carpet with stains. Yuck. No more carpet tyranny in my life. Ever. Wouldn't live on a carpet even for free. I am done with carpets for life.

2. Target further down Allen: $400 without utilities. $300/month for utilities for the whole of the winter. So essentially $750/month including internet and everything. For a grad student, this is financial suicide. Unless I want to live on Ramen Noodles and spend my time coupon clipping. Which, by the way, I don't because it also happens to be the perfect recipe for depression.

3. Target on Franklin: AWESOME one-bedroom flat. Maintained like a dream. Even smelled nice! Landlord: a gem of a person. $440 a month. The catch, you ask? 9Ft ceilings and thus, $300/month utilities. Same Ramen Noodle issue as above. I pass. (If anyone is interested, and can afford this, I can give you the landlord's contact.)

4. Multiple targets in Hotel Lenox: The one bedroom flat had a bleak and lifeless view from its windows with a kitchen thrown in as an afterthought into a dark corridor of the flat. Another studio had a kitchen with no windows. Call me conceited and spoiled, but to me, the kitchen is the most important room in a house. It's a room where love is grown, happiness is concocted, nostalgia is stirred, music is dreamed up, dances are brewed, ideas are born and orgasms are perfected. The lack of windows and natural light in a kitchen is more abominable than anything else. I retract my earlier statement about the carpet. A kitchen without windows is the living hell I don't want to venture into. Ever.

5. Target on Irving: Nice flat with the blinds drawn. If you are okay with staring at a collection of assorted trashcans from around the neighbourhood and the wall of your neighbour's house 3 feet away, this flat may be perfect for you. It certainly would make me hasten to the first airplane headed back home.

6. The best arrangement of 'em all: Living with (e:Drew) and (e:Janelle). Awesome house, pets I never owned (and probably never will) but have always wanted, ONE-HELL-OF-AN-AMAZING cook (yeah, I mean (e:janelle). Sorry, (e:drew). I have no proof of your culinary skills. ;)) to cook with, lower than crazy rent (in fact, unreasonably so), and best of all, living with one of the coolest (e:strip)pers around!!! But (and isn't there always one? :( ) they live on Lexington. For my lazy and erratic grad student ways, the dream ends there.

I get up barely 1/2 hour before I have to make it to work, walk/run like crazy down the streets and reach at the nick of time. Sometimes, I don't come back till 3:00 AM. No matter how hard I try, I keep slipping into these irregular hours and last minute marathon spells. I delude myself that all this counts towards my exercise regimen (that is non-existent, BTW) Living in a flat very near work acts as a buffer to all these random acts of craziness. I can afford to not be dependent on any transport but my own and also afford to not own a car. So, even though I am TRULY tempted by their offer, I can't take them up on it. I know that the solution is more discipline. But currenly this is in severe short-supply. :/

So yes, there is indeed, no such thing as a perfect flat. There are always kinks and cracks, virtual or otherwise. The tact is to whine and blog about them till they sort of go away from your consciousness.

I am going to be working on Rule 49 from this minute.
49. Develop Equanimity.

The unfortunate fact is I am not. Either cool or even a cucumber. I care too much about everything. I care about everyone around me to the point of interfering in their affairs and offering my opinions. I think its time to stop. Completely grind to a no-opinion, cucumber stop.

My inspiration will aptly be, a CUCUMBER.
Eight alphabets. Eight rules.


Let's see.

It remains a Cucumber.
1. All these rules are not applicable to my family. I will interfere,
judge, argue and be a pain. Nopes, *you* don't escape. HEHE.

It's crUnchy!
2. If situations are chewing on me, then I shall remember the crunch of this post. Keep calm. Drink more water. Remain silent.

It's a Creeper and takes the shape of the trellis that guides it.
3. I shall go with the flow and not interfere with anyone's lives, decisions, opinions and practices. If it is their wish, its their wish alone. It does not concern me.

It has tons of entrapped cucumber jUice.
4. I shall drink more water and cool down. Every time I am irked I shall take the divine opportunity to take a detour to the water cooler and drink some water instead of speaking.

It is Mute.
5. I shall not be offering my opinions anymore, unless I am asked. I shall be silent. Your business is your business alone. Not mine. At all.

Its pollinated by Bumblebees, but only if released into the cucumber field at the proper time.
6. My help and opinions shall be available anytime, and all the time. BUT only if you ask. Not otherwise. I don't want to be sorry that I gave you both but you didn't want them anyway.

Its grEen outside and a delicate shade of the lightest green inside.
7. Err... that means I should be jealous sick calm. Yes, calm. No matter what kind of volcanoes are exploding around me.

Its a gReat balancing sandwich component.
8. I shall not judge you whatever you do. Not because I don't care but because I shall respect your right to be who you are and what you want to do plus I don't want to be sorry that I judged you and it was because of my prejudices and beliefs.



Progress report:
1. Did not email much.
2. Working on summaries to (e:chico). One on time, but slipped on 3.
3. Planning to put the lunch/7:00 AM work plan into action this week.
4. Took a hiatus. Three days of:
19. Do what you love. I walked and enjoyed sunshine. I cooked!

55. Learn to do nothing. Haha. I didn't have to learn this. But I put it into practice. I used the freed up time to do nothing. And I loved it!

44. Try living without a car. Alright. I don't have one anyway and this is cheating, but hey this is the 72 day plan. I need all the mileage I can get (irony totally intended).


~End of day Seven~
The Simple Pliny Project