dirty-joose stankhausen

This blog has primarily been about cake but right now it is about some awful, awful shit. Tonight, as I do some nights, I ate at Stevenson, one of many campus dining halls at Oberlin. I looked up the menu in advance and decided, "Sure, this might be okay." Here is the menu. Annotated.

You might notice that there is moussaka listed at the bottom. Moussaka is not my favorite Greek food, but it is Greek food at least so usually better than not-Greek food. I was a little sketched out because there was a strange skin on top of it that I attributed to the potato starch crusting but now I'm not so sure. Below is a picture of this moussaka right before I threw it violently into the trash. 

All the moussaka I've ever had has consisted of eggplant, bechamel and meat. I can accept the lentils as a substitute for meat---actually, the five lentils hiding shamefacedly beneath the blanket of instant mashed potatoes were pretty good. All five of them. But never in my life have I had carrots, potatoes and zucchini in my damned moussaka and I would like to keep it that way. [note: apparently wikipedia says that moussaka can contain the above ingredients. Fuck wikipedia.] The whole damn thing was absolutely tasteless and there wasn't even any fucking eggplant to distract myself with. Apparently the eggplant was balls, too, according to a friend of mine who suggested a grilled cheese with tomato. I ended up eating a plateful of melons and a bite of some bullshit pie.

This was quite possibly the worst thing I have ever put in my face. This was like leftover night at my mother's house if she ever went insane (more insane?) and forgot what salt and spices were like. This was like being given your favorite candy and having it taste like clorox and anal lube. This was like being ass-raped in the face. I usually defend the campus dining services because generally the food is better here than most places, and you do have many choices, but no more. I think I permanently hate food now, thanks to that moussaka. 

I can't even be bothered to be funny because this food was that goddamn bad. I guess I am effectively a fruitarian these days because that's all I can stomach.

Also, carrots are fucking nasty. That is all. 

PS- regarding the notes on the first picture---I was a bit amazed at the concept of a turkey chop, and even though I'm trying to munch roots and leaves mostly these days, I probably should have gone with it. There are no turkeys in Asia, though. At least not naturally. Fuck.

Some bullshit tricky-ass nonsense fucking cake.

So, I don't know if this is really a thing because my mother tells a lot of bullshit stories, but apparently the night before Halloween (October 30th for the mathematically challenged) is called Cabbage Stalk Night. I don't know why, as cabbages have traditionally had very little to do with Halloween as far as I know because they are exceedingly difficult to hollow (hallow? haha) out and put a tea-light in. (Why are they called tea-lights anyway? Are you supposed to hold your tea over them to keep it warm?) But, Cabbage Stalk Night it is. And traditionally, this is the night for youthful pranks (=vandalism) such as egging, papering, pumpkin-destroying and other such fun activities. Personally, I think this was just my mother's excuse for doing horrible things to the neighbors that she didn't like, but it could be a true thing.

Anyway, the point is, someone played a series of horrible tricks on me.

First, I got all dressed up as Little Red Riding Hipster so as to go to what was advertised as a party. In typical fashion, it appeared to be a bunch of people in crappy costumes playing beer pong, while a bunch of really unattractive girls watched. So this was trick number one. Not a party. But I guess there was free beer so not all was a loss.

Then, I went upstairs for some activities, which meant watching the Neverending Story. Which is awesome, and also fine. But then I pissed someone off and we had to leave. By leave, we meant, go downstairs and drink more free beer, and....

...suddenly, I was transfixed. Cake. Lots of cake. Just left sitting on the counter. I asked Hannah if this cake were okay to eat. It was okay to eat it. This is the cake.

As you can see, this is clearly some Bad Cake, or possibly even Bullshit Cake. But we'll get to that. To all outward appearances, and given the circumstances, you can tell this is bullshit cake. It has bullshit Duncan Crocker chocolate icing on it, and is decorated with plain Betty Heinz bullshit-vanilla icing. I was taken in by the pretty colors of the candy on top, and the sparkling sugar, and thus I neglected to register what was going on. I ate a bite of the cake---about what I expected but actually rather moist and not godawful though I was a bit drunk. Working my way inward I encounter a candy, which I begin to chew.

