July 23
Saturday, Jul. 23, 2016 - 21:10

1. My bike started clicking this week. I was sure the bottom bracket was loose again - it's done this before. The puppy's roommate is gone (as you may have heard) so I took my bike to REI. (Yeah, local bike shops, sure, but every time I go to a local bike shop they're a little snotty to me, and I love the guys at the REI bike shop here, so that's where I always take my bike.) Bruce was all, it could be the pedal, and I was all, I'm sure it's the bottom bracket, it's behaving exactly the same as it did the last time, and Bruce was all, let's swap out the pedals and try that first since that's the easiest fix, and I was all, okay but I'm sure it's the bottom bracket. So he changed the pedals and I took it out to ride and the son of a gun was right! So they swapped my pedals for free et voila, no more clicking.

2. I was texting with the puppy's roommate the other night and I sent him a text asking a bunch of questions and asking him to send a picture of the puppy (send dog pic, I said), and he didn't respond. No response! Fine, I thought, he's being an uncommunicative turd. He gets the puppy all to himself and won't even send me a damn picture. Fine. However, about the same time, I was texting with my BRFs and it stopped working - I'd get an error message every time I tried to send a group text. So I kind of wondered if he'd even gotten my demanding text, although I hadn't gotten an error message. I assumed he'd gotten it and was ignoring it.

The next morning we were texting again and I asked him if he'd gotten my text or if he was just ignoring it. And he said he'd gotten it and HAD sent a dog pic, along with a few other texts that apparently hadn't come through and were sitting in his phone saying "sending".

My assumption that he hadn't responded on purpose was my own assumption that I chose to believe and if I felt bad about it it was my own fault. I could have chosen to believe something else. There's no need for me to choose to believe bad things.

(I got all the texts out of order a couple days later.)

3. I just sent a text exactly in the style of a Donald Trump tweet. Sad!

4. I was listening to the NPR coverage of the Republican convention the other night while pulling into the Wal*Mart parking lot.

Many years ago I bought a khaki skirt. I don't even remember where or when I bought it but I've owned it for probably 15 years. I've loved this skirt. Last year I realized this skirt was nearing the end of its useful life, so I started looking for a replacement skirt. But there's nothing like it anywhere. I looked at the brand the other day. It's Faded Glory. That's a Wal*Mart brand. It would seem that I'd bought the skirt at Wal*Mart. So, just for fun, I decided to go to Wal*Mart's website to see if they perchance had any similar skirts. And they fucking did!!!

So, compelled by my particular sense of fashion, I went out to Wal*Mart the other night for the first time in at least eight years.

I ended up buying two of the skirts. They are skorts. I ended up buying two skorts and I fucking love them so much that I was gushing to the cashier about it. She was not impressed. These are the cutest skorts you've ever seen and I want to order some more from the internet. Every color! I should definitely get the purple and the denim, and the black. You can't wear tights with skorts but I could cut the shorts out because who needs em. I could wear these every single day of the week every single month of the year. I definitely could do that if I owned all nine colors and patterns. I am so happy about this.

On the way out, I walked by a young guy who walked with a cane, we smiled at each other, then he said, hey did you drop this money? Two 20s were on the ground. I had two 20s in my wallet. How the crap did they fall out? I looked at my wallet. It was still zipped. My money was still inside. It wasn't mine. I gave the money to him and said hey, finders keepers, thanks.

I feel bad when I find money, because it means someone lost money. Usually I'm the one losing money.

Anyway, the point of this is that I was listening to the Republican convention coverage, and I felt gross, and then I went to Wal*Mart, and I felt gross, but goddamn those skorts are rad, and actually Wal*Mart is weird but, uh, not as bad as I was imagining it to be. (I know, tell that to the poor little Bangladeshis who made my new skorts that I bought for less than the price of a pair of sporty underwear.)