Pondering existential matters and dead batteries

My life today is about dead cars and unplugged phones and missed deliveries and weedy yards and shiny floor surfaces (all the above required my attention).

How can that overwhelm anyone? Thay're just things and boring things at that. And yet..

Overheard

My first post from the loft (dial-up). I am sitting here mulling over bits and pieces of conversation overheard at a loft party. What do I make of all this? I catch the following:

They are harmless, harmless! But they move fast. I don't kill them, I capture them in a cup and set them free (a propos house centipedes, occasionally seen scurrying around on the warehouse brick walls)...

...I moved here from California and so I am used to basically subsisting on Tader Joe's. No, I will not shop at Willie Street Co-op. I don't care if it's equidistant (to Whole Foods). I went there this week and everything was wheat free or gluten free. What the hell is wrong with wheat? It's not as if we kill anyone to eat wheat. And I bought eggos. Okay so I like eggos. The bagger was actually frowning at this. I want eggos sans commentary!

I happen to know the private number to some pretty important people at Trader Joe's. I called them and said -- help! I've been in Wisconsin two weeks now and I am running out of things to eat! Can you tell me please when your store is moving here? Last quarter of 2006?? I'll starve!

So Nina, when I heard you're moving in to these lofts, I thought: holy crap, I read her blog. I should mention, I have my own blog. In fact, you link to it. You shouldn't -- I'm sort of quitting writing.

...Sure you can hear the noise of your neighbors! But think of it -- you'll be walking distance to campus. You're downtown.

The brick dust? It's not really dust, it's grit. If you wipe it off the surfaces that abut the walls daily, you should be fine.

They're great lofts, they really are!

Maybe it's like New Yorkers listing faults with the city they love to hate and hate when others talk dismissively of it. Many here are actually from NY or the environs. Maybe after all the flecks of tar, the house centipedes, the brick dust get cleared up with the coming of winter, we'll find ourselves wishing there was something else to wail about. Because really, if you want a quiet ride, you can move to the suburbs. You will not be disappointed. Plenty of quiet there. Yawn.