Have I mentioned... and I don't think I have.. it's Friday!!?

Yeah baby!

The sun is shining. It's long-sleeves and jeans weather in Austin (at last!) and I've got a nice weekend ahead of me.

Well, in theory at least. With the latest big project at work, I'm going to be spending a fair amount of time dog-paddling my head above water this weekend. However, thanks to the wonders of telecommuting, at least I can do it from my house. So even though I'll be working this weekend, I can at least kid myself that, you know, it's optional. I'm not required to work. I'm merely choosing to do so. Uh-huh.

In between work spurts, I need to rake the yard, clean the dust off my ceiling fans (which have just stopped spinning for the first time in months), visit the awesome hippie-chick grocery store, and (and this is the really exciting one) clean and mop the bathroom. Feel my enthusiasm for that one. I love my house, but it has the most annoying bathroom. Not only does it come with an old "don't lean on it or it'll fall off" wall sink, but the tilework is yellow with a maroon border and the walls are... pink. The landlords gave me permission to paint anything I wanted as long as I don't choose icky colors, so maybe one of these weekends I'll at least get rid of the pink paint with a nice coat of white. If I ever bought this house, that bathroom would be the first thing I'd tackle.

Which leads me to HGTV - Home and Garden Television. Not a good station to watch when I'm already annoyed with my bathroom. Because it sucks you in and gives you ideas. Bob Vila, Lynette Jennings - they make it look so easy, don't they? I'm not kidding here - after an hour of Lynette Jennings one day, I was convinced I could (and should) replace my own front windows with a bay-window and window seat. Even thinking back on it now, I'm all wistful thinking, "I could do that. No really. I could. I could get Chet to support the window while I laid down the masonry." I was watching a burly Bob Vila type just the other day. He was tracking the re-roofing of a London townhouse complete with the raising of the roof and creation of a loft apartment. I was watching the guys in the background laying bricks to support the new roof and thought, "You know. It'd be so easy to add a second story to this house."

I've got to find another station to watch.

I'm sort of scared by the fact that I.. well.. I sort of like Kid Rock. In that sort of "he's a scuzzball with a fast car and my parents would hate him" way. I think my teenage years in a metalhead Midwestern town are showing. Kid Rock is the kind of guy that we would have hit up to buy us beer. Kid Rock would have driven an El Camino. Kid Rock would have tried to convince us to come party at his house down by the river.

I don't like him enough to actually buy his CD, of course. I just like the song "Cowboy."

Shhh.

Special Note to the Old Woman at McDonald's:

Listen, dearie. I'm a Yankee. Yes, that's right. A Yankee. What does that mean? That means that if I've been standing at the counter for ten minutes waiting first in line, and you toddle up next to me right as the $4.00/hr Mickey D's clerk deigns to help someone, don't even think about scooting in front of me when he asks who is first in line.

Because I'm hungry, I'm late, and I don't have any of that Southern gentility that will keep me from hopping right back in front of your lilac-scented, pant-suited butt for my Egg McMuffin.

Hmph.

Woohoo Steph!! In honor of your amazing talent, I took a few moments after lunch to do the "Steph Won a Tivo" dance around my office. Enjoy your new toy as well as the knowledge that my officemate thinks I'm even more of a flake than he did twenty minutes ago.

"Life is not tried, it is merely survived, if you're standing outside the fire.

I'm not even fessing up to where that lyric is from. Suffice it to say, the CD was given to me by a former assistant. If you know the assistant, you can guess the artist.

Today's tidbit? Standing inside the fire sometimes burns your ass.

Ow.

It sucks to be pissed off and not sleepy.

And not have any Tylenol PM in the house...

OK, I really really want the top CD on this list. At least I will for the next several hours - until I get sick of it from listening to the mp3 of "Smooth" over and over and over...

Ever have one of those nights where you finish cleaning up the bedroom and putting clean sheets on the bed, and the windows are open and a nice breeze is blowing through (aided by the ceiling fan), and you think to yourself, 'this will be a nice night to sleep with the windows open'.

So you go to bed with the windows open and a light rain beating down outside and somewhere during the night it turns cold, bitter cold, and you remember that when your ex moved out he took the comforter, so all you have is throw blanket from the couch, which would normally only keep your legs warm, but isn't even managing a leg because the cat has targetted it as the only warm spot in the house and you've been pushed aside to shiver under the sheet, except for one big toe that the cat has graciously allowed under the blanket.

