Tomorrow will be Go To Starbucks, Order A Coffee, Sit Down At A Table Where You Can Be Seen From All Angles, Remove The Shoe And Sock From One Foot And For The Next Three Hours Intermittenly Lift Your Bare Foot Up To Your Nose And Smell Day!

"Don't huff it. It's not like you're sweating nitrous oxide. Just calmly drink your coffee, read your book, gaze off with your thoughts, then every five minutes or so let an inquisitive expression cross your face, like "I wonder if my foot still smells like that."

Or maybe not, considering my burning hatred for feet. Instead, maybe I'll celebrate Go Outside And Show The Neighborhood Those Unbelievable Fucking Lips Of Yours Day!

Yeah. Totally.

There's not likely to be an extra-long post here today, at least not until later this afternoon or maybe even evening. Hey, if things get crazy, I might not post at all! How d'ya like those apples? That's what I thought.

My boss is sending me to work on a stupid project for IS all morning, and then I've got meetings all afternoon--I can't wait for this day to be over. Won't life be grand? Quite.

...

I was thinking about this mental vision I had last night about the couple celebrating their 50th anniversary with a quiet dinner and a walk on the beach--by the time I celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary, I'll likely be close to my 80's. Dinner would likely be silent because my dentures were sticking to the bread pudding, and the walk on the beach would have to be assisted by our caretakers. Try pushing a walker through wet sand.

...

We found another house. I know, I keep jumping the gun, but we feel so certain about this one. Seriously! This one is it, I can feel it. It's not perfect, but the potential is overwhelming.

...

Off to the stupid project. Oof.

More things I would like to know:

-what's the difference between a nannyberry and a chokecherry?
-How can two people dirty every damned glass in the house in under three days?
-when do relationships get easier? When do the petty disagreements and spats and hours (days?) of not-speaking end, and everything just is. When do you stop being those bickering joggers and start being the couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with a quiet dinner and a walk on the beach?

On hearing that a 12 year old girl let her thong hang out at the Britney concert last night (and this I know only because my two obsessive coworkers, who counted down every last day hour and minute until that stupid concert, were sitting behind her during the show):

Annoying Coworker (the one with the camel toe issue?): "I wasn't allowed to wear anything but grannie-panties until I was old enough to buy 'em myself!!"

Me, with great distaste: "Oh, and that was a mental image I needed first thing in the morning"

And thus my day began.

Actually, it began two hours earlier with ringing alarms and aching head and FREEZING arms--we went to sleep with just a sheet last night, down comforter tossed to the floor, and apparently I didn't pull it up in my sleep like I usually do. Brr.

Why is it never enough, the bits of sleep that I get? I think my deficit is too great--I'd need a solid month to recover from the last 22 years.

I shudder to think of how long it would take my mother to catch up on her sleep deficit.

...

Speaking of mom--she's doing better this week, sounding much more upbeat on the phone, getting excited about things instead of using the can't-get-out-of-bed voice. Kid Sister's 9th birthday is Saturday, which means a day of corralling third graders and seeing "Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron" (the mere idea of seeing this movie makes me blanch with fear, but as the Cool Older Sister, it is my sworn duty to do these things.) and The Departure is looming...

She asked me if they could have the bon voyage party at my house, which makes sense because they can moor the boat off our dock with little difficulty, allowing those who haven't seen it yet to take a tour before they leave and the ship is struck by lightning and sinks to the bottom of the Atlantic, never to be seen again.

Or something like that. I know that I shouldn't talk like that, it's terrible! But this trip has put the heretofore unknown fear of God in me.

So for that reason, having the party at my house makes sense, more sense than any other option on the table (note: this is currently the only option on the table.) and so I say yes. However, it does not make sense to have it at my house because she hates my house. To be nitpicky, she hates the memories my house calls up, living there for the last few (miserable) years of her (failing) marriage to my (really crappy, assholish) father. She hated living there, never wanted the house in the first place, and even though it's me living there now, she can't see past 1981 through 1985.

A smarter option for her during the divorce (instead of taking the kids and running away until things were finalized) would have been to take the house, sell it, finance school and invest well enough so she wouldn't have had to work full time while taking a full load and raising two kids under the age of seven. Things would be very different now, yes--but perhaps for the better.

No use thinking about it now.

So, now I have the bon voyage party to plan. I'd like to do something fun (NOT a tiki theme, can't take it after being at work in Tiki Hell all day), but Illustrious Stepfather will likely want something delicate and refined so he can show all of his contemporaries what a bigwig he is. I guess this means I'll have to cancel the barbershop quartet...

But wouldn't that be fun?? A Gay 90's-themed (heh. Gay 90's.) summer picnicky-thing, with striped waistcoats and straw hats, women with parasols and a barbershop quartet in the corner; children with iced treats and taffy, croquet on the lawn while young lovers in charming white rowboats circle the dock...

Way overactive, my imagination.

...

Because many have inquired, here is what I'll tell you about the other night (Tuesday? this week has me all outta whack): Boy and I had our second "date" with this new "girl", things were fairly "intense" and I pushed a new "boundary". I've also decided to write my "weblog" in the style of a "Zagat Guide".

The "food" was "good".

...

Oh, fine. The boundary I pushed was fisting, and I loved it enough to want to try it again at some future point, but all other details will be saved for a members' entry.

Or you could just give me $13.95 right now, and I'll tell you the story. You make the call.

...

I am a vision of summer today--crisp white linen shirt over white tanktop and linen slacks with soft sandals and my hair in an elegant chignon.

No, wait--that was first thing this morning, before waiting for the bus, fending off the Bus Molester, sitting next to a church lady, walking to my office, sitting on my ass for five hours, going to lunch, eating a panini (BAD idea while wearing white linen), and drinking some cranberry juice.

Now I'm wrinkled and my hair is in pigtails and I smell of garlic and basil, which is still summery! but not so fresh. I need some gum.

still processing last night. more information to come. need some quiet time now.

Good weekend despite the nuclear fallout, which dad completely ignored by the time we picked him up to look at the potential house(s). It never ceases to amaze me how much capacity he has for completely ignoring issues. But what can I do? He's my dad, and I need him.

Spent yesterday doing a lot of nothing at first--some sleepy snuggling and reading, then up to do load after load of laundry plus folding and even some putting away! Cleaned the kitchen, dusted the bedroom, got close to vacuuming but just couldn't bring myself to--all in time for Dave and Quincy to arrive for a very traditional Memorial Day barbeque (minus the boating accidents and beer-related grill injuries)--and then had our asses soundly whipped at a couple games of Trivial Pursuit.

Apparently I am useless with trivia games, especially those involving questions about Greek mythology. Don't tell my classics prof.

It was kind of shocking, really--I don't think I'd ever actually played Trivial Pursuit (I remember it being a game I watched my moving-from-boho-to-yuppie parents play with their up&coming friends. I was allowed to play quietly with pie pieces [similar to my role in the game last night! irony.] and would inevitably get a piece stuck in a pie.), but I consider myself a fairly well-read (okay, so I never got past the first four pages of Anna Karenina! it was boring.) and didn't think I'd have much of a problem with the game...

Oof. Steve, where were you when I needed you?? Oh, right--New York.

...

I sort of jumped the gun on the house business yesterday--the realtor called last night to tell us there was already a written offer on it. Boy should be finding out this morning if it got accepted...I'm hoping it wasn't! I know that there are plenty of houses in the sea (or at least north of the ship canal), but I loved that house, even with the tiny tiny bathroom and weird layout. In fact, I loved it more because of that. And the huge yard.

So we'll see. Again.

Every minute from now until noon is going to last forever. If only we had 30-hour days!

...

Also decided that my next tattoo (uh oh) is going to be in Morse code. Don't ask what it will be, I don't know yet. but it'll be Morse code. If I were that sort of woman, I'd get a band around my ankle or bicep--but those seem unbearably trashy, so visible and quick to fade. It'll likely have to be something along those lines, though--given the general length of written Morse messages. But where to put it? Ankle, bicep, wrist are out of the question--anywhere near the small of my back is off-limits as well, so as to preserve the perfection of my first tattoo. What's left? Around my neck? a ring around my belly button? Morse code garters on my thighs? Euchh. A shiny nickel to the best suggestion.

...

These are the days of lasers in the jungle, lasers in the jungles somewhere. A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires.

...

Something else about housebuying that's been lying in wait in the back of my brain, wanting to leap to the forefront but it gets solidly pushed back by dreams of paint chips and fabric swatches and restoring hardwood flooring: With this change will come the closing of doors. There are things that I will never do, but this isn't a new feeling--I guess it's what everyone goes through once they start to settle down. I'll never live in a tiny studio in a brick building with a bed covered in brilliantly white matelassé linens under a window, sun streaming down on me every morning (and here is why not, aside from the fact that two people cannot live in a studio apartment, and aside from the fact that boy and I would likely spill Code Red Slurpee on the white linens anyway, and aside from the fact that this is Seattle and we see the sun once every eighteen months--okay, that's pretty much why.) (sidenote to Quincy: see, you have no reason to be worried about us liking your apartment--it's EXACTLY what I've been in love with for years.)

So I'll never have a studio apartment (and I'm sure there are plenty of people screaming at me, saying "what the hell are you thinking! studios are nuts!" which I'd already discerned from dating that guy, the one with the mustang who dressed like a Young Republican (also of interest: he was the only guy I've ever dated who was uncircumcised [or at least, the only one known to be. I keep forgetting that I didn't sleep with EVERY GUY I dated.]) because of that night where made me dinner and then tried getting romantic, but I just couldn't, not while I could see dishes in the corner of the room (he called it a kitchen, I called it insanity). So I went home. I'm absolutely sure that it was the best decision anyway--he called again about a year later, and I was still completely disinterested so you know there was really no chemistry there.

