$330

-A man behind me on the train spent the entire, I mean entire trip on his phone to various parties, loudly complaining that a business deal he's involved in that he thought was confidential was in fact known by some other party. The gist of his grievance was that someone apparently couldn't keep things quiet. The irony of all of this was apparently lost on dude, but it at least gave me something to contemplate while transferring info from footnotes to the bibliography.

-Last night I had the ultimate Cheapness Studies anxiety dream. In it, I was in Lululemon, trying on shorts. I was in the store, in the dream, because, in this dream, I was an employee at a store (as if they'd hire me, given my yoga-skepticism), and therefore had some kind of discount. In any case, in the dream, I somehow accidentally ended up purchasing some shorts, even though they didn't fit right (just ill-fitting - not too big or too small; my subconscious's body image is apparently not the problem), and lo and behold, somehow after buying them, I learned that they were not returnable and had cost $330. Yes, it was an exact amount. That was the amount. For shorts! Would you believe it? I mean, you shouldn't believe it, because I just looked this up and shorts at that store are in the $40-$50 range. Not cheap, but not $330, either. But I was so upset that I had just spent that much on shorts I wouldn't even be able to wear, which was indeed foolish, or would have been, had I done so.

-There is - how had I not seen this? - a YouTube channel that is a Japanese cooking show "narrated" by a little gray poodle. Basically, it's as if Bisou had a cooking show. Which was how I got hooked. But the show itself is also kind of great, even after you get past the how-is-that-poodle-not-charging-at-that-salmon angle. (But how? Editing? Lots of salmon being treated off-camera?) It's on the one hand from-scratch, but on the other, completely unpretentious. It's not about getting the finest ingredients. It's largely about blotting every ingredient off with a paper towel, dusting everything off in potato starch, and having dashi stock ready at all times. There's even advice in one video to coat salmon fillets with sake in order to get rid of the fishy smell. Thereby acknowledging the reality of... ingredients, I suppose. The ones one might actually get at the supermarket. Well, the Asian supermarket. H-Mart, here I come.