So it's 4:00 AM and you're shivering under the sheets and you think you may freeze to death before morning, but - and this is the important point here - it's too cold to get up and close the windows, or god forbid turn off the ceiling fan. So you lie there and you shiver, and the cat scoots over against your leg and starts sucking the very soul from your body through the pores of your cleanly-shaven leg. You can't take it anymore, so you get up... not to close the windows or turn off the ceiling fan... but to grab your big fluffy robe from the closet to use as a blanket.

You get back in bed, curled up under 5 inches of throw blanket and a fluffy pile of terrycloth, and the cat moves under the pile, to better suck the warmth from your body, and you lie there wishing, for the first time since the breakup, that there were another person in your bed - but not because you are feeling sexy or amorous, but because much like the cat is doing at that very moment, you want to be like a succubus and suck the very warmth from another human being and discard their empty shell.

Ever have one of those nights?

No?

Oh. Just checking.

Yay! Dave posted his Day in the Life pictures - part of a project in which a few hundred webloggers spent 24 hours photographing themselves and their surroundings. My friend Dan also took part - along with his handy superhero sidekick. They both make me wish I'd taken part!

(Special note: Chris, Dave's fiancee, is still using the wallpaper I made her two years ago for her computer. Hehe!)

Melissa! I like the new look! Melissa's gone girlie... Melissa's gone girlie. (No, really - I like it!)

So I was driving around this morning, running errands, and at least twice in traffic I had sudden thoughts that I meant to post here. And now that I'm home, I can't remember what they were. Sigh.

I went to Home Depot this morning to look for a rug for my living room. As if mega-home-hardware-manly stores aren't already intimidating, my wee little Aspire was the only vehicle under 12 feet long in the log. Yup, my little bitty car looked rather amusing pushed in the row of SUV's and pickup trucks. Talk about feeling girlie...

I could just hear all the macho guys whispering.

"Hey Bob - put down that 3/4 inch socket wrench and check her out."

"Did you get a look at that car? She has no clue what she's doing here."

"Yup. Safe to say she's not buying a table saw."

"Let's go watch her get lost in the plumbing section. Hehe."

Instead of a rug, I decided to replace all of the cupboard knobs in my kitchen. Yes, I know. It's a rental. But they look cute.

Well, at least... most of them do. I didn't count them before I left (as I wasn't planning on buying them) so I guessed. Wrong. I now have a kitchen full of lovely cream cupboards with 16 green ceramic knobs and three white ones. It's too hot out now to drive all the way back to Home Depot, so for the next few days, should anyone set foot in my kitchen, I'll make sure they only look to the right.

Oh, and Dave? I didn't think there was anyone who could get more angry in traffic than Bruce. Hehe. You win!

It's raining outside my window, and suddenly all the dead trees and bushes have turned a dark green. If I could open my window, I bet I could hear a collective *slurp* from all of the water-starved plants.

I realized this morning that I should have been an actress. In the course of the ten-minute drive to work, I decided that when I grow up I want to be a) a radio disc jockey, b) a fireman, c) an astronaut, and d) an international reggae star. What could have sparked this, you might ask? Let's step inside my mind for a moment...

1. Radio Disc Jockey

"Doo-be-dum. Damn. Hot hashbrowns. Ouchouchouch. Won't you take me to... Funkytown! What a horrible song. I hope no one saw me singing that. If they saw me singing, they're probably wondering why I'm laughing now. Yes, ha ha! There's no one else in the car and I'm laughing out loud! Haha! I'm a madwoman! Oooh. He's cute... Ahh, traffic report. Not my drive. Not my drive. Not my drive. Thank god I don't live in the suburbs. Aww, it's the DJ's birthday. And what's-his-name is having people call in to wish her a happy birthday. How cool. I remember when I wanted to be a DJ. I would have been good too. Oh, what? Get off my tail! Drive around! Geez.... ... It'd be fun to be a DJ."

2. Fireman

(Approaching the fire station along my commute)
"Oooh. Firemen. Firrreeemen. Hey look - one drives a Jeep! I bet he's cute. Jeep's are always cute guys. It'd be fun to be a firefighter and live in a fire station. And, um, fight fires and stuff. Hey, they have a sand volleyball pit!"