OMFG that's a goddamn fucking chewy sparkly skittle!! Who in their right fucking mind, I don't care if Martha Stewart and Paula goddamn Deen stayed up all night smoking PCP and scissoring....fCUK, WHY WOULD YOU PUT A FUCKING SKITTLE ON A CHOCOLATE FUCKING CAKE?!!?!?
This is worse than tuna noodle casserole. This is worse than a strawberry and mayonnaise jell-o parfait. (This was a real recipe in a 70s cookbook I had.) Schizophrenics know not to eat skittles and chocolate, and I had one try to cook a pine tree in the middle of my kitchen once. This was fucking awful. That's when I looked around and saw this:

This is abandoned cake.

Abandoned cake. Cake left sad and alone, slowly hardening in the brisk fall air, left by 19 year old girls alongside half-finished beers (shortly thereafter finished), sad under the harsh glow of cheap fluorescent lighting. This cake had been left to die. As well it should have. Were this cake in Sparta, it would be considered retarded and left on a windswept cliff for better or for worse. This cake would have been merely rather bad cake, but the skittles and insanity of those who perpetrated this wrong upon the world have downgraded this poor cake to Supreme Bullshit Nonsense Cake. 

Don't fucking put skittles on your cake. Evan and Hannah agree.

This is bullshit cake.

I spat out my skittles along with a portion of uneaten cake, as did Evan (my roommate). We still ate at least another piece of cake each, but were careful to remove all skittles in advance. 

Later Hannah found an orange gumdrop in hers. Seriously, girls, WTF? I know you're young and in college and all, but really? Really?

The night went on to include Hannah and Evan playing beer pong. 

Note another piece of abandoned cake in the front there. Sometime during the course of this game, Evan appears to be losing and announces, "You know, if I ever lost, my father-"

"Lost at what?"

"Anything. My father said he would TAKE AWAY all my clothes...and RAPE me."

The evening ends with Evan drawing a rather good caricature of Hannah on the wall.

See? Also, Hannah explained why Evan is trying to destroy her pink bug person with a giant airplane cock missle, but I can't really see it here. It made perfect sense at the time.

Kinda.

Anyway, the evening finally wrapped up with some sort of epic fail. I don't remember what it was, but there is photographic evidence.

The moral of the story is, on Cabbage Stalk Night, do not eat random cake without first thoroughly examining it for bullshit. That would have been a great cake memory, because any found cake generally is good cake. But for the skittles. I've been hating on skittles my whole life and now I know it was all in anticipation of this moment. You can't just sneak skittles into shit. They're not fucking raisins.

If you were expecting anything meaningful

...I'm sorry to disappoint. Stay tuned. Coming will be either a humorous review of palm trees, myself at 2 years old trying to use the toilet, or stories about elementary school.

But right now I'm pretty damned broken.

-TCKH

I am also an idiot.

Apparently, I am not being ignored. From what I can gather, Best Friend is somewhere that he cannot reach me, probably jail, as his phone is disconnected.

This is totally stupid. I hate stuff.

More melancholia.

I was going to make this mostly a humorous blog with fun things, but let's face it: I'm not always a lot of fun.

I am prone to fits of melancholy, and I say things that are hurtful and mean and inconsiderate pretty much all the time. I can't really help it. I'm better than I used to be, but I still run off at the mouth and make people feel like hell. It is related to the fact that I tend to set all my hopes and plans on one thing, and when it doesn't happen it often feels as though it's the end of the world, even though it obviously isn't. I think this is a typical characteristic of people with Asperger's syndrome. The contemporary view of AS is of slightly quirky, funny people with strange habits and obsessions, but it's not only like that. AS means you are almost constantly annoyed by life. It's not cute, and those of us that have enough coping mechanisms to seem normal almost have it worse than those who don't, because our disability isn't as obvious and we just end up looking like contentious assholes.

