Oh, my stars and garters!

Lengthy recitation

I'm back at work for the second time today. We're waiting for something to make its way down to our office, so it's very dark and quiet here right now, nothing but mouse clicks all up and down the hall.

I'm glad I didn't know I didn't have to come back when I left here at five today, or else I might have worried that I'd exhaust myself by riding my bike all over creation after stuffing myself with Thai food and tea and drinking a pint of wheat beer for dessert. Urp.

This afternoon was pretty nice, but yesterday won the prize. It wasn't anything really special or particularly interesting, just notable for its niceness. And I said I'd tell you allll about it, so...

Holy crap, I had a good day.

I'm wiped out, but I'll tell you allll about it tomorrow.

A drawring

Well, lookie here, we got us a art mu-seeum.

I can't wait for the new Blanton Museum of Art to open. We needed a big permanent collection in Austin, bad. AMOA tries, but it's dinky and can only house traveling exhibits, most of which are kind of rinky-dink anyway.

Vickie was appalled that Austin still didn't have a real art museum when she was up here in February. But the population here, while educated and I guess you could say arty, is also kind of transitory. We don't have a ton of old money here.

But now we finally have a museum, a real one, and I'm stoked to go look at art and drink Blantinis (Jen K says these are tasty orange cocktails with indeterminate ingredients) and see bands I like at the Extremely Grand Opening this weekend.

I'm still a little peeved that the undulating roof design didn't make the cut. I mean, look at this:

Extremely cool design proposal by Herzog and de Meuron that was nixed by the UT regents because they decided it was too kooky to fit in with the rest of UT's architecture, a lot of which is blocky, forbidding, and hideous to begin with. I try so hard not to be embarrassed of Texas, but sometimes that's just fucking impossible.

Ok, now look at this:

Actual design. Okay. Tasteful. Featureless. Looks like just about every other structure the university's built in the past 10 years.

Sigh.

Well, it's what's on the inside that counts, right? I'm disappointed because it could have been so much cooler, but I'm still stoked. To art!

Indoor plumbing is now an amenity.

Guess what? The hot water in our house is getting fixed, possibly as I type. It may even be fixed now! Thanks, sweating, singing plumber dudes!

It was pretty cute earlier: one of the plumbers was under the house, and his partner was wrestling with the bathtub inside. Inside guy hit a pipe: CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK, and then, faintly, through the vents in the floor, we hear the other guy howl,"I hear you knockin', but you can't come in!" He did this once more and stopped, which was good because that would have gone from goofy fun to incredibly annoying very quickly.

Honestly, though, they could have been screeching obscenities, releasing noxious farts, and yodeling contemporary gospel all afternoon long, and I would not have cared one bit because their presence meant that soon I can take blisteringly hot showers and start shaving my legs and conditioning my hair on a semi-regular basis again. It's pathetic how excited I am. And don't you worry; once my shower situation is squared away, I'll be sure to find something else to bitch about for the next six months.

Ngggggh.

Muh.

Hey, check out my balls!

My balls

I got those little squooshy balls the other day to supplement the big ball I sit on at work. You're supposed to stuff them under your back or neck or wherever you're tense and hurty. Then you sink down and let your muscles relax around them.

I'm a little worried that I'll damage myself somehow by doing this. I picture my body as being held together solely by a careful balance of muscle tension and cigarette tar, and I'm afraid if I upset the equilibrium somehow the whole system will break down and I'll collapse to the ground in a twitching, defeated heap. But so far I do feel a little better, and certainly no worse. Anyway, I'm too lazy for yoga. All you have to do with these is lie perfectly still on the floor. Perfection.

I fear that I'm turning into the queen of bullshit wellness fads, though. Pilates ball, neti pots, and now these "Miracle Balls." I guess as long as I manage to avoid home coffee enemas and ab rollers, I'll be okay.

Go to bed go to bed go to bed

I'm trying to have it both ways with a day-shift sleep schedule and a night-shift work schedule. This is not feasible for many of us at work, and good lord, I can't even finish this sentence, this is so boring.

Blogging is temporarily suspended until I actually have something interesting to write about. Could be an hour, could be years. I sincerely hope it's closer to the former.

I've got a secret weapon.

It's my sister, who is also my personal shopper. Now I am tired of talking about shopping, so the end.

Grumpy frump

Who are you people who enjoy shopping? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with me?

I spent the past two afternoons and most of my excess energy hunting for an outfit, and so far all I've managed to find is a pair of nondescript black pants that are only a little too tight in the hips for $27. So that's about 60% of my body covered, but that still leaves some other essential areas bare. So tomorrow I look for the shirt and shoes.

I do not have time for this shit. I swear to god I'm going to just buy a case of jumpsuits in assorted colors and stick with those every day for the rest of my life. It'll be, like, a thing, and no one will ever expect me to dress up or look nice ever again because I'll be Jumpsuit Girl, and that will be that.

P.S. The jumpsuit picture I linked to is really confusing. Was it really that much more trouble to take a second photo that actually depicts what the caption describes? I kind of like it, though. It's a little like those perception tests with colored words, or maybe Magritte's pipe, only in reverse and with work clothes.