3. Astronaut

(immediately after the fire station)
"Damn. I got grease on the volume control. Stupid hashbrowns. What is with this need for another job this morning? I might as well run off and be an astronaut. [sigh] I remember when I was going to be an astronaut. I could've been up there in space, if I'd just applied myself. Well, except for the math. Yeah. There was that problem. Hate the math. Why doesn't anyone ever send a writer into space? Stupid math."

4. International Reggae Star
"Oooh. Bad. Bad song. Make it stop make it stop. Ahhh. There. I wanna be loved... not for who you think I am.. nor what you want me to be. Love me for me. Real loveeeee, with no strings attached.. Yes. Yes sir. I was singing. Stop looking at me like that. See? I was singing. Obviously there's music playing or I wouldn't be drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, right? haha! With no strings attached... Quit looking at me, Lexus-boy. Like you've never sung in the car. You know, if I were an international reggae star, this would never happen. Because I'd have tinted windows. And, you know, dreads."

Here - I'll even give you a soundtrack so you can pretend you're me.

But I can grow better dreads. Hmph.

Today's Handy Helpful Tip:

If you're going to revel in your newfound singleness by sleeping on the couch with the TV on, it is perhaps a wise idea to turn the channel away from Cinemax before you fall asleep.

There's nothing quite like waking up at 2:30AM to the delightful "oooohs", "yeah babys", and wah-wah guitar sounds of "Alien Sex Puppets".

Trust me on this.

There. Now I'm not swiping quite as much from Steph!

Special thanks to Gryph for being my second set of eyes.

"You can tell what the image is, right?"

"Yeah!"

"I mean, you can tell it's a person, right? Not a gray, nebulous blob?"

You know, I didn't realize til after I uploaded it all that I sort of swiped Steph's word thingy.

I can only plead the fact that I'm such a sucky artist that all I can do is modify text.

"Who is this irresistable creature who has an insatiable love for the dead?"

I wonder if a sitcom about a game company run by zombies would sell? Too niche market, I expect. Maybe if I widened the scope to include all the undead. Hmmm.

You know, there are just so many directions I could take the above thought - and every single one of them would get me in trouble. Sigh. The perils of having a public website. Ahh well. I'll just keep my mouth shut. Doo-be-doo - look at the time!

Jeff needs to take back the weird dreams. I dreamt last night that I was living in a bookcase with a player of the former game. It was obviously a roomy bookcase.

Oh yeah. It's Monday. Gimme coffee!

I can't take myself anywhere. I just can't.

I finished cleaning the living room, set up some nice candles all around, and decided to spend a nice, pampered evening. So I popped out to the store, picked up the makings of a nice salad for dinner, and grabbed a bottle of wine. I'm pampering myself, so I decided to splurge a bit on the cost of the wine.

I walked in the door with the groceries in my arm, walked in to the kitchen, and promptly dropped the bag with the wine in it and watched it shatter.

On the plus side, my kitchen now smells like a nice rieseling.

Waving goodbye as he drove off in the U-Haul was one of the most painful experiences I've ever felt.

I don't ever want to feel like this again.

Ever.

After 31 years on this planet I've finally learned my one fatal flaw:

I don't understand people.

And so help me, I don't know why I continue to try.

Before I disappear into the chaos that is my day, I leave you with a lovely time-waster that has just eaten 30 minutes of my life:

Bad Astronomy

Causing another human being to get a song lyric stuck in their head all day should be grounds for being slapped repeatedly in the head with a water-logged copy of the Kama Sutra. I'm just sayin. You know who you are. Yeah. You.

This is the first moment all day I've been able to take a breath. Whew. And I have the nice treat of watching a major thundercloud rolling in over the parking lot. Yay rain!

I watched "Sense and Sensibility" last night. Excellent movie. Left me wondering whether true love exists in the world and whether or not Alan Rickman would run away with me somewhere. (Hey, I'm a romantic, but I'm also a sucker for a sexy man.)

I didn't nuke anyone in my dreams last night, but I did dream that there were kittens living under the front seats of my car.

I know dreams are The Wise and Powerful Jeff's territory, but bear with me on this one.

It's a known fact that I have bizarre dreams. Kooky, "out-there", freaky dreams. This extends to nightmares as well.

