loose change

when an apple, an orange, and a small bottle of water cost $6.12 at the corner store, i wonder if i should buy the Extra Value Meal for half the price and get fat. and yet, instead of cutting my losses, i round out the $10 bill and buy a dark chocolate ritter sport with marzipan for $2.69. less change that way.

i hate change, but you'd never know it.

underneath my kitchen sink, there is a gallon-size ziploc bag with maybe (rough estimate) $179.50 in quarters, dimes, and sacagaweas. although sacagawea is strikingly wholesome with cheekbones that could cut tofurkey, i am not a fan because, like Wu-Tang, cash rules everything around me (c.r.e.a.m.). or maybe i have a thing for george washington. it's the curly white locks and ruffled blouse. very lagerfeld-esque. perfection.

have you ever been to the penny arcade in commerce bank? it stresses the hell out of me.

i've only been once, way back when i lived in chelsea. first of all, you have this gigantic bag of change in your purse, so you sound like a janitor or santa. then you throw out your back, because you have also decided that it would be a good idea to bring your laundry in at the same time, because you generally like to kill six birds with one stone. then you tell yourself to bring it in. then you get there and it's not in a private little coin dumping room like you thought it would be. no. it's in the main part of the bank, so everyone is standing in line getting ready to deposit big money - upwards of thousands of dollars, maybe even millions! - and they are watching you with your busted bag of change and silently judging you because you look ridiculous and it's four o'clock in the afternoon and you are hungover and your hair is everywhere because it's mid-july and you are wearing a too-big stained sweatsuit, because, LIKE I SAID, you are doing laundry and you're lucky to even have the damn sweatsuit and underwear for that matter. you may or may not have had underwear on actually, it's hard to say. then the machine begins to talk to you and make announcements in a really embarrassing way that is very Price is Right and you have to dump the change in and the coins go all over the place and lint and dust come flying out.

WHAT. A. RACKET.

on an entirely new reservation, since i seem to have gotten off the last one, i am kind of obsessed with this particular ryan adams song that he recorded with the cardinals a couple years back on "jacksonville city heights." the song is called "the hardest part," do you know it? maybe it's old news, but i am in love.

"i could stretch that penny like a silver line
rolling through the pages of my life
underneath your name where it's underlined
i've been turned around
i've been mystified by a true love
and that ain't the hardest part"

*happy 19th bday jaimer the flamer*