Dirty dishes. shudder.

I guess I'm getting a little worked up over nothing--what the hell do I want with 600 square feet of living space, anyway? I like knowing I'll never wake up alone again (within reason, of course. I'm sure there will come a time, hopefully not any time in the next...oh, fourty or fifty years--where Boy and I will have to be apart for a night) and that he'll be stroking my hair while I fall asleep for the rest of our lives.

Unless he loses his hand in a tragic farming accident.

Oh, you're right! He'll never lose his hands in a farming accident. Now, a tragic bowling accident or something...you never know.

Even then, he could stroke my hair with his stumps. After they've healed. Or I could buy him an animatronic hand as a gift, a la Scott Guber.

I'm starting to gross myself out.

...

Only three hours before I go home! How did this day manage to pass so quickly? Usually the first day back from a holiday drags like crazy, but today has been appropriately short. Excellent.

Lovely way to start your first day back after a (not long enough) holiday weekend: Find out you're the first result for this search.

Ew.

Another lesson learned: linen espadrilles + monsoon = trouble.

Yesterday's breakfast, lunch, and dinner: Luke Duke from the Honeyhole and a pina colada slurpee.

So far today I've consumed: Half a vanilla Coke and a piece of bacon. three chocolate chips. Two glasses of water. and some soap suds (accidental).

This sort of thing has got to stop.

Yesterday did not go as planned. Nothing went the way it should have--but I suppose that's all you can say about a day that starts with a nuclear-level argument with my father.

I don't know what to do about him anymore: I've managed to hold my tongue for the last while because he's my landlord, and I don't want to piss him off. He makes things difficult when you don't agree with him, when you make trouble. I've overlooked things that just can't be overlooked any longer (take, for example, him gouging us for an extra $500 a month when we first moved in here even though he knew it was hard for us to scrape together), and yesterday things just got worse--I called to ask what happened with my brother the day before (heard through the indian grapevine that my brother had gotten into a nasty fight with the Evil Stepmother To Be) and it devolved into the same argument we have over and over.

Dad tells me it's none of my business. I say it's my family, too, and it is my business. He tells me I'm just stirring up trouble, that I love conflict (which is sometimes the case, but not with something serious like this. What's serious? ESTB calls my brother--the one who has struggled with learning disabilities, the one to whom she said, "Oh, you must be stupid, you only read magazines and not books"--she called him retarded, easily the worst possible thing you can tell a boy like him.) I tell him that what she said is completely unacceptable, and what does he say? That since she said it in anger, it didn't count. That she felt bad, too. That's it's not any of my business.

On and on the argument goes, where it stops nobody knows--Actually, it stopped right around the time he told me I was being "asinine" and that I needed a "reality check". I'd had enough then. He's not going to admit that he's wrong, and I'm not going to tell him he's right--so why keep beating this dead horse? and I hang up on him.

He's a liar and a cheat, and sometimes I wish he weren't my dad.

He tried playing the "You and your brother are the most important things in the world to me" card, which only made me angrier--I have never been the most important thing. I've been an embarassment and a hassle, and my brother is just trouble, apparently. Maybe there was a time when my brother was younger and dad still coached his baseball team and buddy did everything dad told him to...maybe then he was more important than money and making sure dad's friends all thought he was the greatest guy in the universe--but it's not even close anymore.

He's never going to apologize for being a crappy dad (and I know, there are far worse fathers in existence. My dad was never physically abusive, we were never hungry or lacking for shelter, and he's always said he loved us. I guess it's just hard to believe him when he says it--he's lied about so many things, including the existence of another brother we've never met!--how do I know what he's saying is true? And if it is true, then why doesn't it feel that way sometimes?) and I have a hard time remembering forgiveness when things like this happen.

I love my dad, even when I wish I didn't. I just want a solution for this.

...

So that was how my yesterday started--and didn't get much better, since my crying and sobbing only set my mother off, leaving her in a "mood" for the rest of the day.

I want so badly to just fix her. I know, I know--if years of therapy and anti-depressants haven't worked, then there's not likely to be anything I can do.

I decided yesterday that I'm going to start putting the unused 87% of my brain to work. I need to heal with touch, levitate buildings, perform miracles. Even if those miracles are things like: making the crosswalk light turn green.

...

Also, we found a house.

I should probably put that in bold type, 18pt. font or something. Things aren't concrete yet, but it's (almost) perfect and I'm in love with it already.

More when things start to solidify.

My 17,000th visitor uses Windows95 and lives on the Eastern Seaboard.

Weren't we just celebrating 15,000? Wow.

Here are some things I would like to know:

-What's the deal with fundamentalist muslims and those bowties?
-Why aren't there more restaurants in Seattle that deliver? (and if you mention Culinary Couriers, I'll just say "pfft".)
-Do people really smoke crack using tobacco pipes?

Completely unrelated, I know. I'm feeling quiet.

The bathroom on this floor smells like strippers today.

I don't feel like I have much to say today--perhaps because I'm suffering from (slight, but irritating nonetheless) sleep deprivation, it's draining me of all intelligent and creative energy. See, I've been trying to wean myself off my 8-9 hours-a-night habit--there just aren't enough usable hours in the day. I've decided to lobby for 30 hour days, because that's the only way I'll ever get everything done. Working mothers, attorneys and internet addicts alike will thank me for my efforts once I have all the clocks change. Wouldn't that be great? Every clock would go up to 15--military time would be even more awkward ("Report back to base at twenty-seven hundred hours!"), but we'd all get stuff done.

I know this plan is flawed--aren't there some laws of nature that dictate how long the day is? Lesse, if an hour lasts 60 minutes during a 24 hour day, then how long would an hour be if the day was 30 hours long?

I should have paid attention in all those math classes I failed. I feel like Barbie--"Math is Hard!"

*thinking and calculating*

Here is the conversation I just had with my coworkers about this topic:

Me: If we wanted to say...change time, make days 30 hours long in clock-time, but physically still have time pass at the same rate, how long would hours be?

Coworker 1: What are you talking about?

Me: I want 30 hour days. I want to be able to sleep for ten hours, work for 8 hours, and have the balance be available for whatever needed to be done. But I just want that in the sense that clocks would go to 15 instead of twelve. I don't want hours to last any longer--I want them to be shorter in the same amount of time, so that...say, a one-hour meeting, which is normally intolerably long, would only last...you know, however much less. I need to know how much shorter the hours would be if you were squish 30 of them in a 24 hour day.

Coworker 2: (cold, blank stare)

Coworker 1: You can't do that. I don't think you have that power.

Me: Not yet.

CW1 & CW2: (blank stares, exchanged glances)

Me: I'm thinking too hard for you, aren't I.

CW1: Uh huh.

/end scene

48 minutes. That's how long hours would last in a 30 hour day. Right?

Sounds about right.

...

That was a lot more than I thought I had to say.

...

I think I've also been feeling less-bloggy because my email correspondence has been fast and furious of late. Well, more fast and less furious. I'm not mad! In fact, I'm having a grand time. Fan mail is up since Blog Babe Of The Week, and work matters are less-pressing with my boss out of the office--pleasant combination, I'll admit. Also, after a four-month (self-imposed? maybe) dry spell, I've suddenly garnered the attention of a couple startlingly interesting women with whom I just can't stop emailing. I don't have permission yet to talk about them here--and I was daring, too, giving them the URL for this place. It hasn't scared them away just yet, so that's a good sign.

I'm hoping this attempt at poly-ness works out better than the last--there's enough drama going on around us that we don't really need to internalize any more of it.

...

Looking at houses online is almost as exhausting as being dragged all over town by an overenthusiastic real estate agent.

...

I've done exactly seven minutes worth of work today. I love it when my boss is out of the office.

Countdown--

10 things I need to do before I die:
-learn to stunt-drive
-get marooned in the south pacific
-find my long-lost soap-opera brother
-make peace with Kate
-make babies with the Boy
-change the oil in my car (as in, learn to do it myself. heh.)
-write an entire book, not just bits and snippets
-know the right questions, have the right answers.
-finish all the damned laundry.
-perfect my soufflé technique

9 Ways To Make Me Smile:
-Poop jokes.
-ducklings and puppies.
-ask me what time it is.
-tell me you like my rack and then follow it with a free lapdance.
-do all my laundry for the rest of my life.
-"Go ahead, sweetie--quit your job."
-play that "If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife/so from my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you!" song. it makes me chuckle.
-Send me fan mail.
-Diamonds. lots and lots of diamonds.

8 Names I'll Never Give My Children:
-Engelbert
-Ermingarde
-Will
-Beth
-Gwyneth
-Lee-anne (hell, anything with a hyphen)
-Merlin
-The Dread Pirate Roberts

7 Things I Would Do If I Didn't Have To Go To Work Every Day:
-Swim and walk and ride my bike and do some situps, maybe? (I have always been one for lousy excuses)
-Finish replanting rosemary sprouts. and fill in the front garden. And trim the maple. replace the planter boxes, train the virginia creeper, start some wisteria over the french doors...You know, if I didn't kill every plant I came in contact with.
Let's not kid ourselves:
-blog; and
-laundry. always with the laundry.
-make pillows.
-read. read read read read. Finally finish 500 Years Of Western Cultural Life.
-clean my car out. smells like something died in there, and i'm afraid to find out what it is.

6 Excuses For Why I'm Not Writing A Real Entry:
-I love making lists
-You were tired of hearing me complain about work anyway.
-I was tired of complaining about work, too.
-Lots of new readers, they need to know these things!
-My moon is in Jupiter.
-Because everyone else likes lists, too.

5 Ways I Say I Love You:
-Man, that is a very very fine ass.
-Come on, spank it.
-No, baby--that really is a very fine ass.
-Here's another $20--does this mean you'll come home with me?
-It's not just a very fine ass--that's the finest ass I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of ass.