The other part that sucks is the near-total inability to understand others' motivations and emotions. I read emotions that aren't there, and I miss obvious ones frequently. This will never change; there is absolutely nothing I can do about this. I can't tell where boundaries are; I can't figure out why things are sometimes one way and sometimes another. Those of us with AS are creatures of habit. We are mostly unchanging in our feelings and ideas about things. This is why, I think, I get along better with cats than with people. Here is a list of why cats are like people with AS:

1. Like to have alone time to recharge.
2. Very choosy about being touched.
3. Get upset if routines are changed or things are moved.
4. Annoyed/startled by loud noises, sudden movement, unexpected events.
5. Eye contact is aggressive/ to be avoided.
6. Easily fascinated by spinning things and moving objects.
7. Strike out when overloaded.

I'm sure there are more, but that's what was immediately in my head.

This was supposed to be about why I'm an ass and not a giant list of excuses for my behavior. It's hard, though. I've been told all my life I'm cold, lazy, unmotivated, unresponsive, and that I'm wrong for all of these things and I don't know. Is it my fault or is it the AS? I have so much guilt, and I feel like I'm constantly having to examine everything I do in great detail to see where I've gone wrong. This is why I'm better off alone. I should just focus on the damn harpsichord and stop bothering other people, because that's really all I do unless I keep a great distance between myself and others. I deserve solitude.

I GOT SOME MOTHERFUCKING CAKE!!!!

Today still sucks, and tomorrow will suck, and the next day will suck, and then Saturday will also suck because it involves a ten hour car ride, BUT:

I GOT CAKE!!!


It wasn't the best cake ever, but it was okay cake. Fuck, any cake is better than no cake. Except grocery store birthday cake where you have to surgically excise the icing (which consists largely of Crisco and sugar) and then you don't enjoy the cake part anyway. You poke at the icing in a desultory fashion and squoosh it on your plate and try eating little bites of it, but nothing changes the fact that it is bullshit icing and is made of hydrogenated fuck-you.

Here is a picture of my cake. There is also a pear, because I fucking love pears almost as much as I love cake.

Here is a close up of the cake that I ate.

You will notice that it looks like two pieces of cake because it is. I realized this three bites into it. I took off the top piece and ate that with my hands and then saved the bottom piece for later. This was good cake. I left it on the festive paper Thanksgiving plate because I didn't feel like it deserved glass as it appeared to be bullshit cake, but it was not bullshit cake. It had nuts and raisins, and was nicely spiced...all it was missing was carrots and cream cheese frosting and then it would have been The Best Cake, but I'm not bitching. The frosting appeared to be homemade as well, as it had kind of a shitty texture, but at least it wasn't made of Crisco and hate.

UPDATE: You may have been wondering where I got cake. Well, I think this upgrades it from good cake to pretty good cake, because I did not have to leave the house. My mother brought it back from some drunken golf-lady party, and left it for me on the counter.  cake - effort= pretty good cake. (but, cake^groceryStore=bull*shit)

This is a black, black day.

This is not funny, or cheerful, or about cake.

My best friend, to whom I am probably unhealthily devoted (and whom I have also just insulted on facebook because I'm a shit), is not done with his fucking court case. It has been continued roughly a million times (read: three) and I feel really fucking sad for him because his life kinda sucks a bit right now. At least he's not in jail. But he still might (although not likely) have to go to jail in a month. I was hoping we'd be able to go back to Ohio, and go see Guided By Voices whom I consider to be pretty alright but he calls fucking awesome, so I respect that. Anyway. 

I'm sorry I spazzed at you, Best Friend. I miss you lots and I love you more than cake. A lot more than cake.

...actually, I guess this is still kind of about cake.

This is a sad me.