And then... depression set in.

Bill Murray, Stripes.

So much for shaking off that funky mood. It's working in double-time today and I keep finding myself on the verge of tears for no real reason and feeling pretty disappointed with nearly everyone in my life including myself. Geez. It must be Monday.

I'm thinking it would be a good day to take a walk at lunch...

Ouch. Nothing like killing my urge to go shopping by finishing up my admittedly quite late taxes. On the downside, that's the most I've ever paid in taxes. On the plus side, its over, done with, and I've learned more than I ever needed to know about capital gains tax. Thank god for H&R Block online filing - because after 20 minutes of staring at forms, I'd already reached for the sharpened spork with which to carve out my eyeballs.

And thus another long and uneventful weekend drags slowly to an end. The last two weekends have been utterly boring, punctuated by brief moments of interest. I think I'll make plans to leave town next weekend - because two weekends of laundry is starting to get depressing. Yesterday evening I sat in the park behind Central Market sipping iced tea, watching a goose preening in the sunset, and thumbing through Steve Martin's Shopgirl. The main character in Shopgirl leads a lonely existence that is touching, sad, and scared the hell out of me because it was more eventful and interesting than my own life lately.

So rather than wallow in self-pity - which trust me, I do, but I'm damned if I'll do it here - I think it's time I take a weekend to do something interesting. Suggestions for day-trip or overnighters in the Austin area will be greatly appreciated!

Recipe for Insomnia #813:

Take one (1) portion of old house and place on concrete baking slab.
Mix with two (2) parts central air-conditioning, one exterior and one interior.
Turn air-conditioning on at random intervals during the night - not often enough for full wakeful state, but close enough to disrupt REM sleep.
Once full semi-wakefullness cycle is in effect, add two (2) male cats in high-wakeful state.
Entice cats onto bed.
Mix cats on high speed until fluffy.

Enjoy!

Pilot lights, overhead bulbs, and now air.

Yes, air. The latest example of that for which I just need the assistance of a Y chromosome.

As I was out running errands this afternoon a nice old fellow stopped me in the grocery store parking lot to tell me that my back tire was a bit flat. Yup. Definitely on the low side - and a good explanation for why my car seemed to be steering a bit odd the last few days. So I headed off for the nearest gas station.

Naturally, I didn't choose the gas station with the clearly-marked air pump. Because that would have been too easy. No, I pulled into the Exxon station, parked by the pump area filled with hoses and boxes of empty oil containers. Got out, looked at the tire again, looked at the pump. And saw the two hoses. The two unmarked hoses.

For the rest of this story, let's take a little step inside my head....

Right. Two hoses. Well, there's no sign, so they must both be air. Right? Of course. Let me just unwind this and thread this here and why are those guys in the station wagon watching me? Mmmhmmm. Smile. Nod. Unthread hose. Right.

Hmmm.

I don't remember these having little rubber tubes over the end. And what's this stick sort of thing inside? I'm pretty sure they didn't look like this when I was a kid. But then, hey. It's been years. Innovations in hoses and all. I'll just unscrew the cap and I guess this sort of slides over the little tube and then I must.. hmmm. Press down on the hose like... SHIT! Shit shit shit! Ohhhhh I-look-like-an-asshole. Oh jesus christ - if you're going to have two hoses, you could mark the one that is water couldn't you? Damnit.

Those two guys are laughing at me. OK. Lemme just glance... yeah. Go ahead - act like you're not laughing. I was just.... cleaning the nozzle. Yeah. Tire nozzle thingies get dirty. Have to clean them. Bet you guys never cleaned yours. I'll just get the air hose. Look like I know what I'm doing...

Oh yeah. This is what they look like.

I wonder how much air I'm supposed to put in this?

Last night I popped two Diet Dr. Pepper's into the freezer after I came home from the grocery store.

This morning, I sheepishly peeked into the freezer and decided to deal with it later.

Tonight, I came home from work to find a package from Amazon.com sitting at my door. I opened it to discover that fortunately I wasn't losing my mind and ordering things from Amazon in my sleep (don't think it didn't cross my mind). Instead I had a nice little no-reason gift from someone who is old and dear to me - and who I may not have mentioned that I'm quite proud of lately. Thank you, Brett. A perfectly timed gift that I will curl up on the porch and enjoy this weekend.

So I've got contractors working on my house right now. Herds of tool-wielding men descend upon my house every morning in an effort to install central air and heating, re-paint, replace, and do various other manly things involving saws, plaster, hammers, and a whole lotta scrap wood in my yard. The plumber, who is French and not very fluent in English, managed to both break the water main and turn off the gas the other day. I knew about the water main - because the City of Austin showed up to fix it at 1:45 AM yesterday morning. However, I didn't know about the gas until this morning as I stood freezing in the shower.

Now, pilot lights are among those items, much like overhead lightbulbs in the garage, that I classify as "requiring a man." I have this twingy fear that in lighting a pilot light, I'll blow my own head off, so I try to avoid it as much as possible. To the point where I'm not even sure how I'd light the pilot on a water heater. So when the first workman showed up this morning, I played the girl card and asked if he could maybe light the pilot on the water heater in the garage.

He smiled and said, "Sure can - I've even got a brand new pack of matches that will be perfect for it."

And for some reason all I could think of was "A-bow-chicka-chicka-bow-bow..."

Today's Lesson:

When, in the midst of a cleaning binge, you decide to remove all of the keys from your keyboard and really give it a good scrub down... it is perhaps wise to make note of what a keyboard layout looks like. Because otherwise you might find yourself sheepishly combing the aisles at Fry's looking for a replacement keyboard.

Not that I'd know.

Damnit, Bruce! Quit scaring me like that!

Mmmm. I've been awake since 4 AM and tossed and turned for an hour before that. My head is stuffed, I'm dizzy, my throat hurts - and I go out of town on bidness on Monday. Whee!

I had an interesting discussion at lunch yesterday in which I realized I'm governed by the law of fives. I seem to be able to last five years at anything - no more. Cities, jobs, relationships. Five is the number and the number is five.

I'm pretty sure that means I have issues, right?

Sucked in by Corey and quizzes on a sunny spring morning...


Which Member of the Endless Are You?

A few days ago I got some chocolate on the seat of my chair at work when I wasn't paying attention and it sort of rubbed into the seat cushion. I kept meaning to grab a papertowel to clean it off, but then today I realized that it, well, didn't look like chocolate.

So I grabbed my water bottle, squirted some onto the chair and cleaned it off with napkin.

And then sat down.

At which point I realized that I'd just traded a faux skid mark on my chair for a wet spot on my ass.

Sometimes I really understand why they all look at me funny.

I'm such an impulse-buy slut. My new Sony VAIO laptop will be arriving in 5-7 days.

Maybe now I'll get around to writing that great American novel.

Google makes me giggle.