k-prizzy took me on errands yesterday, the first week of a regular deal by which she takes me on errands every tuesday and i buy her lunch. it was heavenly. full disclosure: i can’t drive.

we went to:

• economy paint

  mis-tints are your best value, but maybe i got the not-perfect color for the chroma key screen i’m installing in the shop. “oh well”.

• micheal’s in white city

  there’s usually some cool artsy girl archetype working but there wasn’t yesterday. they always ask for my zip code and i always say “90120″, which is, i think, a perfect response, because it’s good to resist or at least question the constant harvesting of personal data, but if you say “no, you can’t have my zip code”, then it’s a big production. giving obvious false information is great because it’s points out that it totally doesn’t matter, and you show distain for the system, but it’s light and fun, and at a person to person level, really no one cares. the last time i was at michael’s the lady (who was the archetype) said “really?” and i told her “hey, everyone lives in hollywood nowadays”. let’s you say that 90210 is actually beverly hills, let’s me say that the idea “beverly hills” exists in the idea “hollywood”.

  micheal’s is in the same plaza as the 24 hour dunkin donuts, which is a really good scene, and the bodybuilder burrito store with the tribal tat menus. there’s also an “iParty”, which is a funny name for something that has nothing to do with computers. it’s just plastic animals that you can put in your pocket. actually i’ve never done this but i always think about it.

• the dumb supermarket

  the trick to supermarkets is to only buy things from the periphery- produce, dairy, bread. everything in the middle is a vast wasteland of vast waistbands. although it’s always worth it to go to the cereal aisle and treat it like an art gallery (and for this the best supermarket is the price hopper, which has really good generic brands with good stupid names). the shaws at white city (possibly all shaw’ses) redesigned to compete with the trader joe’s across the way and now has a few “mini sstores” inside the larger stores, where they parse out “natural” and “ethnic” foods from the stock and display them in areas separate from everything else, with particular lighting and design elements (wood grain vinyl floors in the “natural” section is particularly appropriate). maybe it works, but when you’re trying to compare prices and four different cans of black beans are in “natural”, “ethnic >> latin american” “foods of the world >> mexico”, and “miscellaneous”, come on.

• dollar forever

  dollar stores have the best names, even though this one is patently false– more than a year ago they changed to a “dollar and up” store. hmmph! anyway, they have the best dvds, which are so cheap to make that tons of movies that never saw a video release are getting dumped on the market at a phenominal rate. lots of kung fu, spanish-language singing westerns, really old cartoons, and old sci-fi horror. perfect! yesterday i got a luchador / robot movie with a totally totally 100% bananas “rock” sequence by a band called “shadow of the beast”. it looks like they were recording a bunch of nonsense just to drop a tite instrumental over in post, then forgot. everybody’s waving everything around for two minutes, then ssomehow it really falls to shit, and you hear someone in the background say (in english) “stop the rock!”. almost everyone drops out, then the drummer says in a vincent price voice (again, in english) “when the music changes… SO DO I!” and things get way wiggy again fast. definitely worth $1.05! i forget what the movie was called but i remember fake translating the title as “lunch with the feet”, so put that in your translator. backwards… and i’m in! oh, i also got stuff for the store…

• ben franklin used books

  yes, i went to sell books from HBML, that were kind of boring and kind of nice, that i thought no one who came into the store would want. is that so wrong? ben franklin’s is the best bookstore in worcester, and i would say this even if there were another bookstore in worcester. there are cats that roam around, classical music on the radio, lots of art books and a GREAT occult section. working there was my first real job, and the first job i ever quit (but amicably so). times are tough for bookstores, so i didn’t get cash for the books, only credit, which is inideal, but is also a perfect way to engage a quasi-frivlous pleasure in exhaustive monographs and privately-published daemonic encyclopaedias.

• tech pizza

  every tuesday a small pizza in the greek / new england style is $2.50, so every tuesday it’s like montparnasse. well, except that instead of painters it’s skaters and instead of talking about surrealísme they’re talking about how to rationalize a hickey to your mom (consensus: paintball accident). your best drink option is a tall ‘zona from the convience store down the street.

every tuesday errand regimen! you know, it’s the little things?