I rarely have nightmares. Maybe once every six months I'll wake up panicked or crying. Last night was one of those nights, but with a different twist.

I fell asleep around midnight and awoke at 1:45AM. Freezing. It was about 80 degrees in the bedroom, and I had to go get a blanket before I could fall back asleep. Brett thought I was a kook when I wandered out to the living room in search of a comforter. The mind is a powerful thing, but I didn't realize I could fake out my own body tempature.

As for the kooky dream. Err. Well, it involved throwing grenades in my parent's basement as a ritual of passage, accidentally throwing in a nuclear weapon and forgetting my childhood cat was in the house, irradiating my cat (who, as is the way of dreams, got better), and stuffing the cat in a pillowcase to run off after I failed to convince my parents to leave the house. They didn't seem to be bothered by a radioactive basement.

I ran up the block to a neighbor's house to which I conveniently had a key, and noticed that there were alien spaceship flying in the distance, shooting lasers at the ground. One passed overhead, floating by the strange alien factory that had appeared behind the houses across the street. I tried to get into the neighbor's house to hide (still lugging pillowcased radioactive cat and a flashlight) and found it filled with people who wouldn't let me in. I turned back to the street... and woke up freezing.

Yeah. Analyze THAT!

Hmmm. Like Steph, I recently got around to watching Magnolia. While I wasn't as opposed to it as Steph, I too have been sucked into the soundtrack.

So I just borrowed the CD from my friend Greg in the office next door.

OK. This is not happy music.

This is depressing, sad, "when I was a child I thought the world was filled with endless possibilities and oh how did I get so old and I'm going to die alone and there isn't really any point and the whole world is broken and can't be fixed" kind of music. This is a full-out depression in three minutes and thirty-one seconds or less. I'm actually impressed by the level of sorrow and pain in this music. Wow.

Assuming that songwriters are like fiction writers, striving to get a reaction - any reaction - from their audience, I'd say Aimee Mann managed it with this CD.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cry over the fact that I can't grow up to be an astronaut anymore.

Interesting Advice

Car Alarms

When I was in college, I spent a year living on "Frat Row" - a short, tree-lined street home to five fraternity houses in addition to a scattering of apartment buildings. Our 12 apartment building was basically an annex of the TKE house and we three hippie-types stuck out like sore thumbs. But the apartment was nice, the rent was good, and besides, there are few things quite as impossible as breaking a year lease in a college town, so we stuck around.

At Christmas time, one of the frat boys was gifted with a shiny, red sports car that he parked like a prize out on the street. The shiny, red sports car also had a spiffy car alarm. A talking car alarm. Whether to show off, or simply because he couldn't figure out how to reset it, the owner kept the alarm set on "ultra-hyper-sensitive", so at least once a day we were treated to the sound of a mechanical voice stating, "You are too close to this automobile. Please move away from the automobile." drifting up from the street.

One afternoon, I happened to glance out our front window as a pedestrian walked down the sidewalk near the car: a young guy toting a backpack on his way back from classes.

"You are too close to this automobile."

He stopped.

"Please move away from the automobile."

He glanced at the car.

"You are too close to this automobile."

He took a step back onto the lawn and watched the car. It hushed up.

He stepped forward onto the sidewalk.

"You are too close to this automobile."

He glanced up and down the street, walked over, dropped his backpack on the hood, and leaned back against the car, folding his arms while the car launched into its unthreatening litany.

Perhaps car alarms aren't quite as effective when they make strangers want to pick a fight with your wheels.

Damnit Dave!

muttermuttermumble.

I want the three hours of my life back that I lost by clicking your Dropout link.

And because you didn't post Steph's high score, I don't even know if I beat it.

So I stopped at the post office this morning to pick up stamps. With only a 20-dollar bill in my pocket, I was forced to line up for the clerk to get change.

There was a little sign near the door that said, "Please take a number." I glanced about the room, saw two businessmen being helped at windows, and no one standing in the little roped off line. I figured, 'Eh. It's 8 in the morning. There's no one else here. I'm first in line. Why waste the paper?"

Five minutes later a woman walked in the door behind me.

She grabbed a number, walked up to where I stood at the front of the line, and said, "Do you have a number?" as she showed me her ticket.

"No." I smiled.

She nodded, and pushed past me to the front of the line, where she promptly turned her back on me.

