Oh, my stars and garters!

How can you miss me if I won't go away?

I miss the internet terribly. It's sort of pathetic, but I feel hobbled, like I'm missing a few fingers. So many little questions remain unanswered all day long. How much rain did we get last night? Where do I know that actress from? How do you boil peanuts? Where do we go when we die? I have to save it all up until I can use someone else's computer.

But here I am, and the computer should be back sometime next week. Happy new year!

Pop in

Still no computer. I don't miss the internet, but I do miss updating. Fortunately, not much has been going on. Christmas has happened. New Year's will happen. We have family visiting in between. I have a cold.

Eric got a really cool desk on eBay. I played in the box.

We ate rib roast on Christmas. It was tasty.

See? If this is the best I can do after a whole week, it's probably for the best that I'm not able to blog. See you after the new year; maybe sooner. Ok, bye!

Offline wonderland

Our home computer is busted and will not be fixed until after Christmas, and tonight is my last night of work until 2007.

I was pretty bummed out about not having a computer over the holiday, but really, I can't think of a better time to be offline for a little while. We'll have friends and family in and out of town from the 24th through New Year's, so we've got lots of shopping, cooking, cleaning, and drinking to do. Who has time for reading newspapers in other cities or Photoshopping animal heads onto your friends' crotches in the midst of all that?

Meat friends, do not be sad if I do not reply to your e-mails. Call me instead. And everybody else, please have a very nice weekend and a lovely holiday. Oh, and if anyone wants a pound of Folger's in a Starbucks bag, let me know, because I can totally hook you up. I hear you can't find those anywhere this time of year.

It's the thought that counts, right?

Our landlady dropped off a rumpled plastic grocery bag on our porch last night and drove away. Eric approached it with trepidation; we don't like her and she doesn't like us.

At first glance, the contents seemed to add up to a cheap and impersonal but ordinary-enough gift: A Christmas card, a pound of Starbucks coffee, and a package of maple turnovers the size and density of miniature footballs. We agreed, grudgingly, that it was a nice gesture.

But wait. Why was the bag clumsily Scotch-taped shut? Even if she had someone grind it in the store, they wouldn't seal it back up like that, would they?

Further inspection revealed the bag to be two months expired.

Well, let's open it up and see what we have here. I can't be sure, but it looks like--wait, let me smell it--yep, that's Folger's. Or Maxwell House or Community Club; I'm no connoisseur.

I mean, I knew she was cheap, but I was a little taken aback to realize that the person in charge of making sure our dwelling is safe and secure is so cheap that she saves old Starbucks bags, fills them with canned coffee, and tries to pass them off as holiday treats for her tenants.

God only knows where the pastries came from.

"Wait until Easter," Eric said when my spasms of laughter finally subsided. "She'll be all, 'Oh, here's some rotten eggs and some melted candy. And I took a shit on your lawn, but--tee hee--you'll have to hunt for that!'"

Bored at work again: Post-it note Christmas version

Boo und eek

Toilet monster!

I nearly wept when I saw it was sold out. But then I felt better because the merchant at least had the grace and wisdom to provide a link to the transcendentally stupid toilet monster video.

We did a bunch of other stuff this weekend, and it was all very nice and very fun, but it doesn't really matter because instead of reading about all that, I'd rather you go watch the toilet monster video, and if you've already seen it, I wish you would watch it again. It's that good.

Bored with being bored at work

Not much has been going on, aside from the work boredom. I went online to go gift shopping and got nowhere with that. I'm very indecisive, plus I got sidetracked looking at shoes.

I really like these, even though they're orange (orange wedges, no less), go with nothing I own, and appear to be rimmed with felt grass.

I don't think I really like these, but they crack me up. They're only available in a women's five, so if you know someone who wears a size five shoe and likes cows, send them this link.

(Aside from cows, is anyone who reads this a size five? Please speak up if so. My friend Angela and I were trying to think of someone who is, and we failed. I just want to know you're out there. Hi!)

Wallace update: We blocked his access to underneath the recliner chair. We felt bad about robbing him of his hidey hole, but it seemed inevitable that he would get hurt down there. Plus, we wanted our chair back. He retreated to his second-favorite hiding place, the kitchen cabinet. He looked awfully cute peering out behind the food processor, but that didn't seem like the safest place either, for him or our food preparation.

So we now have a wood block screwed over the hole beneath the dishwasher, another wood block jammed up under the chair, and spatulas holding all the cabinet doors shut. Eric says it looks like we're bracing for an elf invasion. Wallace says nothing, just glares at us reproachfully from underneath this table or that. Come on, feral cat who was ripped from everything you've ever known to live in a little house where your attempts to get comfortable are thwarted at every turn, why you gotta be so touchy?

Very seriously bored at work

Sock puppet staredown.