4 People To Whom I Owe At Least One Apology:
-Dad: I'm sorry I used your gas card that day when Blondie and I decided to go to every single Texaco we could find and buy...something. Was there a goal? I think we mostly bought popsicles and Hostess products. Anyway, I shouldn't have used your card--I should have used your Evil Girlfriend's. Also, sorry for racking up $6k on your 23.5%-interest-Eddie Bauer charge. Heh. Whoops!
-That lady who used her sock to pick up the dogshit that she had been planning on leaving on my grass. While that will never lose comedic value, I should have gotten you a baggie.
-I probably owe an apology to this kid I went to jr. high with--his name was James, and he was a sweaty one, always leaving sticky palm prints on everything. We had Health class together in 7th grade, and on the day when everyone else was outside (you know how the end of the year is, teachers tired of wrangling attention, so why bother! and they send all the kids outside while they sit on the grass smoking and discussing which student teacher is hot enough to fuck.) we were inside--he had an assignment to finish and because I sat at the same desk cluster, the teacher asked me to stay and help him. We ended up having a veryand honest conversation (we were both sort of outcast-y, but not of the same genus--I was nerdy, he was just a loser) about our families and homelife (his was miserable and I was under the impression that mine was as well, but I know now that I was merely in the throes of puberty, when everything is miserable, but his really was)...and then everyone came back inside! And we jumped apart, like we'd never been talking because who wants to get caught consorting with the opposite sex in junior high? And the next day, the two girls who completed our cluster of desks (they were the sort to end up as boozy floozy cheerleaders four years later, marrying the first football captain they could get their hands on so they could hurry up and pump out some brainless brats. shut up, I'm not bitter. Just realistic.) started teasing him and--it would be bad enough if I'd played a neutral part in the scene, not hurting but not helping. You know what happened, don't you? I revealed all of the secrets that he had shared in assumed confidence the day before, and he never seemed the same.

Wow. Where the hell did that come from?

-Also, I'm sorry for all the goldfish I killed with malignant neglect. I didn't mean to stop loving you, and killing you seemed to be the only option.

3 Books I Can't Stop Reading:
-The Princess Bride.
-All Families Are Psychotic
-Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure (because I'm a dirty filthy pervert. and petticoats turn me on.)

2 Times In My Life That I'd Qualify As The Happiest:
-The last year and a half.
-And the rest of my life.

1 Thing I Can't Live Without:
-...come, now--you can't figure it out?

Half-way through the Sunday Night Sex Show (gee, thanks, CBC. Oh, and you too, Oxygen.), the Host has used the term "penis thrusting in vagina sex" at least four times.

Now it's carrots in the ass? Cucumbers? Anal beads!

"Make sure you get anal beads with a plastic string, not just string, so you can wash them? With a brush?"

"...And some use a butt-plug!"

"Lubricate everything very well, or else we're in trouble!"

Caller: My girlfriend doesn't like to have sex.
Host: You cannot rescue her! Is she on the Birth Control Pill?

Caller: I can ejaculate three or four times during sex, it lasts for hours.
Host: Ooh...

Host: If she's had enough and her genitals are getting sore, then you masturbate!

Caller: I like getting head, by my partner doesn't like swallowing.
Host: Have her brush her teeth first, it'll numb her mouth. Or, try mouthwash! Now, why do place so much importance on cumming in her mouth?
Caller: It's harder for me to cum when she uses her hand instead of her mouth. And she's never done it, I'd enjoy it more if she did.
Host: You can tell I'm not terribly sympathetic--I gotta tell you...ejaculate does NOT taste like roast beef and Yorkshire pudding! It is bitter, it is sour, it tastes like burnt leather!
Caller: Ohh.

...

She wrote a book: Sex Is Perfectly Natural--But Not Naturally Perfect.

I am never having sex again.

This is not the big long entry I've been working on, but it's awfully entertaining. (if you're dumb or have never IM'd with me, Chou is me. Steve is Steve.) Now, enjoy...

Then the Psd to HTML or PSD to CSS conversion is carried out by hard coding the image to fit into HTML frames or layers

Chou says:
We are watching the most disturbing show ever.
Steve says:
Aw, did I miss Celebrity Boxing II?
Chou says:
We're watching the Sunday Night Sex Show.
Steve says:
Ohhhhhhhhh! I watch that.
Chou says:
TiVo recorded it from Oxygen.
Chou says:
With the old lady??
Steve says:
Yep.
Steve says:
If I stay up really late, it's on right before I go to sleep.
Chou says:
She's giving blowjob technique.
Steve says:
I was watching it just last night.
Chou says:
I am never having sex again.
Chou says:
She's my grandmother's age!!
Steve says:
Welcome to the club!
Chou says:
snicker.
Steve says:
Yeah, I do like that show.
Steve says:
I enjoy the little facts Oxygen runs across the bottom.
Chou says:
I see no facts.
Steve says:
It's Canadian, in case you didn't figure it out. You know that black strip Oxygen always has across the bottom of the screen?
Steve says:
They have facts. Once in a while.
Chou says:
I've seen no facts. The callers are uniquely canadian.
Steve says:
Like, the old lady will say, "Fellatio can be one of the best parts of your sex life," and the bottom will say, "Fellatio is an Italian word that means ..." uh, whatever it means. That's what you need the facts for.
Chou says:
87% of females reach ORGASM with ORAL GENITAL sex! Not with penis-thrusting in vagina!
Chou says:
Caller: I've never tried that.
Steve says:
Is that a fact? Or did she say it?
Chou says:
She said it!
Steve says:
She says "penis thrusting in vagina" a lot. I heard her say it last night, and it wasn't that segment.
Chou says:
Host: Do you realize that Viagra costs twenty dollars a pill?!
Steve says:
That's only like $1.50 American.
Chou says:
Caller: My husband and I have never tried sex toys. What should we use?
Steve says:
She LOVES sex toys!
Chou says:
Host: Here's my handy-dandy pumpkin-colored vibrator!
Steve says:
She has them in a big box, I think.
Steve says:
And then she whips it out, right? I love that show!
Chou says:
It's as big around as her wrist.
Steve says:
Wow.
Steve says:
If it were as big around as my wrist, that wouldn't be very impressive.
Chou says:
She's giving instructions.
Chou says:
Caller: Is there anything else besides vibrators?
Chou says:
Host: Go to the sex shop in your town and snoop around!
Chou says:
Host: There are ben-wa balls, vibrators, dildos, plastic eggs...
Chou says:
Her hand motions are freaking me out.
Steve says:
Yeah, scary, huh? It's pretty graphic. Those wacky Canadians.
Chou says:
she's demonstrating g-spot stimulation
Chou says:
Host: You can have a great old time with this huge vibrator!
Chou says:
She just called making-out "necking".
Chou says:
This is exactly like what sextalk with my grandmother would be like
Chou says:
If she weren't a prudish minion of satan.
Steve says:
OK, this is really embarrassing ...
Steve says:
Is that what necking is? Making out? Because I never knew!
Steve says:
I have no clue what it is!
Chou says:
It is.
Steve says:
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Steve says:
I was trying to think, "What could people do that would qualify as 'necking'? Why do you never see anybody do it?"
Chou says:
Host: If you've got a herpes breakout, don't kiss the boys on the mouth! Just blow them a kiss and say, "Goodnight, dear!"
Chou says:
Necking is indeed just plain-old making out.
Chou says:
This caller is talking about territorial sperm.
Steve says:
I don't know what that is, either.
Chou says:
There's no such thing as territorial sperm!
Chou says:
They don't fight eachother.
Steve says:
What does the caller mean, then?
Chou says:
She read a stupid book.
Steve says:
Let's Google "territorial sperm."
Steve says:
Zero matches.
Chou says:
Look up the book she got it from: Sperm Wars.
Steve says:
Nobody on Amazon has anything to say about Sperm Wars.
Chou says:
Nothing?
Steve says:
Nope. They're selling it, but no comments or anything.
Steve says:
Barnes and Noble comes through!
Chou says:
That's a shame.
Steve says:
Synopsis
The author "explains most human sexual behavior as (cellular level) warfare: a male drive 'either to prevent the woman from exposing his sperm to competition or, failing that, to give his sperm the best chance of winning that competition,' and a female urge to promote competition to 'better the chances of her offspring having good genes.'" (Booklist)
Steve says:
This sounds like a bunch of bullshit.
Chou says:
snore.
Steve says:
"Why do we get such strong urges to masturbate, and why do we yield to these urges only in secrecy?"
Steve says:
I can't relate to that! I regularly whip it out at my desk at work!
Chou says:
Yeah, I make a practice of cumming my brains out in front of my boss.
Steve says:
Here's a review from a scientific journal:
Steve says:
"While there is no doubt that Baker's explanations are ingenious and sometimes convincing, the truth is that these are ideas, not facts."
Chou says:
"This woman made all this shit up."

Sorry! I got very busy today, and it cut into my blogging-time. I've been working on a big entry, though, and it'll be ready in a little bit. Here's something to tide you over:

First--Mighty Girl's second piece in The Morning News (which you should all be reading anyway, even if I didn't tell you to or link to it. go, right now.): The Case For Cocktails. It's so true. I did learn to sail when I was six!

Next--...um. There was something else, but I can't remember now. My entire day has been like that.

Another thousand-dollar day--It's noon and I've received ONE email, and it was a fwd from my boss. Whoof.

I had a sudden realization last night that I'm losing touch with some old friends, and I'm pretty sure it's my own fault. It's just so hard with them away at college doing their college-things, and me here doing my...here-things. I used to visit, but for what? Drinking binges and driving topless across eastern washington, that's what.

I think it'll be easier once they're done with school and they all come back here. If they come back. Otherwise, it's a lost cause. And that would be sad.

