Act natural

( Friday, Aug. 23, 2002 10:31 pm )

>Morbid curiosity and mango ice cream

Yesterday as planned Juney and I made it to the Mutter Museum of Disgusting Things or whatever it was called. It was a lot of exhibits about infectious diseases and then a couple big rooms of really, really awful specimens collected in the 19th and early 20th century. Oh my lord. I have a morbid interest in skeletons, and I was pleased to learn that somebody had once swallowed a perfect attendance pin, but the rest, oh my. I could only take so many medical oddities before I had to retreat to the room of information regarding presidential ailments and deaths (ie George Washington had a carbuncle. Fascinating! Actually fascinating was the stuff about FDR, who was on his last legs what with all that Great Depression and WWII yet still ran for a fourth term, dying right after Yalta. OK, maybe that's not fascinating. I do love FDR though, I even went to his house at Hyde Park--there's a great brewery across the street that Stinky and I went to one night last year.) Anyway, I also saw a very pregnant woman in the museum, and I can only wonder what possessed her to go look at case upon case of fetuses with birth defects on a Thursday afternoon. Or what possessed me to do it for that matter. I felt pretty dirty coming out of there.

Anyway, afterwards we walked around the Rittenhouse Square area for a while. We were sitting in the square (possibly in Bike Messenger's Corner, it seemed like), and a guy actually started a conversation with me, although not in the most winning way: he noticed my hideous moving-in bruises on my legs and came up with the following brilliant line: "Ma'am? Are you a professional wrestler?" I was all like, "Yeah, I am. How did you know?" thinking it was perhaps a humorous comment playing off my skinniness. Then he mentioned the bruises. Oh well. Way to try to pick up on someone by pointing out what they're most self-conscious about. Anyway he offered to take on "my boyfriend" if he was beating me, which is also so charming, but I did not take the bait. Luckily, as it proved, since he took out a guitar a moment later. There was also a good-looking, possibly British, art-studenty guy working at the art supply store on Broad St., but I couldn't talk to him. I got no game, man.

Anyway, June and I proceeded to go home, get drunk for no good reason, and eat pasta and watch Say Anything and moan over Lloyd's general goodness. Good day.

Today proved to be pretty lame-ass. We didn't do anything except sit on the stoop. The real big moment that gave this day meaning was that we walked 12 blocks to the Indian buffet. It was so delicious. I ate chicken tikka masala and naan until I exploded, and then I had some mango ice cream. Oh my my. While I can cook up a mean pot of Rice a Roni, the goodness of this meal was positively life-affirming. I like to eat, have I ever mentioned that?

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