Nighty-night

The first night back on this shift has been dull but pleasant. It's a little sad to eat dinner at work, but it's great to eat breakfast and lunch at home. And also drink endless cups of coffee, do stretches in front of the television, go shopping before work, and contemplate going swimming. Which I didn't do, but the point is that I could have.

This time around is better, too, because in addition to being able to hang out with rambunctious bartender boys at night, I also know some free time-having ladies I can see during the day. This will be beautiful until we have to start working until 7 a.m. and I turn into a sleep-deprived cigarette monster. I guess that has its merits too. Maybe.

I've learned quite a few things this weekend.

• Jell-O shots are maybe not the best things to eat on a hot afternoon.
• Calexico is pleasantly boring live. Also, they attract a lot of really clean-looking girls in sandals who dance well but too exuberantly until they end up reigning it in a little after a few moves and settle for throwing their heads back and exchanging these weird gleeful aren't-we-having-fun-now! looks with their friends, which makes them look horribly self-conscious, especially because this is all way out of proportion to the relatively tepid performance onstage. The first time I saw Calexico they were really great, all intense and joyful, but after seeing them two more times after that, I'm starting to think maybe that was a fluke.
• My breaststroke has really gone to shit.
• I have finally adjusted to my morning schedule. For instance, I woke up at nine this morning without reason or prompting, and this past week I got up before work with plenty of time to spare more often than not.  This is great news, except I start working nights again tomorrow. Sometimes I swear my brain is fucking with me on purpose, and I can't say I blame it; it's not like I give it much to do besides obsess over meaningless crap that I know will turn out not to matter at all.
• Eric's going to be an uncle again.
• Bullet points are ridiculous.

Wow, thanks, those stories were great.

But now I'm bored again. Somebody write me a rock opera!

I'm kind of bored today too.

Somebody tell me a story!

My day so far

I woke up. I drank coffee and smoked a cigarette. I packed ham and swiss sandwiches for lunch and gathered my tax forms and car registration notice to fill out and mail later. I took a trickly shower, applied moisturizer and hair goop, dressed, and got in my car. I paused in my driveway while backing out because my cat trotted behind me with a dead bird in his mouth. I got to work, drank more coffee, and smoked another cigarette. I chatted with my coworkers. I read the headlines. My officemate just blew his nose and sighed heavily. This is going to be a fantastic day, I can tell already.

Spectacle

See why the entertainment at minor-league games is so great? What you're seeing is two adults dressed up like sumo wrestlers, a lady in a giant hockey puck costume, a little kid racing his tricycle across the ice, and a bunch of really bored cheerleaders shimmying around watching the drama unfold. There was some sort of point to all this, but I couldn't tell you what it was. My brain got stuck in some weird loop of delight and fascination once confronted with the sumo wrestler/hockey puck combination, and I just couldn't get past it.

Peligro! Zamboni!

Also, Eric accidentally dropped his nachos into San Antonio's locker room entrance. I love hockey.

I loved my weekend.

We had twenty-eight hours in Houston with our fun friends. We squeezed in three meals, lots of drinks, an incidental tour of Eric's old neighborhood, a trip to the museum, and a well-played AHL hockey game. We also got kolaches from Hruska's on the way there and back and even ran into Rob at a bar on Westheimer. It was fast and fun and good, and now I'm going to shove a pile of laundry off my bed and go to sleep.

H-town

Tomorrow Eric and I are going to Houston to see the Body Worlds plasticized anatomy exhibit and hang out and spend the night with the esteemed Jillian and Mosley.

So many people hate Houston, hate it so much, and while I'd rather not live there (well, I actually have, but that was in Northwest Houston between the ages of five and eight, when I didn't really care that much about quality of life so long as the peanut butter sandwiches were cut down the middle instead of crosswise and the TV was in color, and goddamn, I hate these long parenthetical comments that I'm too lazy to work in as actual sentences), I've never been anything but totally entertained and fascinated by the huge gnarly place when I visit. Although, come to think of it, I haven't actually spent the night there since we moved from there to Plano in 1983. So I'm excited, and now I'm going to throw my laundry in the dryer and get a neti pot button ready for John (who got a button strictly by virtue of his enthusiasm but from whom at least a doodle of a neti pot would be gladly received), and stop by Dan's for a while because that's apparently where the action is tonight, and by now you all know how my waking hours are nothing but a relentless pursuit of the action.

Pillow fight

Hee! We made the 10 o'clock news!

San Francisco had a big pillow fight a few months ago, and a bunch of cities followed suit. Ours was last night, and about 200 people showed up with pillows. It was really fun and kind of sweet and completely ridiculous.

I thought it was interesting how many people came just to document it. One of these days people will show up to an event like this, but no one will actually be participating. It'll just be a bunch of people holding digital cameras and blinking at each other.

Anyway, the pillow fighters and photographers seemed to have a pretty great time. This morning I'm a little sore from all the pillow pummeling, but it was worth it.

All over the place

Aww.

