and now you parlez-vous francais

i drove to concrete, washington today. it is very pretty country, snow-capped mountains and green bucolic pastures and the skagit river (and the stillamguamish river, which is not only beautiful but very fun to say) and trees laden with hairy moss. along the road: many dilapidated barns. a car lot with a mini on the roof, trunk open, female mannequin legs hanging out. "discarding of burning objects prohibited" signs. single-wide trailers surrounded by cars on blocks, forlorn swingsets, listing patio umbrellas. (umbrelli?) mysterious dirt roads to nowhere, probably meth labs. horses and bison and crows fighting over carcasses. (carci?) and then, the hamlet of concrete.
so i read and very much enjoyed 'this boy's life', in which he spent his adolescence in concrete, and described it with much disdain. i can officially see why. the town is punctuated with a gargantuan cement (or, actually, it is more likely concrete) silo with "welcome to concrete" painted on it in faded red. the thing is at least ten stories high, perhaps more. behind it lurks a single road of saggy, dreary buildings, gravel parking lots filled with scowling mexicans watching my stupid pink car circle. an obligatory brewpub, a true value hardware store, a police station. and a FUCKING CREEPY CASTLE-LIKE BUILDING, also made of cement, complete with turrets, the bottom levels boarded up, hulking over the end of the road in a most jarring and ill-placed fashion. it reminds me of the bashed-out barracks in whittier. actually, concrete reminds me of whittier as a whole. the silo behemoth = the pink high-rise. the surroundings are equally lovely. and the denizens are equally distrusting. not that i would know. i did not get out of my car. there was nowhere to get to, really. if i wasn;t driving a PINK CAR i would have loved to explore the boarded-up castley thing, but i felt too damn conspicuous as it was.
afterwards i had a hankering for candy. i stopped at a grocery store somewhere along i-5 and all the easter crap was dramatically discounted. so i stocked up, shit that i would normally not purchase: orange snot-eggs (i mean, cadbury's- and i fucking love them, and i also love peeps, which embody all that is heinous with the world, but i abstained from them this time) and chocolate peanut butter eggs, but because i did not have a fucking 'member card' i ended up paying NEARLY TEN DOLLARS for 3 fucking eggs and the bag of peanut butter things. i realized this once in my car. this is my come-uppance for disregarding the religious implications of a most holy day in lieu of a fucking sugar high. i fumed for about 5 miles, remembering the woman's smug face as she checked me out, knowing that SHE knew that there is no fucking way i or anyone would buy fucking overpriced holiday-specific SHIT several days after the fact... so i pulled off the highway, fully intending to go back and Give Her a Piece Of My Mind, and ended up on a one-way road leading me squarely into the anus of everett, with no way of turning around, and then it became pretty fucking funny. i am a fucking boob. lighten the hell up, anyway. so i now have semi-precious happy candy in my freezer, where it will be best, and it made for an entirely aimless story.
it is better to pay too much than to pander to The Man, anyhow.
upon returning to seattle: walked around. a lot. it is therapeutic. i have had my ego spit, stomped on, and booted about at work this week. i do not have the personality to deal with alpha women. if someone is excessively pushy/loud/argumentative, i tend to cringe and back down. i don;t see the point of 'changing their mind' or 'offering my opinion'; it is much easier, and much more ultimately self-sabotaging, to internalize my irritation and sulk annoyingly. i think i used to be a lot more combative and bulldozey. at some point i decided there was no point. at this age people's personalities are set; suggestions are pointless, and if my feelings are hurt, that is solely my problem. and it fucking sucks. it fucking pisses me off. it falls into the same "why bother?" catagory that a lot of things at work are encompassing.
thank god for the 4 day weekend.
i hate working with women.
my neurotic childish self-pity is absolutely fucking obnoxious.
happier stuff:
-it isn't the wheat, thank fucking god. because i love me some wheat. sweet delicious wheat! the cheese, alas, is still at bay, but after 3 fucking years i am sadly accustomed to that.
-dried hibiscus flowers. haven't tried them yet. the appealing lad at the grocer (a different establishment than prior) said they were "pretty good, actually."
-"don't ask me why" on the hi-fi, especially the voice-crack at the end
-sleeves pushed up
-the smells of mown grass, dogwood blossoms, and ethiopian food, though not all at once
-freeway park
-not getting raped whilst walking through freeway park
-black coffee
-more cookbooks! i am currently into the 'ethnic' tomes of the '60s and '70s- time-life's 'great chefs of the world' series is especially wonderful. how else would i know about the king who would eat chocolate-dipped pearls whilst watching criminals be tortured?
this litany of fancy nearly augments the horrible remake of 'crimson and clover' i was just subjected to. and i never NEVER need to hear fucking BOSTON again.