Ami's Journal

Yesterday I went to the store and got some groceries. I bought a jar of some fancy kind of cinnamon applesauce that looked really good. I could hardly wait to try it when I got home. But when I went to open the jar, the lid wouldn't budge no matter how hard I tried to turn it. I used the dish towel to get a better grip but it still wouldn't move. I ran it under hot water but that didn't work either. I banged it on the counter but still, no luck. I had to take periodic breaks when my hands hurt too much to keep going. But then I'd go back to it after a few minutes to try again. After about half an hour of this, I started wondering if I was just going to have to take it back to the store and tell them I couldn't get it open. That seemed kind of ridiculous though. Not to mention embarrassing. But I didn't want to throw it away unopened either. In a fit of exasperation, I decided to try one last time. I gave it everything I had. My hands were burning and my face was red from pushing the lid as hard as I could. Finally it yielded and I got the jar open. I tasted the applesauce. It was pretty good. But not that good.

Ami's Journal

I routinely run in the morning before work. But this morning I got a late start. It was really warm and humid outside. As soon as I got home from my run, I had to hop in the shower and get dressed in a hurry so I could make it to work on time. When I got out of the shower, I was still sweating. I waited as long as I could to try to cool off before I put on my nice work clothes. But I was still sweating a little when I got in my car to go to work. It reminded me of what summer in Austin is like.

Ami's Journal

Last weekend I went to Washington D.C. to visit my sister and meet up with a friend of mine who was there for a conference and who I hadn't seen for a long time. I stayed in a hotel room with my friend but I didn't get any sleep because she kept me up every night with her loud and erratic snoring. At one point, when she got up to go to the bathroom, I said to her, "man, you are snoring like a freight train!" She said, "good, that means I'm sleeping." I thought that was a really mean thing for her to say given how sleep deprived I was by then because of her. When she fell back to sleep and started snoring again, I had to fight a strong urge to smother her with the extra pillows.

Ami's Journal

Today I wore a pair of shoes to work that I had only worn once before. As I was walking from my car to my office building, I noticed that the heels on the shoes felt funny. I remember thinking that I had noticed the same thing the only other time I had worn them before. When I got to the exit of the parking garage and was on the sidewalk just about to cross the street to get to my building, I slipped on something and fell. I got up right away and a woman getting out of her car nearby said, "are you all right?" "Oh, I'm fine," I said while trying to recover at least a modicum of dignity. Then the woman said, "your heel is broken." And I looked down to see that indeed it was. I decided to go home quickly to get another pair of shoes. But first I had to hobble back to my car with only one functional shoe and blood dripping from both knees. So much for dignity.

Ami's Journal

This week there is a huge music festival going on where I live that takes place every year. People and bands travel here from all over the world and pretty much take over just about everywhere in town. It's easy to tell who is part of the whole thing. They all seem to be trying really hard to look cool and trying even harder to seem like they're not trying. In theory I think the music festival is a neat thing and I want to be excited about it. But the reality of a lot of it makes me want to hurl. Even so, I have managed to see some good shows and score a ton of swag and booze without paying one red cent for any of it so I guess it's not all bad.

Ami's Journal

Once a year, Starbuck's gives away coffee for free. Today was free coffee day at Starbuck's. When I got to work, my whole office building was being evacuated for some reason and everyone had to go wait outside. I decided to go to Starbuck's to get my free coffee since there is one only a block away from where I work. By the time I got to Starbuck's and ordered my coffee, I was pretty excited. The girl at the counter said, "that will be $1.62." I said, "I thought today was free coffee day." Then she said, "that doesn't start until 10:00." I ended up paying for my coffee because I didn't feel like going back in an hour just to save $1.62. I will try to remember to wait until 10:00 next year though.

Ami's Journal

Yesterday I had plans to be really productive and get a lot done. By the end of the day, however, I realized that it was time to go to bed and I had not accomplished much. I tried to rationalize that it was because of the lost hour due to daylight saving time. But mostly I knew that I had just been lazy.

Ami's Journal

Today I went to Barton Springs for a while. On the way home, I decided to stop at the grocery store to get a few things. When I got to the store, it occurred to me that I didn't have my wallet. I did have $15.00 in the console of the car though. At the checkout counter, the guy rang up my items and they came out to $15.66. I told him I only had $15.00 and needed to put something back. But he said, "don't worry about it, I got you covered."

Ami's Journal

Click here for the backstory to Ami's Journal. (nice how I linked from my blog to my blog, huh?)

Here is post number 2:

Today is trash collection day in my neighborhood. I was really tired last night and went to bed early. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I realized that I had forgotten to take the trash can out to the curb. I got up and put on the shoes near my bed, which were the dress shoes I had worn to work. Then I went outside in my pajamas to take out the trash. After I got back into bed, I had a little bit of a hard time falling asleep.

Ami's Journal

When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, there appeared in the weekly student newspaper a comic strip called, Jim's Journal. It was created by Scott Dikkers, who is one of the founders of The Onion.

It's difficult to describe Jim's Journal. It's really just a description of the mundane features of everyday life as told from the perspective of the protagonist, Jim.

Unlike The Onion, which is overtly crass and smart and funny as hell, Jim's Journal is understated and soft and quiet. It, too, is humorous but in a dry-as-a-bone and subtly poignant way. People seem to either love Jim's Journal or they just don't get it. I love it.

Here is an example of some representative Jim's Journal comic strips. (Click on the arrows to the right of each strip to scroll through them...)

It surprises me how often I am reminded of Jim's Journal by incidental things that people say or little vignettes of everyday life. It occurred to me recently that a good way to keep up my now almost defunct blog when I don't have anything profound to say might be to post a Jim's Journalesque entry. But mine, of course, would be Ami's Journal, so as not to violate any copyright laws. And also because my name is Ami.

Unfortunately, Ami's Journal will not have illustrations to enhance the text. But all posts will be based on actual events. So that's pretty much it by way of explanation. Here's the inaugural entry:

Today I took my secretary out to lunch. When we got to the restaurant, I suggested that we eat outside because it was a nice sunny day. My secretary said she had never eaten outside before and was a little freaked out by it. I laughed and told her that it's great to sit outside and that I couldn't believe she never had before. A little later, while she was eating her salad, a big grackle took a poop right on her head. "I don't know if I like eating outside," she said.