Ever since I got this comment, I have been pondering the strange allure of boys who work at Trader Joe's. Is it the t-shirts? The wholesomeness? The fact that if you dated one you could probably get all the pumpkin butter you could ever want?

I recently discovered that the boys of Trader Joe's are much nicer when you are a girl shopping on your own rather than a girl shopping with her boyfriend. Thus, the very surly TJ's boy actually smiled and chatted with me about the spice-bread supplies I was buying. The TJ's boy from Spain told me about his Daylight Savings mix-up. And last week, the very eager TJ's boy ran across the parking lot to help me load groceries in my car.

"Oops. Your registration is almost expired," he said.

"Yup." I wondered why he was checking out my license plate.

"Well, it's a Toyota, so you shouldn't have any trouble passing the smog check."

"That's true." At this point I was trying to quickly load the bags into the backseat because I'm never totally comfortable with chivalrous assistance from strangers. It makes me feel too girly and indebted. I also didn't know what to say to the eager TJ's boy. So I tried to grab two bags at once, but he stopped me.

"One at a time, one at a time. We have all the time in the world...."

I giggled nervously and loaded the bags one at a time. Then I thanked him and he ran back across the parking lot, pushing the cart in front of him.

Being a Trader Joe's boy would be the perfect ruse if you were a creepy stalker. They are so nice and harmless, the bearers of blocks of Ghiradelli chocolate, reasonably-priced cheeses and $2 wine. How could they ever hurt anyone?

I am sick (a weird, early-summer cold) and it has been hot, triggering a flea outbreak in my room. Ugh. So I spent the day on the island of my bed, drinking water, reading magazines and sweating, trying to avoid walking across the carpet.

A woman in the apartment building next door always wakes me up with her yelling whenever I try to sleep in. She yells at her kids, she yells at her husband. She seems incapable of speaking in a normal voice. I found out from the girl who used to live in my room that one of her sons is autistic and that is how she excuses her yelling -- she can't communicate with him otherwise. Sometimes it makes my stomach hurt.

I always seem to live next to crazy yelling people. In my first apartment, there was a couple who lived on the other side of the fence behind the house, in a pile of junk. Really. There was junk piled waist-high all around the building -- I remember a really great red bike, some crazy board games, an oversized Oscar trophy, tires and tires and tires. They used to fight all the time, usually about how he had disappointed her. She had left Sweden to be with him and their life was a disappointment. He would tell her she should have gone off with that other guy and she would agree. I imagined her as haggard but still beautiful. When I actually saw them she was nothing of the sort -- they both had strange, extremely pear-shaped bodies and their skin hung loose and gray from their enormous frames. She had brown frizzy hair. He was bald. They shuffled slowly through the junk and yelled. One day -- I can't even remember when -- she was gone. And that was the end of the yelling.

At my last place, there was a shady apartment building next door and a terrifying yelling girl lived in the apartment closest to my bedroom window. She used to wake me up past midnight with her angry demands that her mom find "my fuckin' pager." Once I saw her poking her head out the window and knew I would never do anything about her yelling -- her gargantuan, acne-scarred face was too frightening. So I lived through the time I heard her call an eight-year-old girl a "little whore," I ignored her penchant for watching movies at an insanely high volume, I pretended I didn't hear her 2AM screaming phone fights. And lived to tell about it.

I am in love with the world right now.

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Jurassic Technology,* something I've been wanting to do since I first heard about it six years ago. It's basically a big collection of oddities, but not like Ripley's Believe It or Not -- it's more eclectic and thoughtful. My favorite things were the microminiature sculptures (Goofy on the tip of a needle!), the X-ray photos of flowers (ghostly and beautiful; I especially loved the calla lily), the trailer park exhibit, the letters to the Mt. Wilson Observatory ("This is to certify, That I have found the Key To all Existance. And all I ask of any one Is for them to read What I am about to say") and this creepy, wonderful ferris-wheel-like contraption covered in bells that was rotating intermittently in one of the back rooms.