SAWK RAWK!

Slurping sockpuppet.

Mystery officemate.

Yeah, it's always really slow before Christmas.

Bored at work again

(It's a Cyclops this time because I used one of the eyes to light a cigarette.)

Oh, it is good to be bored at work.

Please be uplifted

By the fact that I had three days off and did absolutely nothing with them. Nothing of note. Nothing of use. Nothing of benefit to myself, others, or the community. It was splendid. See you all in hell. Or maybe at the corner store.

Look! It's Wallace!

Now he'll come out from under the chair a few times a night for a few minutes each time when we're around, but only for catnip or Stinky. He even let me pet him for a few seconds last night for the first time since we left the old house.

Unfortunately, Stinky hates his guts now, or at least deeply resents their presence. Also, the flash from the camera just sent him scuttling back under the chair, traumatized. For all I know, this picture undid weeks of patient coaxing.

Oh, no, wait, that's a lie. It most certainly didn't, because he just this second came back out to...well, it appears he's heading for the box, and, phew. Wow. He might actually be getting a little too comfortable for my taste.

(Pap smears, chili, liveblogging my cat taking a squat...I'm on a roll this week. Tomorrow I promise I will write about something both tasteful and uplifting.)

Voyeur

"I know what color the 360 three-sixty bridge turns in the sunrise. I know and I know what the chili parlor smells like when it is time for lunch. I am a son of Austin."

(From a Moleskine journal someone left at Eric's bar last spring and never returned to claim.)

Pap culture

I went in for my annual checkup today. I am pretty healthy, it turns out.

I like my doctor because she is very honest and understanding about how hard it is to quit smoking. She tells me I should quit because I have to, recommends switching to American Spirits to make it easier (is this true?), then waxes rhapsodic about how much she loves cigarettes and how she wishes she could still do it.

She said she can't wait until she's very, very old because then she can start smoking again, and that made me smile because I have a few friends who vow to take up heroin when they get very old or have to start wearing diapers, whichever comes first.  Finally, she summed up her lecture, if you can call it that, by saying, "No, really, you need to quit."

So my doctor is awesome. Her nurse is maybe another story. She was very nice, but she asked me the same question three times, then started setting up the table for my pelvic exam. She started yanking open drawers and scrabbling through them in search of a speculum. No, none in there. Nope, not there either. Where are those darned speculums?

She stalked out into the hall and asked everyone within earshot if they knew where the speculums were. Well, didn't the shipment just come in this week? Yes, but I don't know where she put the box with all the speculums in it ... That's weird, they've got to be around here somewhere. (shuffling noises) Oh, here they are!  I FOUND THEM!

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in front of an open door, trying to look bored while I'm visible to at least five people who all now know that the speculum was for me. I mean, they were all healthcare workers, and if I were really embarrassed about it I wouldn't even be telling you this, but still.

Finally, finally, the nurse comes in with an entire armload of plastic-wrapped speculums; many, many speculums. She set one aside for me, shoved the rest in the drawer, and set to work taking my blood pressure and pulse. It was so surreal it didn't even occur to me to laugh.

Oh, my god, I am so tired of the computer screen.

I think I'll go read a book, or maybe plant myself face-down in the cat box. Anything. Christ.

Joolie burst

I can't say I recommend eating 30-plus Starbursts in the course of an evening. What is wrong with me?

Ook.

The start of something beautiful

Summary of not very much

I haven't felt like sitting in front of the computer lately. It's chilly outside. I'm making pot roast. People came over last night. I overflowed my food processor trying to make hot chocolate for them. I thought my food processor was defective, but it turns out I am the defective one because I didn't see the "Max liquid fill" line that is clearly marked on the work bowl. Fortunately, Jennifer salvaged most of it while I clumped around the kitchen cleaning up sticky milk streaks and muttering to myself.

Non-celebrity sighting: We met Jerry at Jerry's Artarama yesterday. He signed Jerry and Jeri dolls for us. He was very nice and also a little grouchy; you could tell he thought the whole "Meet Jerry!" event was bullshit. I am now a fan.

I ran a roll of film through the new-to-me Pentax. As my dad warned me, it needs cleaning because the mirror tends to stick. As a result, most of the shots were exposed kind of bizarrely. But it works pretty well in low light:

The only view we'll probably get of Wallace for a while. He comes out from under the chair every now and then, but never for very long and always slinking so hard his back is concave. No one is allowed to sit in the chair for fear he'll be crushed to death in the recliner mechanism. I bet that would make a really interesting noise if it happened.

Eric with his Jerry's Artarama purchases.

And, for good measure, a digital shot of Stinky that doubles as proof that I am a jerk. At least I didn't try to squeeze him into a fuzzy little sweater.

Update, 12:08 a.m.: The pot roast is taking forfuckingever.