I never thought I would ever purchase SPAM. I never believed I would ever EVER willingly purchase this meat-ish I-have-no-idea-what-to-categorize-it.

But there I was out on Saturday with Catherine and company at the Pasadena Souplantation and then walking around Lake Ave. Then it hit me: I WANT KIMCHI FRIED RICE!!! WITH SPAM!!!!!! I went grocery shopping after leaving Pasadena, and in the canned meats section there I picked up a can of SPAM. I still can’t believe it.

On Sunday, I did make the kimchi fried rice with SPAM. And I made it again last night. I think SPAM just might become a semi-regular ingredient for me.

How did this happen? Is it because of I’m around Koreans all the time? Well, at least I’m not drinking instant coffee. Yet. Or going to church.

I would say this job has officially started to mess with my mind. I have never really cooked Korean food before besides the processed stuff that would come in packages.

On Thanksgiving night I was looking for a recipe for Army Base stew (Bu Dae Jji Gae -부대찌개), a Korean dish that features hot dogs, Spam, meats, kimchi, noodles and other assorted good things. I then got sucked into Maangchi’s YouTube channel, a 40-something Korean lady in New York City who cooks Korean food. Recipe after recipe after recipe I watched in a trance, drooling despite having just had Thanksgiving dinner mere hours ago.

So last night I decided to make one of my favorite childhood dishes that I would only get when we went to a Korean-style Chinese restaurant: Fried chicken in a sweet and spicy garlic sauce (Kkan Poong Chicken – 깐풍 Chicken.) That involved going to the Korean market and buying ingredients for that and other dishes that I want to cook. The checkout clerk thought it funny that a non-Korean would be buying cellophane noodles, rice syrup, potato starch, fermented soy bean paste and other Korean staples.

Anyhow I made my beloved 깐풍기, and it actually came out pretty well. I would probably add more veggies and sauce and made it spicier, but it ended up tasting pretty good. I’ll make some Japchae 잡채 this weekend.

I’m blaming all of this on working at a Korean company. Yes. It’s their fault.

I am one of the unfortunate souls who had to come into work the Friday after Thanksgiving. This is the very first time in my 37 years that I had to work on this day. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I had to cover a game or cover a Santa Anita meet once? Hm.

Well, let me take that back. This is the first time in my 37 years that I had to work at a job that I’m not terribly happy to be at on the day after Thanksgiving. Yeah, that sounds more accurate.

All this means is that I did not wake up this morning, immediately turn on Netflix and binge-watch the Gilmore Girls right as I was getting my coffee started. I will have to wait until I leave work, go to the grocery store and cook dinner and other mundanities before I can properly settle down (jeez, just reading that sentence makes me realize how boring this job makes me and now I want to commit suicide.)

I still have an uneasy feeling about the series, however. I don’t want it to go down into the fetid pit of underwhelming codas that most of the other reboots have suffered. I’m looking at you Arrested Development.

• People close to me in my life (family members who have not yet disowned me, friends who are not completely embarrassed by me.)
• Having a job albeit one with not the best pay or the best benefits, but a job nonetheless.
• Artists, writers and musicians who made this year just a tiny bit more bearable for me. It’s really been a shitty fucking year.
• The impending apocalypse thanks to our incoming President.

I honestly don’t know what the proper response to these times are. We see Trump appointing what polite company are calling “alt-right” but what we all know are Nazi cunts to his cabinet. And groups of these small white men are feeling empowered to reveal their racist selves and perform their Nazi salutes and greetings. It’s pretty fucking scary, even for me who can compartmentalize things with the best of them.

Other than what seeps into my consciousness from social media, I really do try and avoid all news about Trump. On Sunday I was watching the local news so I can see just how bad it was raining in other parts of LA. When they opened the hour with news of the Trump transition meetings, I changed channels.

I can’t take it. I know right after the election I was holding out a strand of hope that Trump would not be a complete cuntface, but it seems that he can’t help himself.

So here is me still ignoring things. On a lighter note, the new Gilmore Girls episodes will be released on Friday.