After the museum, I drove to Venice Beach and ate a strawberry ice cream cone while watching the waves and wiggling my toes in the sand and blowing my still-drippy nose. I didn't even mind the traffic on the way home. I chose a route I've never driven before, Venice all the way east, and along the way I passed a huge old cemetary I've never seen before. It was cool and green, standing in the shadows of downtown LA.

Today I went to Little Tokyo to buy a birthday gift for my friend and found something perfect at Utsuwa No Yakata, one of my very favorite stores. There was something satisfying about watching the cute women who work there wrap the box perfectly and stick an origami crane on top. Then I bought a scoop of mango ice cream that turned out to be the hugest scoop ever and as I wandered outside with it, an old Japanese lady in a sun hat asked me gleefully, "Are you going to eat ALL that ice cream?"

"I guess I have to!" I said and she laughed.

I walked down the shady side of the street and passed a middle-aged couple. "That looks good!" said the woman. "It is!" I said.

In a tiny vintage store, I bought a shirt and was helped by a punk rock Japanese guy in nerd glasses. He was exceedingly polite, spoke broken English and was rocking out to AC/DC. He also had braces.

Do you see why I'm in love right now?

*If you are interested in the museum, this book is about the man who established it. He won a genius grant. I want a genius grant!

I often get irritated at Word's spelling and grammar check (I like sentence fragments sometimes, okay?), but sometimes I learn something new. Such as: I had no idea "soymilk" was one word instead of two. Same with "nametag." Huh.

(Psst...I'm writing a story about a Trader Joe stalker. Can you tell?)

Last week I was listening to KXLU during my morning commute and heard an interview with Andrew WK. I thought it was going to be some kind of ironic thing because, judging from his glowering picture plastered around town and that weird song about partying hard, he seemed like a joke.

But listen: Andrew WK is amazing.

He is one of the most earnest, enthusiastic and thoughtful people I have ever heard. If you are an Andrew WK fan, you are super lucky because he will love and pamper you for the duration of your fanhood. He is the cure for the annoyingly-disaffected-rock-star blues. Just look at his website and read his advice column -- do you see? He doesn't want to do lots of girls or buy shiny cars or star in a movie with Renee Zellweger (though I don't doubt he would enjoy all those things and do them with unfailing enthusiasm); more than anything, he just wants to make people happy and that is awesome. He's going to have a TV show soon wherein people write in with their problems and he goes to their houses to help them solve their problems. Incredible, I tell you.

Too bad I don't like his music. Can I still be a fan?

(I think Andrew would say yes.)

I had an interesting mix of events on Friday night. First I went to the Found magazine reading at Skylight Books. Davy Rothbart is my idol. He has so much affection and appreciation for people and their funny quirks -- it's great to hear him talk. I left the bookstore on a floaty cloud of happiness for all people and the stories they have to tell.

Then.

My friend and former co-worker is a Suicide Girl and is currently performing with their burlesque show, so I went to see her on Friday night. It was strange to go from the world of beauty found in scrawled and mangled pieces of paper to the world of beauty found in naked girls with tattoos kissing each other. If I ever had a doubt about belonging with the bookworms and public radio nerds, it was dispelled completely as I stood on the balcony watching girls prance around and smear each other with chocolate sauce. I was happy to see my friend doing what she wants to do -- it certainly looks more fun than what I do on a daily basis -- but the whole experience confirmed how lame I think the Suicide Girls site is. Now, if there was a website with naked pictures of Ira Glass...but no. Even I wouldn't look at that.

+++

I went to a second Found reading today in Santa Monica and talked to Davy for a couple minutes. He was nice enough to give me a CD of all his segments on This American Life. I love him even more! He is going to be touring through December, so see if he is coming to your town and go go go! Also get the Found book!

I think I am turning into a hermit.

I have been spending most of my free time knitting and listening to episodes of This American Life through their website. And now I am way too excited about my new membership to Audible.com. I downloaded A People's History of the United States and am listening to it while knitting a turquoise wool/mohair purse. I can feel my brain growing already. Sadly, I fear my social skills are diminishing at the same rate.