Listening to very, very loud Rob Zombie on my headphones. It's looking to be a Zombie/Sisters of Mercy/Nine Inch Nails kind of day.

I just need to remember not to sing along with the lyrics while I zone out into typing.

There's nothing more disconcerting than an officemate singing, "Crawl on me, sink into me, die for me, Living Dead Girl."

Except maybe an officemate singing NiN's "Closer"... Ahem.

Emode is the devil.

Coming completely out of left field is the fact that Harrison Ford is my celebrity match. I'm just shocked. Who would have thought the man I've had a crush on since I was, oh, seven? Amazing!

Chet, many of you will be shocked to know, is a James Dean type of cat, who may (and I'm not saying yes or no here) have a nasty catnip addiction. Ahem.

And, in the most amusing silly test of the day, in my past life, I was a leopard named Lola.

Not much is certain in life, but we know this much is true. In your last life you were a leopard named Lola. You were a showgirl. With yellow feathers in your hair, and a dress cut down to there. You would meringue. And do the Cha-Cha. And one night at the Copacabana, (the hottest spot north of Havana), you fell in love with Tony, the bartender. Tony fought with Rico over you (he wore a diamond), but Tony won. The two of you grew old and happy and joyfully danced your lives away at the club.

You know. It actually scares me to ponder the things I'd do for central air right about now.

Really.

Yes Steph - that vet. There's actually a picture of him on the web - at that particular animal hospital's website - but I'm not fessing up to it because he looks like a doofus in the photo. And, you know, I've built him all up to be a babe magnet and I'd hate to disappoint anyone.

However, I'd be willing to pass his number along to you. You know, you could call him because your cat is sick and I gave you the number...

Because it's all about the digits baby!

Coffee is good. Coffee is good. We love coffee. All bow down before Coffee - the benevolent God of Awakeness.

Isn't getting digits the best feeling, Gryph? Doesn't matter if you intend to call, it still feels good!

About a year and a half ago, my vet in St. Charles gave me the home digits after sitting and flirting with me for an hour while Chet sat on the vet table and grew more and more pissed. His reasoning was that I shouldn't need to go to the emergency vet when Chet was sick in the middle of the night when I could just, gosh, give him a call and he'd be happy to help - oh yeah and by the way his home number redirected to the office during the day so if I called I should just leave a message on his voice mail and he'd call me right back. And then he put his hand on my back as he escorted me to the receptionist...

I always felt like I should call him up and thank him. I think I still have his business card in my wallet, where I could pull it out and giggle at it if need be. Hey. He was cute.

And now all you folks in Mooville can laugh because he's at the vet right down the street from Mooville central. He's the, um, cute one.

The lesson guys? Give the digits out. You wouldn't believe how nice that makes us feel.

And you may ask yourself... why am I awake at 5:50 AM?

Hell, I don't know either.

Catching up with the Bloggers:

Corey - I should hope you're reading my blog, since I'm reading yours! And thank you for the compliment on my writing. It means alot coming from someone who's actually published work.

Steph, Melissa, Suz, and Dave have all gone for spiffy new looks lately. Very nice ya'll! (Is this some sort of fall redesign frenzy?)

Jeff flatters me, Bear gives me strange supporting roles in his dreams (didn't you dream about the same three women last time?), my diabolical Lego plan has affected Dave's site, I brought bottled water to Mexico, but I forgot and ate an ice cube and regretted it later, and if I'd known Steph would need a fridge, I would have left mine for her.

Whew! Pant. Pant.

I dreamed I went to Mexico.

Or maybe I did.

And I forgot my passport. But I remembered some other things - and lived to tell the tale.

Coming soon! "Mexico in 24 hours or Less!" (Subtitled: If You Feel the Urge to Go Mexican, Take Your Damn Passport)

650 miles. Two people. One Jeep. 15 1/2 hours.

Must sleep now.

Zzzzzzz.

Damn Gryph. Now I want a tattoo.

The problem is, I can't think of what I want. What image personifies me?

I'm not cutesy. I'm not flowery. I'm not cartoonish. Which, um, rules out alot of your stock tattoos.

Any suggestions?

In other news, it's Friday and I'm suffering my post-lunch naptime slump. I really want to shut my office door and crawl under my desk with a blanket and take a nap til about 3:30. Unfortunately, my officemate might find that a little disconcerting. Yawn.

Zzzzzzz.