I’ve ridden Metro off and on for years now, and yesterday was the very first time I had to deal with a complete snafu with the trains. At the Willowbrook Blue Line station where I connect to my final train to get to work, there was a train stuck on the southbound track. It looked like there was a power failure with that side of the tracks, so they had to funnel all the traffic to the northbound side of the station. Of course that involved having to shut everything down so they could reprogram the trains.

Then once they got things running, the trains were completely packed like sardine tins. I ended up being 15 minutes late to work, so it wasn’t completely horrible, but still. And it’s not bad considering how often I take the trains and busses that I haven’t experienced this before. I guess it could be worse like up in San Francisco dealing with all the BART system outages or in DC where the Metro catches fire.

While I do like being able to wake up a little later when I take my car, I like how I can just read my book while on the commute on Metro. I’ve decided to take Metro three days of the week and drive twice. That should help a little bit, right?

I think I’ll be taking a road trip to Baton Rouge for Christmas. It’ll probably take me two days to get there, and I’ll probably spend three nights there. It looks like I’ll be checking in to my hotel in Baton Rouge on Christmas Day. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth?

In Louisiana I’ll definitely visit my dad’s and sister’s grave, head down to New Orleans to visit Derrick and Skick, eat tons of food that will probably kill me. Maybe I’ll head down to Grand Isle again while I’m there. Maybe I’ll head down to the delta. Maybe I’ll spend more time in Cajun Country and try and sneak my way into a boucherie as rare as those are nowadays. I’m not quite sure.

Another unknown is which route to take back. I was thinking of driving through rural Mississippi and cutting through Arkansas since I’ve never been through that neck of the woods. Maybe I’ll go back to the Four Corners. Or go to the Rio Grande River Gorge Bridge outside of Taos, NM. Maybe I’ll wind up moving to some hole-in-the-wall town like I always threaten to do.

Maybe I’ll join one of those FLDS cults that are oh so popular along the Utah-Arizona border. Actually, the more I think about it the better I feel about this option. Not only do I get multiple husbands, they can’t cheat on me! It is god’s will that it is this way! Man the psycho wing of the Mormons sure have thought things out.

So many options on this trip, and thankfully there is more than enough time to think about it.

This week I started taking the Metro to work. Initially the thought of having to wake up earlier and get home later seemed a bit daunting, but having done it this week it really isn’t so bad. In fact I’ve been getting home at around the same time I would have been getting home by driving which is great.

My only complaint was that the final train I take to work, the Blue Line, was pretty jam packed on Monday. Like not just standing-room only, but I got someone’s head underneath my armpit type of packed. But I’m only on it for four stops, so I suppose it could be worse. And the rest of the week it hasn’t been nearly that bad.

On the plus side, I’m going up a lot of stairs so I feel like I’m doing actual exercise during the day. And I’m getting a lot of reading done which is much better than staring at the car in front of me and hoping I can make it through the light before it turns red.

I guess you can say I am now living a dream since I dreamed of taking the Metro to work while I was at Hulu.

I woke up still not believing that we have a President Trump. During this whole campaign I insisted that the innate goodness of the American people would not allow this to happen. I don’t know why I dropped my normal veil of cynicism about this, but trust me, I will never do this again.

No one knows what the next four years will look like. No one knows if we will be living under the Fourth Reich, be a satellite state of Russia or be status quo. Looking past all the hyperbole from the campaign that never seemed to end, we just have no idea.

I’m pretty sure the poor are going to get screwed since that’s what usually happens during Republican administrations. And I’m hoping that music and the arts in general will be great since that also is usually what happens under Republican administrations. Although since Trump is more liberal than most republicans who have taken office over the last century, who knows?

I think that’s what really bothers me today. After Bush won, we knew which way he was going to go. After Obama won, we knew. With Trump, the uncertainty is growing this unease like flies to manure.

A thing that bothers me among a lot of my friends is this empty threat of moving out of the country, a chickenshit act of running away when things get a little tough. First of all, most of you won’t leave — you’re just talking shit. Besides I’m more about shouting and fighting for what I believe in. When they start setting up the concentration camps, I’ll leave then. But until then, I’ll fight for my home.

I guess despite my desire to be a completely cynical asshole, I still have a stray bit of optimism left in me.

Well fuck. Boy did I completely misjudge my fellow Amerikkkans.