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it's a cold and wet monday morning. as with any good rainstorm, my street always gets flooded. cars going around the turn looked like they were unsuccessfully auditioning for the duck tour. i stood on my front steps and watched for a few minutes. with a shake of the wrist i popped open my umbrella and went to work. on the train a deranged man was saying hi to everyone who got on and told us we were all a member of his happy family. years of riding the T has perfected my skill to ignore these kind of distractions. when the man got off at harvard square, the person whom i was sitting next to was looking around, trying to garner reassuring "hey, that was weird" looks from the other passengers. i kept my stone-faced countenance. work, all sorts of deadline today. i was in the front room by myself for the first part of the day, i could hear everyone else in the other room laughing and having a good time, telling weekend stories without me. i looked out the window: rain, cars, pedestrians. they fixed the road finally, last week they stripped it, but now it was covered in a brand new asphalt coating, specially treated so rain water rolled off its surface like a huge sheet of plastic. i would've gone out running despite the rain (it had mostly stopped by then), but i was too hungry and didn't want to pass out along the river. i wasn't very imaginative so i went with a order of smelly tofu for lunch, my version of comfort food. the woman seemed to recognize me this time when i went to pick up my takeout 15 minutes later.

i decided it'd be lasagna night when i got home. i make a detour to star market to get some ingredients. i went looking for the passion fruit juice i got last week but it was nowhere to be found; apparently only the porter square star market sells it. maybe i should shop there more often instead of the star market across the street from where i live. when i got home i made a quick phone call to wired to complain about my magazine not arriving ever since i renewed. i got them to reimburse me for the 3 missing months. i moved the groceries to the kitchen and started cooking. the thing about lasagna is although it's pretty easy to make, it takes a long time. i got home around 7:30pm and i didn't eat until 10pm. the good thing is i have lasagna leftovers that'll last me for the rest of the week. i also did a load of laundry, running out of clean clothes. i cooked in my underwear, which felt very liberating, and imagined a cooking show where people cooked in their underwear as well, to keep their nice clothes from getting splattered. when it was all done, i scooped out a cube of lasagna, all sloppy and falling apart, but a satisfying meal nonetheless.