I'm liking the black and white film. Although I'm not really sure why you'd limit yourself to black and white film when you can just zap the color out in Photoshop. Maybe I should do a test to see if film is really better. Seems like it could be geared to better handle the contrast, although I just pulled that right out of my ass and typed it onto the screen. Photo.net's discussion boards are an amazing resource. I bet I could wade through there and find the answer eventually.

Hey, I did a really dumb thing today today. I left my purse on the back of the chair at Dobie Mall food court today. We'd walked a couple of blocks back to work when I realized what I'd done. I haven't run that fast since probably ever. I was so horrified I didn't even bother to tell my lunching companions why I suddenly pivoted and raced away from them. But it was still dangling there patiently when I got back, and everything was in its place. The couple sitting next to it hadn't even noticed it there, despite its huge red shininess.

I felt relieved and silly and a little like crying once the adrenaline dump dissapated an hour or so later. Also a little sore, because I never run, at least not on pavement. But it ended well, my friends waited for me, and it's good to know I can haul ass if I really need to.

Boring plumbing update: The landlord called today. He said he has two plumbing companies pitted against each other in a bidding war. May the best company win! And then get its ass in here and get me some running water.

(Answer to the black and white question above, 45 minutes later: There are more threads on photo.net than you would believe on this very subject. The consensus seems to be that color film is more versatile because you can keep the color if it works better that way, or just drop the color out to your liking by playing with the color channels in Photoshop. Simple desaturation in Photoshop is not so great because that will rob it of some tone and contrast, or something like that. But! Then you have to keep in mind the differences between digital printing and ye good olde fashioned black and white darkroom. Also you should take into account that when you're shooting in black and white, you tend to try to compose your shot in black and white, which will probably result in a better black and white picture. Ok. That was the short answer. So thanks, photo.net posters! That was very informative, but frankly, you people scare me a little.)

Diagnosis: Dipshit

I've been having this tired-wired, bizarre-dream, popping-awake-terrified-that-I'll-oversleep thing going on for the past few weeks. It doesn't even matter that much if I oversleep every once in a while. If I do, I just call work and tell them what happened, and they say ok, see you in a few, and write it down on the time sheet. Then I deduct the appropriate number of vacation hours at the end of the month. So jerking awake every half an hour makes zero sense.

All I know is that I'm weary and that I haven't shampooed my hair since the last time I wrote about my crappy water pressure. Luckily the plumber is coming tomorrow to assess how long it will take to replace all the pipes in the entire house, which I don't have to pay for.

Also in the plus column: Today my friend Lynell told me about the crispy mini pizzas she makes with pita bread, feta, and sliced tomatoes. They sounded so good I suggested we make them tonight, and they were indeed delicious.

Eric and I rode our bikes to the store to get the supplies, and on the way there I saw a pile of discarded pink flamingoes in someone's front yard, maybe 15 or 20 of them. Probably the aftermath of an April Fool's joke, but it looked like a pink flamingo mass grave. It'd be funny to put signs in those people's front yard denouncing pink flamingo genocide, but (fortunately and as always) the tired trumps the wired.

Bathos at the bookstore

It turns out there's a very fine line between the smell of leftover kimchee and just-turned garbage. I learned this tonight when Eric and I stopped by Book People on the way home from the Korean/sushi restaurant. When I got back in the car I thought someone had left a bag of eggplant-and-used-cat-litter sandwiches to rot in the backseat over the weekend for an April Fool's joke or something. But no, it was just Eric's still-warm takeout box sitting on the floorboard, emanating visible squiggly cartoon smell waves. I like kimchee, but woof. Adequate ventilation is vital when fermented cabbage is involved.

There was a book signing at Book People tonight for Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. The author was just finishing up and sort of aimlessly hanging around the store when we got there. Finally his cab pulled up and he said, "Well, thanks," to no one in particular. Then he got in by himself and rode off. The whole thing made me kind of sad for some reason. I don't know why; for all I know the signing was a smashing success before we got there and he was taking the cab to meet some hottie for a steak dinner. This guy's the chief military correspondent for the New York Times, for Christ's sake; I'm sure he can fill an evening by himself. And even if he can't, who the hell cares?

I think about shit like this for way too long sometimes. The only logical explanation is that my brains are turning into mush. Maybe I need to lay off the neti pot for a while.

Anyway, I was greatly cheered by the new notebook I bought there. It's 5x7" with thick blank pages, a magnetic closing flap, placeholder ribbon and a big accordion pocket in the back. It's really the notebook I've been searching for my entire adult life. My attractive but slightly too-big sketchpad was getting full and its spirals were starting to unravel, so it was time for a new one anyway. I think I'll quit bemoaning my malodorous car and the lonely book-tour fate of Michael R. Gordon and go pop my notebook's cherry with some vague, useless doodles.

P.S. Be sure to check out Roo's neti pot contribution.

Neti neti neti neti neti neti neti neti (neti pot)

Ok, I put the neti pot-related art up on its very own page, Neti Steady Go. I got some great stuff. Dan even recorded a song!

Thanks to everyone who participated. I'll get the neti pot buttons to everyone by the end of the week. If you wanted to send something but haven't yet, don't despair. There's still some time!

Ok, that's enough about the neti pot for now. No, seriously. It is.