Don't Be Cruel

if you must get fat
try to do it in Memphis
what a way to go

I'm being sort of cruel to my stomach this week, and my clothes are not getting any looser, but it's all so yummy I really don't care. The staff at the Orpheum theater is providing us with delicious sandwich and various-types-of-salad lunches (someone told the woman who's arranging the food that we like to eat healthy because we're from New York, so I do at least get enough veggies mixed in with Southern deliciousness). Every day, I swear I'm going to take it easy on my digestive system for dinner, and every night, I have a really good reason to forget that foolish midafternoon oath.

Sunday: BBQ chicken nachos on Beale St., at a place that also serves "Big Ass Beer to go"
Monday: pint night at Flying Saucer Draught Emporium
Draught Emporium! $3 pints of GOOD beer!?!? Sign me up! I must really be a Yankee now, 'cause I went for the spinach-artichoke dip and goat cheese pizza, but I did at least try a pecan brown ale from a Mississippi brewery.

Tuesday: Gus' Fried Chicken ...I don't think I've ever bothered to pick the bones that clean. Also, fried pickles.
Wednesday: pizza ... WHAT!?!? I live in New York, and

I came to Memphis and had pizza!? Let me 'splain.

Michelle the Choreographer and I got off early enough this afternoon to go visit Sun Studio, where Elvis was discovered and he and dozens of other important musical figures recorded and still record. We took the tour (highly recommended) and looked at Elvis' cowhide guitar case, social security card, old recording equipment, etc. Awesome. I LOVE ROCK & ROLL. I LOVE AMERICAN MUSIC. THIS IS WHAT I LIVE FOR. You should go there too.

Anyway, I bought some stuff in the gift shop, and as I was paying, a guy walked in with three pizza boxes, from which was emanating the most mouthwatering aroma in the history of BBQ pizza. To paraphrase Liz Lemon, I wanted to go to there. Michelle and I trekked across empty lots and trolley tracks (ok, it was like 2 blocks) to the Trolley Stop Market, where we had some slices, some pale ale from MS, and the best blueberry pie I've had in years.

Tonight, I learned "Don't Be Cruel" on my little 25-key midi controller here in my hotel room, in honor of the King and his city which is making me fat (but very happy).

Racing the Clock

I hate cleaning.  In fact, I hate any exercise that has to be done over and over but doesn't create progress.  Maintenance.  Yechhh. 

Nevertheless, a certain quality of life has to be maintained... I can get by for months tending to dishes, garbage, and very little else, but people do come over to my house for work.  So let's call today triage-plus, where I'll go the extra mile (ok, the extra 500 yards, then) to make my apartment comfortable. 

I will make it a game, Mary Poppins-style, and since I can't have a spoonful of sugar, I'll make up a game called Racing the Playlist.

BATHROOM
The PLAYLIST: Right as Rain by Adele, Raise Your Glass by Pink, No Sleep Til Brooklyn by the Beastie Boys
10 minutes, 46 seconds

The WINNER: the Playlist. 
At least I finished scrubbing the toilet.

The 4-day Pile o' Dishes

KITCHEN
This one will be a project, so I give myself 28:01 worth of Set Fire to the Rain (Adele), F**k You (Cee Lo Green), Blue Suede Shoes (Elvis), Bad Love - yikes, 28 minutes worth of bad love would not be nice - (Clapton), 1 2 3 4 (Feist), Novocaine/She's a Rebel (Green Day), and Maneater (Hall & Oates).

This room harbors a 4-day mountain of dirty dishes (as in, it would take four days to hike to the top), an archaeologically-interesting fridge, and various other yet-to-be-discovered kitchen detritus.  Triage indeed.  Do I treat the dishes that are about to give me a stroke, the pile of mail that is bleeding out through the stomach, or the gangrenous fridge? 

The WINNER: draw.

I was just dumping the last pile of floor dust into the garbage as Maneater repeated and faded out.  It was a good stopping point.  The gangrenous fridge will have to wait.

So now we're down to the rooms that don't get smelly.
LIVING ROOM 

10 minutes is it for now.  I refuse to do any more. 

The PLAYLIST
All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You (Heart), Sex Machine (James Brown), Wave of Mutilation (the Pixies).  10:01.

...Um, please don't read too much Freudian stuff into that playlist. 

The WINNER: the Playlist. 
AUGHGHGHHGHH!!! 

BEDROOM:
Much of my living room cleaning involved throwing handbags of various sizes into my bedroom, where I will now put them in a pile and deal with the more urgent piles of dirty laundry.  Again, 10 minutes.  But let's pick songs whose titles hint a little less at S&M, shall we?

The PLAYLIST
Roxanne (the Police) and Love For Sale (Ella Fitzgerald).  Guess I'll exchange S&M for prostitution and try to get the thing over with in 9 minutes, 7 seconds. 

The WINNER: me!

I didn't make my bed, but that seems a fruitless exercise for a time-poor single lady, and I finished ten seconds before Ella was done mournfully plying her wares on the 9th scale degree. 

End note to belabor my point about pointlessness, and salute all the people in the world who do this FOR OTHER PEOPLE WITHOUT PAY (moms etc. - belated thanks, mom): when I cleaned out my bag from yesterday, I found my dirty lunch dishes.  Dammit!!! I HATE CLEANING!!!!!