(of course, I could just do the right thing and email them both: "Look, guys--I've been a shitty friend lately, and I want to make it better", but my pride has the best of me. Stupid stupid pride.)

Also: In conversation with Steve last night (we'd been discussing sadojudaism and humilitation to some extent, and things devolved as they have a tendency to do) I solidified a few formless ideas, mainly this: It is common for me to be attracted to men who aren't afraid to take the upper hand, keep control out of my reach; but I find myself attracted to women of the most opposite sort--malleable to an extreme. Here's the catch: I can't respect that, these women who are willing to change intrinsic parts of themselves to make me happy--and I can't respect the men who wanted to control everything, it made me feel rebellious, perpetually seventeen.

My porridge is too hot and too cold, never just right.

See, the conversation started with a discussion about SadoJudaism, and Ivor Dembina's definition of such: "I enjoy being beaten...but not in business"--I mentioned that his definition, while comedically brilliant, wasn't quite right: Sadists enjoy hurting others, not usually being hurt. Steve asks if that's where I fall in the spectrum--and I explain the theory of being switch, and how it works for me: I love receiving from men, but giving to women. Y'see? It's sexy, but I don't have any intrinsic respect for either end.

Examples: Tony, with his calling me Sport and introducing me to spanking; Martin of the Buttplugs, who always had to be on top with me face down in pillows--I thought it was sexy at the time but ugh.

I have got it so damned good, with this boy who loves me to pieces and still lets me do strippers in the champagne room.

...

Man, I use a lot of P.unc!tua;tion...@t lea$t, !t $33m$ l!k3 @ L0t 2 m3.

...

my god! The workday is only half over, and I've already had 350 hits. I guess being #13 on the Daypop's Top 40 really pays off.

I should work.

Holy crap. Welcome, new readers. Daypop does wonders for readership, I'm seeing.

Come for the naked pictures, stay for the...Um, naked pictures.

(and so we're all on the same page--I am fucking exhausted. Remind me to never again stay up that late on a school night. I can barely get my eyes to and when they do they huurrrt.)

Thanks to Adam for curating my Film Exchange photos (even though they're all grainy and weird and have that red streak), and thanks to Charles for making me Blog Babe of the Week. You guys rawk.

So. Sunday night, home alone. Boy and the Astronaut wanted one last fling before Astro heads back to base--so off to tiki bowling they go. I know, I said we were going last night, but by the time we got there after meeting Blondie for dinner at the ubiquitous Cheesecake Factory (next time I make some pissy remark about how I haven't managed to lose more than five or six pounds, remind me that I'm always the first to suggest going there. Yeesh), the karaoke mistress (oh christ, the jokes I could make at her expense.) said they were full up until closing-time, thanks to two groups of ultra-drunk, ultra-hip assholes. Boy and I are decidedly un-zen these days, we're so quick to want to kill people.

Thus, the boys are gone, and I'm here alone for the first time in days. It's been an...interesting day, somewhat anti-climactic--I made scones first thing this morning, but didn't enjoy them; played DOA3 on the X-Box with Astro, and didn't enjoy it; had sandwiches at the also-ubiquitous Honeyhole, and didn't enjoy that...went shopping, no fun. Dinner with dad, least fun. Home alone = lonely and quiet. No one to talk to, the Survivor finale was terribly depressing--they all ended up hating the two finalists, and I can't say that I blame them. All that bible-thumping and praising God. yeesh. If I wanted that, I sure as hell wouldn't be turning to CBS for it.

Ennui--the silent killer.

I mean, really. What do I have to complain about? I do this often enough, you're probably getting bored, but I like to reaffirm: I have a healthy family, a Boy who loves me more than anything, a beautiful home and a job that, while my hatred for it grows exponentially each day, keeps me in relatively good style. Who am I to complain for lack of...what, challenge? Pfft, that's just laziness. If I really needed a challenge, there are plenty of things I've not yet mastered. Excitement? I've had it, and don't mind taking a break. Change? My inherent fear of grand change can only keep me in this holding position for so long.

The housing situation will remedy that eventually--even after yesterday's disappointment (dad talked boy down from making an offer on the house we've liked the best so far, citing the unlikelihood of appreciating in the surrounding area as reason enough to call it off), I know deep-down that Boy wants this, wants to stop wasting money and start building equity. I make these excuses--we've not even been here for a year, it's so soon to be making this commitment--but here's the deal: Evil-Stepmother-To-Be admitted tonight that if we move out of this house before they're ready to remodel it (i.e. before next year), they're renting it out to whomever they can find.

Strangers. Living in my house.

Why is this so difficult for me? I repeat: I need to go back to that cool and calculated detachment. It would make this a thousand times easier.

Let's see, what else is on my mind?

I mentioned May 17th--a bright and shiny nickel to the first person who figures who why. It used to be that May 17th was a pretty good day--it was a good friend's birthday--but then she turned into a psycho roommate, and May 17th meant nothing. Now, it's far far more important than that, more intimate and emotionally scarring, and the last couple weeks have been building up to it. I was glad that I had the foresight to take the day off, and glad that the day was completely full of mind-numbing activity--but I haven't had time to process...the things that need processing.

Fuck, don't you hate those weblogs where the writer makes thinly veiled reference to something obviously of interest, but won't come out and say it? Me too. Let's fix that:

Here's another deal: The one-year anniversary of an abortion is weird--It's depressing beyond belief, but what is there to do? I can think to myself, "Hey, I'd have two five month old babies right now if it hadn't happened" (twins, remember) but what will that acheive but deeper depression? I need to be the strong one right now, the one who has unflagging optimism for everything because Boy sure as hell doesn't--and I don't begrudge him that. Everyone needs their downs, I'd be the biggest hypocrite of all if I thought anything else.

But really--I never saw a therapist after it happened last year, haven't discussed it often since the physical effects dissipated. I've pretty much shut it away, because otherwise I'd break down into uncontrolled sobs every time I saw a baby, or a pregnant woman, or twins, whathaveyou. So now what? I don't know what to say or do, and I can't imagine anyone else does, either.

Is every May 17th going to be like this from now on? I want to say that I hope it goes away eventually, that when we have kids someday I can forget about the two we didn't have--but something seems so very very wrong about that.

...

That's pretty much it--Strangers living in my house (aside from it being a spectacular place to live, it's the only house that's ever mattered, and the only house that's always been Here. All the moving after the divorce and when Illustrious Stepfather wanted to travel and even before the divorce, with me and my parents living the boho life on our little sailboat--this house was always here. I need to rid myself of all this material attachment; if nothing else, it'll be easier to cut down on stuff before the eventual move.) and being a baby-killer.

Not too much to deal with, hmm?

It's one a.m., and I'm supposed to be at work in seven hours. I'm tempted to call in...well, not sick. Can you call in Quit? Probably, but that'd be a bad idea. Instead, I'll watch the Classic Arts Showcase on PBS until I fall asleep.

Fall asleep! How am I supposed to do that with Boy gone? Impossible.

Long day yesterday--looked at house after house after house, which was both exhilerating and exhausting. I had these horrible decorating schemes running constantly through my head, even in houses I hated--because what if we end up in something less than perfect and we have to make it work? Paint and fabric swatches will get me through the night. Or day. Or YEARS, whatever.

I should be more optimistic--there are still plenty of houses we haven't looked at in our price range--but it's so tiring. Boy gets discouraged so easily and it's all I can do lately to be the positive one.

Thursday and Friday were both pretty good days--on a scale of 0-10, Thursday was a 6 and yesterday verged on 10, despite it being May 17th. House-shopping, then a little time with my sister, then dashed to the salon for maintenance, only to find Boy was already on his way to the airport to pick up the Astronaut.

Speaking of my hair--I know, we haven't heard nearly enough about it. It's...darker now, less candy-apple and more...Hmm. I still haven't found the right description for the color. More likely to occur in nature? But it's pretty bright. I wasn't sure about it at first, it seemed a little on the orangey-red side--but it'll be hot this summer, when I've got a touch of a tan (hey, it's all I'll get. I'm practically transparent) and a few freckles on my nose. And even better is that it's not a veggie dye this time, it's a Redken somethingorother, so it won't stain my bathtub and sheets and pillows and shirtcollars and...you get it.

Oh--jumping back to Thursday, and Attack of the Clowns: Eogan and Quincy have already mentioned it, so I might as well fess up. I was the one who almost started the fistfight at Cinerama the other day before the movie. Boy helped. We were the most hated and/or revered patrons in the upper balcony. You want details? Forget it, it's really not that interesting. Suffice to say that if those assholes had just gotten out of our seats, I wouldn't have had to make the gun/shooting comment, nor would I have needed to spit on the one guy's shoes in the dark. If only I could have pissed in his popcr0n.

Back to yesterday--we topped off our very long day with dinner at the 5Spot and...Yeah, a trip to the Vu. I just can't stay away. I won't consider this an addiction, I'm too poor to keep tossing my hard-earned pennies on strippers. Even if they are so deliciously hot and bi as hell and tell me they love my boobies. Boy said that if she really loved me, she'd have given me her phone number--not her work schedule.

I have much much more to say, too much for this little entry--but we haven't had dinner and there is tiki-bowling-karaoke to be done. I love it when the Astronaut is here.

Oof. Big day ahead--looking at houses, entertaining kid sis, getting my hair re-colored (the red is almost gone! it's this weird...orangey-pink), and picking up the Astronaut at the airport.

So--the Friday Five:

1. What shampoo do you use?
My preferred brand is Biolage Hydrating Shampoo--I used to hate it because it reminded me of the old ladies at the salon, but it's SO good for your hair.

2. Do you use conditioner? What kind?
Anything is fine--all conditioners are the same.

3. When was the last time you got your hair cut?
Five weeks ago. Boy, these are boring questions.

4. What styling products do you use?
Depends on the desired result--if I want sexy volume, I use some Catwalk RootBoost; if I want sexy sort-of curls, I scrunch in some BedHead Creative Genius; But usually it's just a slick of leave-in conditioner, some Potion No. 9 or this UV blocker.

I'm way too into my hair.

5. What's your worst hair-related experience?
That fifth-grade perm--my hair doesn't hold curl to save its life (and in what scenario would that even make sense? "Curl, damn you, or I'll set you on fire!"), so the perm lasted for...two days? and then turned...frizzy. Right before school pictures. Oof. I think I burned all those photos. Might be one left, maybe mom rescued it from the pyre. I wore it sort-of up, using an ironic polka-dotted necktie as a headband.

Oh my god, pretend you didn't read that.

Correspondence with strangers is my favorite--no expectations to fulfill, no seeping disappointments. In lieu of an actual entry (I'm too buzzed to sit still):

-----Original Message-----
From: Val
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002
To: Ferra
Subject: Lust in the SoCal dust

XOXO. Val

...

Delicious.

To: Val
From: Ferra
Date: 5.16.02
Subject: It's bigger than us; You don't have to worry about it.

Quelle surprise, says I. Mail from this strange traveler, chock full of dreams and drama--It makes me want to run away from home and find a tickertape parade.

Home is a strange place of late--I love it, but I know our time here is ending. It makes my head feel explodey, because we haven't been in this house for even a year (please do discount the fact that I grew up in this house, and that I always knew it would end and we'd have to be adults--somewhere in the last eight or nine months I'd built this crazy fantasy that eventually if we just kept giving my dad $1800 every four weeks, he'd just give us the house) and because once we leave we can never go back! Things will change, oceans will rise and mountains crumble and nothing will be the same.

I'm less-distraught today than yesterday--I unloaded a few pertinent secrets to Boy's best friend from college, and I'm feeling much better about this house-buying business.

House. Buying!

I'm 22, which may seem redundant, telling you again--but I am quietly reaffirming that I'm entirely too young to feel this old. Thus, I behave most inappropriately under the circumstances and do things like streak my hair with candy-apple red and start an amateur porn site.

It's going well, with design well under way and content sliding into place--I'm going to run it like a journal, but it will be far far more explicit than my regular journal, and include the highly anticipated naked pictures (my readers beg for them almost daily) with occasional Guest Stars (my best friend. And perhaps this other girl, I don't know.)--and at $13.95 a month, it's a steal! I've already begun pimping the site out to drunken-geek friends of the Boy--it'll be weird at first to have his coworkers see me naked, but as I've already got a reputation for being the first to flash her tits at the camera during parties, I might as well make them pay for it.

Does this sound mercenary? I hope so. It's time I went back to my roots--cold and calculating served me well before all this romantic-love business.

On all fours with my ass in the air is a fairly decent approximation of how things go with the whip--but more commonly you'll find me riding him on a breezy sunday morning, slow and sure. He holds the crop in one hand, grips my hip with the other and lazily swats at my ass until I come--doesn't take much these days.

I'll send photos. Enjoy the desert.

kisses,
f

...

45 minutes, and I'm off to the movies. Shh! Don't tell.

In the midst of our home-buying affairs, this makes me laugh--and worries me.

But the bit about the pig is priceless.

...

Yeah, home-buying. Somewhere yesterday in my monumental freak-out to Steve, I relaxed (I think it was after the day-long freak-out. shopping with mom helped. I got Ghostbusters on DVD for 9 bucks!)...and I'm okay with the idea now.

But we're looking at twenty more houses, come hell or high water. Buying the fourth house you see seems...I don't know. It just strikes me wrong. Wrong, I tell you!

...

On deck for today: I suppose I'll go to work in a bit...Heh. But I'm leaving at 2 to see Attack of the Clowns, so nothing else matters.

I don't mean that in a star-wars-centric way--I mean I'm leaving work at 2, not coming in tomorrow--and Nothing Else Matters. w00t!

too depressed. maybe tomorrow.

Ha! A bird just smacked into my window.

It's the little things.

I don't really have any stories for you today--we had a pretty low-key evening (until, of course, Harry Senate got stabbed three times in the chest on Boston Public. Also, I had a few moments of abject terror while watching a Buffy rerun--it was "Hush", the one episode everyone talks about that I hadn't seen--and it gave me nightmares, it honestly did. Those grinning freaks, gliding like...well, I told Boy they reminded me of automatons on a ride at Disneyworld. So scary.) and nothing very interesting happened this morning between waking up at 715 and getting to work by 8...So I guess I'll just make some stuff up.

Or I could just rehash everything that's been floating around lately.

...

Slight bit of tension at home over this house-buying business--I know it makes sense, I know it's a good idea--but can't we just stay here a little longer? I've moved approximately every eight months for the last three years, and I'm ready to stay in one place. I know that buying a house would mean that exact thing--but when we moved into this house, we both swore we wouldn't move for a while. sigh. There's no winning for me in this, and I guess it'll be good practice--if we're going to keep building a life together and live happily ever after, I'd best learn to compromise gracefully. I worry about becoming my mother--compromising everything and never doing anything for herself...but I'm sure that I'm far too self-obsessed to let that happen.

I've tried thinking of alternate plans--"Let's see, Boy could buy this house he wants, and my brother and I could live in the house on the lake for a few more months until dad figures things out and my brother gets a taste of the grown-up life" but I know that that plan is insane. It's financially unfeasible, and I couldn't stand being away from Boy. Not happening. Boy's plan was to buy the new house, then squat at the old one--but I'm pretty sure he was joking.

I hope. I never want to put "professional squatter" on my resumé.

Speaking of resumés and things job-related...

My meeting yesterday with the Employee Relations Manager went...okay. She suggested that I just have a one-on-one with my boss to discuss things, which is what Boy suggested as well--but I think I'm just going to keep things on the down-low for a few more weeks, when I hit the one-year mark--then I can apply for jobs elsewhere in the company.

...

Did I mention who's going to be in town? Boy's friend the Astronaut is here, and I'm really looking forward to it--we haven't seen him since October, and having him around is always a blast. I'm fairly sure we'll end up at either Rick's or the Vu (those are the two nearest Gentlemen's Establishments, why waste time going any further?)--I'm voting for Rick's, since I've never been. Also, a little birdie told me that for an extra twenty, some of the girls'll...uh...yeah. I mean, not that I'd pay for sex. Heh.

...

Man. I'm awfully boring today. I guess I'll just have to...go...work. Or something.

Monday already? How did that happen? I'll take comfort in the fact that it'll be a short week for me--I'm taking Friday off and part of Thursday in an effort to avoid losing my mind.

No, I'm not taking Friday off to see Attack of the Clowns. That's Thursday afternoon.

Also making today go faster: I'm looking forward to my meeting with our Employee Relations Manager this afternoon--even if nothing comes of it, it'll be good to get stuff off my chest.

Speaking of my chest...nah, nothing exciting.

Well, my chest *is* exciting, particularly in the boobage region, but there's no news to be had about it.

Speaking of news! We looked at houses yesterday, and it was scary. I mean, it was fun and very grown-up--but it got me feeling all antsy. We can't move yet! I need one last full summer living in this house, where I can come home in the afternoons and leave the doors and windowsuntil dark and eat dinner on the deck. I need to jump up from bed on sunday mornings, slip right into a bathing suit and start running down the lawn and off the end of the dock straight into the water.

I don't want to grow up yet.

...

We looked in Wedgwood, which is close enough to my various families but still relatively affordable--it's just up the hill from our house and it amazes me: How can our tiny cottage be worth four times a slightly larger cottage up the hill? To quote the most real-estate-agenty real estate agent (we met him on Sunday, he offered fresh cookies, the oldest trick in the book.), "Location, location, location". Waterfront, that's how.

But waterfront combined with childhood home is still not enough to justify making it the first home we buy, even as trust-funding, dot-comming up-and-comers.

Enough about houses, it's making me tense!

...

This is the funniest thing I've seen all day (aside from seeing my boss dump hot coffee down the front of her silk trousers. that was priceless, my friends.)--I come up fifth on that search. Does this mean only four other people on earth love the sound of their own voice as much as I do?

...

Yesterday an I found a HUGE ant crawling on my neck while driving home from Mother's Day brunch. I'm still freaked out about it, everything that touches my skin feels like bugs.

I hate bugs!

...

Saturday night we hit Eogan's party, and my, but wasn't that an evening. We had dinner with Dave and Quincy before the party, and by the time we'd arrived, Marty was already toasted--so you know it's bound to be a good time.

I started networking while I was there--and no, not work-networking. Members' site networking, because things are getting closer to being ready.

Not quite. But closer.

grah. Work!

I talk about the home office window all the time--how I can see every car that drives down our street, every red-in-the-face jogger, every bird that shits on our windshields--and I love it. (I would, of course, love even more if our home office faced the lake, since I'm awake here more than I am in our bedroom [which does face the lake. y'see?]; but I'll take what I can get. I suppose that with wireless and the iBook, I could just move out there on the deck and sun my little white toes--but I am here for now.)

The noisiest people just walked by--mostly it was the woman being noisy, talking a mile a minute to her bored husband. They had an antique golden retriever, and she let him shit on the tiny patch of grass that runs between our house and the Professor's next door. She was going to just walk away, I could feel it! they always do--but I'm sitting Right. Here. Watching them. The husband sees me, points, and she stops. Frowns and gives a huffy sigh. She says very loudly so I can hear through the window (and my early-morning stupor) "I don't have a baggie to pick it up!" and I smirk. "I. Don't. Care." says I, with great non-pet-owning superiority. Her eyes narrow and I wink. The husband is trying not to chuckle, but it's near the surface. We are locked in a death-stare, the wife and I, and I tell you now that I will win.

And I do.

She stoops, takes her sock off--and uses it to pick up the poop. By now the husband is doubled over and I am slack-jawed with slight disbelief. He straightens, catches sight of her murderous glare and asks "Can we put this in your can?" which makes me giggle, but he's pointing at the trash bins so I nod and they do and she speedwalks away with one sock on. The husband shrugs and I give him a tinkly wave, and our morning is complete.

...

the banana bread is in the oven. I am the best daughter ever.

Fucking mother's day! I need to make banana bread.

Weird. Perhaps you were looking for this?

Whoa. I crossed the 15,000 visitor mark today--and #15,000 was someone from Brandeis. Who are you? You pop up on my sitemeter all the time.

Anyway, happy 15,000th visit to me!

Boy and I just drove to Oso and back. We interacted with nature in the way that suits us best: from the car, windows rolled up, blasting Busta Rhymes.

From a conversation with Dave:

Dave says:
Um.... why were you going there?
Chou says:
I remembered it being much more charming and pretty, with a wide, lazy river and quaint farmy-things.
Chou says:
As we drove (and drove and drove and drove), I also remembered that most of the time I spent up there, I was drunk.

Words to live by.

...

"Behind closed doors"? I don't need no stinkin' doors.

...

Pfft. I'm just a little hard-up, that's all.

I know--melodrama, mood-swings, jumping to conclusions--they do not become me.

Things will be fine. I'm the fucking queen of spice, remember? Things will be fine.

I am the fucking queen of spice.

I've rarely wanted Friday to come as much as I have this week--it seemed like petty injustice after petty injustice was piled on me until I came crashing down last night--so I had some time to myself.

I put my clogs on, walked across the freshly mown and fertilized lawn and sat on the end of the dock. Looking across the lake used to feel like I was falling off the edge of the earth, it seemed like there was no greater distance--but I know now that it's a mile and a half to the other side, and that the sky has a distinct end. I watched seven planes and four boats and three ducks and countless clouds, and when I couldn't feel my big toe anymore I went inside.

I've always felt very strongly that this is where I want to be, where I want to raise my children and grow old--lately I've been wanting more. I know that it's because I feel stuck, dissatisfied with certain things (work, work, and more work. it's all about work.) and that once I have something else to focus my energy on (I lied; it's all about the members' site), I'll be fine.

So I went inside and did my girlfriendly duty--folding laundry until I couldn't see straight. It's just as well that I couldn't see straight, because I'd started watching Episode One on Fox--what a load of tripe! I quickly remembered exactly why I fell asleep (in the theatre, no less) the first time I saw it. I wish I could place sole blame on Jar-Jar or that stupid kid, but every single performance reeked. Natalie Portman? Blech. Liam Neeson? Hurk. Ewan MacGregor! Barf.

I wasn't asking for Great Film--just something that didn't make the gorge rise in my throat while watching.

...

Confidential to Eogan: MovableType is the way to go. Also, single men don't always fare poorly at The Spot--unless you're that freaky Michael guy who made every woman there uncomfortable. He was always sitting too close and making weird comments, and I was glad to hear he'd been banned. Yeesh.

...

Our managers have treated us all to a bagel breakfast as a reward for...what, not rioting after seeing how pathetic our raises were? and I'm very thankful they got bagels from the little hole-in-the-wall down the street. Sesame bagels with sun-dried tomato schmear is so very very good.

...

Two amusing stories I told Boy last night in a half-asleep stupor:

1. Waiting for Spiderman to start, my kid sister and I discuss Episode 2: Attack of the Clowns. I ask if her friend Reland is excited about seeing it (this is the same friend who was Queen Amidala for Halloween two years running...and on her birthday, and on Easter, and on alternating weekends when she was at her dad's house--the kid loves that costume.). Kid Sis says, "Duh, Nonny. You know her nickname is R2-D2!" and I chuckle and ask who calls her that. "Well...she calls herself that. Sometimes I call her that, too, but it's silly."

2. Watching Buffy with my brothers yesterday afternoon--it was that episode where everyone thinks that a monster is killing the swim team, but it's really just the swim team turning into monsters? It with a night-kegger at the beach, camera pans past a Jeep with a surfboard in the back and various scenes of extras drinking brewskis and high-fivin'. One of the boys (one of my brothers, that is, not one of the boys onscreen) says "I've seen this movie before"--the other responds with "Yeah, it's the one about bulemia or drunk-driving or whatever". They stop, and reply in unison: "Freshman Health Class."

These moments are truly priceless, but I guess you had to be there.

...

All this flurry over selling stock options...now Boy's caught it, too.

It makes me nervous.

...

Can it be 3 o'clock now, please? That's when I'm leaving, so I can go to the doctor and find out if my kidneys are working. Wait, no--I just make the appointment for the MRI-thingy today (they pump you full of dye and watch it squoosh all over inside you. speaking of squooshy things, Steve started telling me about the brain surgery he watched on television last night [I know. How does he FIND these things?] and I got all pale and shivery just hearing about it. bleargh. it's giving me the willies right now just remembering him talk about it over messenger! How silly of me.

but the guy was AWAKE during BRAIN SURGERY. How could you do that and ever feel sane again? I'd feel completely mental, I feel half-crazy just thinking about having someone poke me in the brain. And people wonder why doctors were considered quacks for hundreds of years and went to the barber to have their teeth pulled and bones set instead.

Actually, it's pretty easy to see why doctors were quacks then, what with all the bleeding and cupping and restoring bodily humours.

I'm rambling again.)

...

Do you remember this time last year, or even six months ago or four or two when everything seemed shiny and bright and perfect? I could be mistaken, but I feel like it'll never be that perfect and shiny again--he doesn't watch me undress with that smug grin, he rolls away in his sleep. Is this how it starts? I don't know, I don't have the manual for this, and I've never been here before. After Brian, I learned to jump ship at the first sign of sinking--but I need a miracle patch for this one. There will be no jumping.

In my web-induced empathy, I neglected to mention that Spiderman was fucking great.

...

Good Idea: Groomed eyebrows.

Bad Idea: plucking your eyebrows in rush hour traffic. Just Say No.

See, I have a hard time saying no--it's ten minutes where I'm just sitting there a) letting the warmongering on NPR depress me, or b) singing along with whatever stupid music I'm listening to. And we all know what a love-hate relationship I have with my brows...I know I said I'd go back to waxing, but after the last experience where my forehead puffed up and I looked like I had a head injury I'm reluctant to go back (here is where everyone who's heard this story chimes in with "Fucking call the salon, already! They need to know!" and I say Pfft. Because I'm a stubborn cow). I just need to set aside ten minutes to do it, at home, with a mirror and flattering light.

Stupid eyebrows. But I'd look weird without them, like a seventeenth-century galerièn.

(go look it up. historical accuracy.)

...

I. Am So. Busy.

I love the Internet. I love it with all of my heart and soul (all the bits leftover after loving Boy and my family. Internet comes third. Forget cleanliness and godliness).

But sometimes I love it more than is healthy, and I get sucked in. I read these weblogs, journals, daily accounts of things exciting and mundane--and once in a while, you read things like this and suddenly you're on the verge of tears over people you've never met and likely never will meet.

I love it too much.

Good idea: Keeping a water bottle at your desk to encourage consumption of fluids.

Bad idea: Not paying attention while filling up said water bottle at water cooler, flooding the overflow tray and soaking your shoes.

I'm hoping this isn't a portent for how my day will progress--it's gorgeous today, and I'd like to enjoy it.

But speaking of shoes...I feel like I got dressed in the dark, or in the stupid or something--I'm wearing a long gray knit skirt with a slit past the knee, a turquoise linen tank, my dusty-blue hoodie and glittery flipflops.

I was minorly freaked out about it when I got into the office and realized what I'd done--but then I remembered that there's no one here I need to impress.

My hair is pink. Not on purpose.

...

We watched that movie The Crew last night--and I was pleasantly surprised! I'd expected to hate it, since Richard Dreyfuss not only stars but narrates which has the potential to drive me absolutely barking mad--I was thinking it'd be Mr. Holland is Married To The Mob with Showgirls. It turned out to be cute and almost original and there were lots of strippers and old mobsters are funny! even if they are Richard Dreyfuss.

And let me just say now: Young Burt Reynolds? Ugh. Old Burt Reynolds? Hawwwttt.

It was a very homey evening--I went to the Market after work yesterday and bought fish for dinner (snapper for him, salmon for me--there's no way to meet in the middle) and some big tiger shrimp and fruit and asparagus and crusty campagne bread and made a miniature feast!

It was lovely. Except for Buffy, which made me so sad, those bastards. They're not supposed to make you feel bad or sad or joyful--it's Television, not Grand Theatre.

But it did! Last week I mention how glad I was that Willow and Tara got back together, how it was good to see someone getting laid on that show (the rebound sex didn't count, remember?)...my fatal mistake was internalizing their joy and hope and newfound adoration--I don't want to leave too much of a spoiler, but it was entirely too tragic.

Oof.

...

Eogan makes a comment about Seattle's lack of soul, and I feel the need to defend my poor city--We're not soul-less yuppies who arrived for the dot-com boom and got stuck when it crashed, not most of us. Seattle has community, and heart, and a decent bit of soul if you know where to look--and though it may be a damp heart, it's a good one. I know my neighbors--do you? We have keys to eachothers' homes and share a backyard--every summer, everyone on the street gathers at one house (or moves between two or three houses, as the street has grown more social) for a potluck bbq, and there was a time when I knew everyone there, could tell you who their kids were and where they went to school, who was good for a cup of sugar in a baking emergency and who would charge you a nickel if you needed an egg (that rat-bastard in the yellow house at the end was a stingy one, but his wife Kaye was adorable--they had a huge projection screen in the basement and distant grandchildren, so I think she was glad to have us around watching Bugs Bunny). True, this is because I've been here forever--but I don't think it's too hard for the newcomers to fit in.

I'm rambling. Point is--Soul! Heart! Community! We've got it here--just stop looking for it in the form of young hipsters. There's nothing hip about borrowing sugar.

...

I had a dream last night that Maren Jepson showed up at my house but she was so skittish when I tried talking to her--I haven't seen her since the summer after fifth grade, when she came on my family's annual boat trip around Vancouver Island. She was tiny, with ears that stuck out and hair longer than you can imagine. She was the oldest of...four? girls, maybe five, and in this dream she was looking for an internship in the textiles industry, and heard that Boy was a whiz. She wanted him to put in a good word for her, and seemed surprised to see me there. I mentioned the crazy twist of fate, that we'd find each other after all these years, and in such an unlikely manner--but then she took off with Boy and I never heard from her again.

Also had a dream about strippers, but I think I'll save that for a members' site update.

...

There is something intensely amusing about hearing Billy Joel sing of being a baitman and "trolling Atlantis". Yes. Billy Joel the...fisherman.

Historical Building Renamed For Ike.

No, not Ike Turner. Eisenhower.

I know. I made the same mistake.

Two women sit behind me on the bus. They are neighbors, and they attend the same Catholic church in our neighborhood (coincidentally, the same church my boss attended as a child. This town is too damned small). One woman is older--50's, maybe? and owns a bassett hound with arthritis it its toes, making it difficult for the dog to climb the porch stairs at 3am when she lets it out (it also has a weak bladder, leading me to feel great sympathy for the animal. They don't make Uristat for dogs.), and she works in the Federal Courthouse. Her husband has an addiction to internet pornography, but she doesn't mind so much now that the children are grown and gone. She has a niece and nephew (ages 7 and 10, respectively), by her sister who lives in Everett, and she's concerned about them being raised outside the Church, but that's her brother-in-law for you, that deadbeat.

The other woman is in her thirties, quiet and spinsterly with her mousy brown curls and sensible shoes. I know nothing about her.

A third woman sits down in the seat next to me, turns and begins speaking to the other two (she is their neighbor, but is not Catholic. She works at Fred Meyer on 85th, in the office two days a week and as a cashier the other three. She is on this bus because she got called for jury duty at the Superior Court. Over and over again she says this. Jury duty jury duty. I want to strangle her, but I take pity on her red, callused hands with nails bitten to the quick). There is instant tension, between the two women and the third, between all three women and the rest of the bus--their talking is so loud, it disturbs the quiet sanctuary of the morning commute. The riders in the front half of the bus have divided themselves into two camps--those straining to catch every word, and those trying desparately to block them out. I am torn between the two, hating the noise but unable to stop listening.

Jury duty jury duty.

...

Had dinner at Beppo's with Dave and Quincy last night--and it's still haunting me this morning.

The indigestion, that is. I bummed a Prevacid from our office pharmacy (more commonly known as my coworker Kim--she's got everything you could ever want, for any ailment this side of brain cancer. I'm fond of her prescription-strength acid-killers, but most others lover her for her Xanax.), but until then it's Chest Pain City. Whoof. The bedroom reeked of garlic this morning--I think we were sweating it out in our sleep. Dead sexy.

Speaking of dead sexy--next time I wear that sheer-meshy-cleavage shirt over a little tanktop, please do remind me of the weather first. It's 39 degrees outside, and I'm fucking freezing. Goosebumps? Decidedly unattractive. Always make me think of plucked poultry.

...

Progress is finally being made on the members' site--I've engaged Stacy of Sekimori to design the splash page and templates, now I just need Boy to register the domain name (hint hint) and we'll be on our way. I'm terribly excited to see this taking shape, but I'm also starting to get nervous. The questions that people ask when they find out about the project--Won't you be embarassed? What if your family/friends/coworkers find out? How will you eventually explain it to your children? How can you keep it a secret? are starting to get to me.

Will I be embarassed? Not likely. Boy and I control the content--I'm not being exploited for someone else's gain. I'll write what I want and decide which pictures get posted and which ones never see the light of day.

What if my family/friends/coworkers find out? Let's take that in three parts. If my coworkers find out, pfft. They all know we're freaks. If my friends find out--well, they wouldn't be friends if they didn't know I was capable of this sort of thing. Family--we all know the consequences there. They're my biggest liability, between reputations to uphold and the oft-strained relationship between me and Illustrious Stepfather. I'm placing bets on a) any mutual acquaintances who run across my site keeping their mouths shut (can you picture someone saying to my parents "hey, I saw your daughter naked on the internet"? me neither); and b) Deny Everything.

I'm a closet pornstar.

How will I explain it? That shouldn't be hard to understand--I'm commited to a sex-positive lifestyle (well, I try. but seeing three fists up that guy's ass freaked me out.), so I don't forsee having a problem telling kids eventually, when it's appropriate.

How can I keep it a secret? Very, Very Carefully.
...

Testiment to my occasional flubs in the kitchen: the pencil I'm chewing on tastes remarkably similar to the burgers I made the last time we barbequed. Ugh.

Had a dream this morning that I was in this heavenly hell--a giant Ben&Jerry's, complete with rows and rows of champagne truffles and marzipan pears and every manner of torturous goodness--and I was ordering a six-foot-long sundae, replete with caramelized pecans when I woke up! bladder calling for my attention! I cursed the bladder, stumbled out of bed and back and--fell asleep again! Into the same dream, only this time my sundae was melting everywhere, making the dish it was in melt--the dish was made of cookies! and then my feet got wet in the ocean.

I know that I said my own idea of hell was a bladder infection--but dreaming of this wonderful imaginary place is even worse.

...

Pretty weird weekend (no, not weird. mostly just mood-swingy), but I wish it wasn't over. We finally got the new cabinet and shelf-thing for the bathroom (it only took a YEAR), and a new entertainment center-ish thing for next to The Television to hold...(drumroll) the digital cable box. Oh, yes. We have HBO.

We are never leaving the house again.

I watched the last half of The Mummy Returns last night in preparation for seeing The Scorpion King at a second-run theatre sometime soon--Boy says, "wasn't once bad enough?" and I chuckle...but keep watching.

...

Here's how today's weather progression has gone thus far--I'm currently expecting the Four Horsemen to arrive around dinnertime: Windy rain, regular rain, chilly rain, more wind, sunbreak, rainy wind, sunbreak, thunder, rain, sunbreak, snow.

I hate that I've lowered myself to reporting the weather in my weblog,
but fuck. This is absurd.

...

(later) It appears I'm not the only one 'round these parts whose noticed the weather wackiness. Heh.

If you're in the mood for a good ol' fashioned weblog-soap-opera-conflict-thing, head over to Stacy's weblog. Ah, but for fate. Let me say here and now: Plagiarize my shit, and I will see harm done unto you.

I know people who'll break your legs for a dollar. (Thanks to Gramps--he knew all sorts of unsavory folk.)

On a mostly unrelated note: I also know people who will eat their own shit for fifty dollars. Or at least, he said he would.

Reading the weblog of someone born in 1986 makes me feel old. 1986!! I didn't know those people could read yet! Aren't they still eating paste and playing dodgeball?

Note to self: your now-18-year-old brother was born in 1984. Get it? born in '84 = 18 years old. born in '86 = 16.

...and I guess I shouldn't talk--I was born in 1980, a fact I try to avoid mentioning around coworkers. Even the ones who are only a few years older than me freak out.

Still, it seems like there's a huge gap in that six years between 80 and 86. and between 16 and 22. I remember turning sixteen--my one and only surprise birthday party (and it wasn't a surprise! I found out about it--twice--in the weeks beforehand), Kate wore a long black wig and it almost caught on fire; Gabe showed up after hanging out with some girl...I think it was the one he eventually got kicked out of school over (note to the young gentlemen in our audience: if you are 18, and she is 15, and you try to have sex with her in a closet at school, be prepared for the flashing blue lights and a night in the county lockup. and be prepared to register as a sex-offender for the rest of your life.); Mom got me tickets to the Oasis show and I nearly crapped my pants with excitement--

(three hours later, after laundry and kitchen-cleaning and getting new license plates and watching an episode of buffy and helping Boy assemble new furniture--man, I get distracted easily)

Finish this later.

My 14,000th visitor is someone from Expedia.com. Is that who I think it is?

Today promises to be better, if only because it's Friday. An entire weekend stretches before us, with promises of...Hmm. I don't know, nothing much. And doesn't that sound wonderful?

I'm alone in the office until 2ish--and I hardly know where to begin. Do I surf? Do I instant-message? Do I run around naked giving lap dances to the few people left in the office? I think I'll start with a blog entry, since yesterday was such a shitty blogging day.

Two things: Quincy, be thankful for your so-called boring search requests. This morning, along with myriad "father fucking daughter" and "visible panty thong Jules Asner E! Online", I got "amputee fetish" as a referrer, and it's freaking me out. Especially after having Boy show me a clip of some guy getting fisted last night (gee, thanks a lot stileproject.)--by THREE fists. AT ONCE.

I mean, we're perverts and all--but my god, man! There are limits to the human body!

That was a really disgusting way to start a blog entry.

It's about to get even more disgusting.

And do you know why? Because we also watched a clip of some guy shooting himself in the head during a press conference. I guess he was some state official back east who was getting sent up for embezzling or kickbacks or something, and instead of going to prison he shoots himself in the head in front of a room full of reporters.

It was so horrible! I've seen people die before, but they're usually elderly and it's never been this bloody. (this makes it sound like I make a habit of watching people die, but really it's just twice.) We forget how easy it is to become desensitized to violence, with teevee and movies and Eminem (what a passé reference, sorry. but that "Stan" video gets me every time.), but this was real.

...

What a downer! And here I was, thinking that today would be all sweetness and light. Spiderman comes out today! And it's Friday! Followed by two whole days where I don't have to be at work!

Ah, work.

I decided this morning, as I ran around stressing and feeling ulcerous (no, i don't have ulcers. it's starting to feel like it, though. so much stress!) over having to go to a job where I feel so unappreciated by my (one particular cow of a) coworker/s...that I'm just going to start looking for something new. I love this company, and I like a lot of the people I work with--but I know now that It's Just Not Worth It. (thanks, steve) I know that I'm not likely to find a company that I like more than this one--but I have to stop getting so worked up, stop feeling like I can't even get out of bed in the morning because I know that work will be so (mostly) miserable.

Mostly, I say, because I know it's not all terrible. There are people whose company I enjoy (hint hint, you know who you are.), and there are days where I almost enjoy the work that I do! But those people and days are getting fewer and farther between. Maybe I'll go back to the temp agency where this all began. Remember? I was an official employee of the agency for two whole days before taking this job, and I'm glad that I did. I'm also going to be glad to move on.

So, who wants to hire me? I told Boy he should hire me as his personal butt-lover. I don't think he'll take me up on that offer--he already gets it for free.

Actually...is it really free? He does have to put up with my whining ("I hate my job!") and indecision ("I don't know what I want for dinner!") and inability to follow through on anything ("I'll fold the laundry and put it away this weekend")...Pretty rough trade just for sex.

Then again...

I'm a fox in the sack! He's getting a deal.

...

I got all miffed and pissy last night for no good reason, and I feel bad now. I got this brilliant idea yesterday on my way home that I'd do something slightly special for Boy, since he's had a helluva week, too. I bought flowers and made cookies and porkchops and mashed potatoes--and then while I'm doing the dishes he retreats to the bedroom to chat with this 19 year old floozy he's got the hots for. It made me feel like he takes for granted the things I do--but I know that I'm wrong. He loves me and would never leave me for some 19 year old floozy. Right?

Right?! ahem.

...

Amusing, but slightly obnoxious: This woman has been emailing me and commenting on my weblog and now she's IMing me--she keeps telling me that she's a personal friend of Paige Davis, and I'm a sour old bitch for saying I don't like her. Here's how our first IM conversation went:

Her: I got your email [I'd replied to her lunatic comment on my weblog]
Me: Congratulations.
Her: u r so mean!N!!!!!
Me: Do you harass everyone whose opinion differs from yours?
Her: I am not harassing you!!!! Alex is evil, Paige is my best friend!!!!
Me: I don't believe you. And it's nothing personal--I just don't think Paige adds anything positive to the show. I've already mentioned how I don't particularly like Alex, either.
Her: u r SO mean!!!! Paige is standing over my shoulder!!!! ur gonna make her cry
Me: Whatever.
Her: u should hear what Gen and Xxx are saying about you!!
Me: Tell Genevieve I think she's a hottie.
Her: u r COL
Me: Huh?
Her: i am Paiges best friend!!
Me: I'm blocking you now. Don't bother sending more messages.
Her: i wont!!!

[/end scene]

Crazy. I bet she's still reading this, too.

...

shit, it's noon! and I have a ton to get done before I skip out at 330. more later.

...And then there are days like this.

I do not like waking up with big knots of tension in my gut, nor do I like skipping sales meetings for ungrateful petty sabotaging bitches.

Grah! This close to saying fuck it and taking off.

...

I won't, though. We all know that.

...

really busy.

Here is why I love Buffy so very much (it's rerun time now.):

[Willow and Harmony trade yearbooks for end-of-school signing]
Harmony: You're so smart! I always wanted to be like that.
Willow: Thanks! You're so sweet!
Harmony: I hope we don't lose touch!
Willow: Totally! We'll hang out!
[exit Harmony, enter Buffy]
Willow: Aw, I'm going to miss her...
Buffy: Uh, don't you hate her?
Willow: Yes, with a fiery vengeance! She picked on me for ten years! Vacuous tramp.

[later. Buffy, Willow and Xander discuss the logistics of Commencement on the Hellmouth]
Xander: Didn't you hear who the Commencement Speaker is?
Willow: Roy?
Xander: No.
Willow: Siegfried?
Xander: No.
Willow: One of the tigers?
Xander: Come out of the fantasy, Will.

/end scene

See? So Funny.

Or maybe you had to be there. It's less-funny in the writing.

From yesterday's doctor visit: A Waiting Room Scene.

WASPy Mother, with an attitude: (huffy noises) What is wrong with that woman?? Can you believe her??

Daughter, not paying attention (i think she's stoned): Uhm...whaa?

WASPy Mother, with great disdain: That woman is letting her children play, right there! [ed. note: "right there" is actually the "Children's Area", replete with toys and books and small chairs.] I can't believe this woman.

Daughter, totally on drugs: Heh.

Mother, with restrained gestures: Why won't she stop them from banging on that fishtank? There is clearly a sign prohibiting banging on the fishtank. Why don't they just stop?? That's disgraceful.

Daughter, with slight clarity: Mom, they're still in diapers. I don't think they can read.

Mother, undeterred: Well, why won't they just stop?!? She should be ashamed of herself. [more muttering. My name was called at this point. I don't think I've ever been that grateful for the chance to pee in a cup.]

/end scene

This is the weirdest Google search that has ever resulted in my weblog. "Great cheese comes from unhappy cows"?? Weird on so very many levels.

Here's how safe my neighborhood feels: I left my car windows wideall night, and nothing happened. New stereo remained in place, as did my PURSE which sat on the passenger side FLOOR in PLAIN VIEW. Sans wallet, but still! My god, I'm an idiot.

And I say feels safe, because we all remember the dynamite incident, and the eggings, and that time my brand new kidskin gloves with the mink lining got stolen from the glove box of Swanky.

What is Swanky? What is Swanky indeed!

For a short while during one of the many instances of engine failure in Rhoda (the mustang), I drove my grandmother's sunburnt-brown '84 Plymouth Reliant. It was a hard-working car, and we called it Swanky. It had no rear bumper (thanks to my lousy cousin), one of the windows had to be duct-taped shut (thanks to Campbell--the window started sliding down during a road trip, but I was smart enough to prepare well: Duct tape, a bag of sand, a pair of control-top nylons and four gallons of water is all you need. You know, in preparation for driving a crappy car in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and a gas can, or at the very least a length of rubber hose.) and had the horsepower of my grandfather's riding mower. Blondie and I drove it to Walla Walla once, with camcorder in hand and a boombox between us on the bench seat--I've still got the video somewhere, I should find that.

Swanky is now dying a slow and gentle death in my grandmother's driveway--every time I visit her, she mentions taking me for a drive. She forgets sometimes that she's almost blind with cataracts, at least blind enough to keep her from driving. When I was young, she would pick me up from school and we'd go for drives--they seemed to last forever, but in reality she'd be driving around the same neighborhood with a pit stop in the middle for ice cream. Eventually I'd fall asleep in the car (that was my mother's trick, just put me in a car and drive me around--I'd conk out eventually), and she would bring me home, turning "at the blue house", she still remembers. When my brother was old enough to ride along, he'd sit between us on the seat, chubby knees and sticky fingers--the two of us looked more alike then than we ever would, which is to say that at least our hair and eyes were the same shade of sun-lightened brown (these days, his eyes are closer to green; as for hair...heh. his is military-short and almost black; he scoffs at my candy-apple red).

This has turned startlingly nostalgic.

...

I'm in less pain today, thanks to ten hours of sleep and half a gallon of cranberry juice for breakfast--but the morning has been frazzling and tense. It's Sales Meeting time, which means kissing ass and pasting on a Mary Sunshine smile, and under normal circumstances it wouldn't be a problem! I'm just finding it increasingly difficult to give a shit, says me to Boy last night. I meant to crank out some laundry last night, maybe even iron the cropped khakis I'd planned to wear today--no deal. I fell asleep in the middle of The Osbornes (nothing could compare to last week's episode thatd with a shot of Lola the Bulldog on her princess bed...in front of a steaming pile of poo.) and slept solidly until about 4am when the pain medication wore off. Sleep came quickly and easily after another dose (okay, so I helped it along with a long gulp of cough syrup leftover from last month's pneumonia), but the dreams I had! I was at work in my nightgown, the cut-velvet one Boy loves? and I went to get my car out of the garage but I'd accidentally parked in the wrong place and to get my car out I'd have to drive up three flights of stairs with a shopping bag full of clothes in my hands. I asked the valet to do it for me, and for two counterfeit $500 bills he did! but he parked it in another lot, and I was left stranded in a warehouse that was half-full of a company party (not mine, or any other company that exists in real life--but in the dream it seemed perfectly reasonable) that was meant to improve employee morale. No one seemed entertained, and the beer was warm. Finally, the other valet guy came to escort me to my vehicle--and he was Tyrone, my physics-tutor-turned-lover! He punched the other valet for leaving me among the rabble, and nuzzled my neck all the way to the car. We kissed, he apologized for being a jerk (remember, he broke my poor little 17 year old heart by cheating on me with the Deli Slut?), and then his mother appeared with fistfuls of coupons that she gathered from discarded Happy Meals. I jumped in my car and drove away without a backwards glance.

I woke up for good around 730, thought "man, it's too early to be up on a Saturday", and rolled over. And remembered that it wasn't Saturday, it was Tuesday, and I was going to be late for work.

It took another four hours for me to realize that it's not Tuesday. It's Wednesday.

No more cough syrup. That shit's lethal, yo.

...

You'd think that last night's Buffy would have reminded me what day it was! (Not that Buffy has magical time-reminding powers, but it's on Tuesday night. Get it?) What a terrible episode, the saving grace was the graphic lesbian embrace at the end. It was nice to see someone getting laid on that show (I mean, besides Spike and Anya having a rebound fling on the table in the Magic Shop). I can't wait for Buffy to get good again.