Oh, my stars and garters!

Dreary dearie

I get to work my dream shift this week: 1-9 p.m. It might not be quite so dreamy if it winds up being 1 p.m.-7 a.m. like I fear it might, but for now I can be up late with Eric at night and run errands and go swimming in the mornings.

For some reason work seems more incidental when it happens in the middle of the day, plus I can let someone else pay to keep me in air conditioning all evening.

The heat has gotten monotonous, but most everyone I know has gotten more or less used to the discomfort. Now we just laugh in outraged disbelief that it can be 105 degrees day after day after day. 

Playing with dolls

When I was about eight, my grandfather built a dollhouse for my sister and me. He had a small workshop out behind the house he and my grandmother retired to in Phoenix and so was able to keep the entire family stocked with drink coasters, treasure boxes, and cribbage boards. And dollhouses. (He also invented a putting trainer back there. It got a nice writeup in a golfing magazine but never really went anywhere.)

The dollhouse was one of the many things I brought home with me last weekend after my dad and stepmom cleaned out their attic. It needs a little work; it was mauled by us kids for several years, and then it spent a couple of decades in the stifling, dirty space over the garage. The walls are marred with fingerprints, some of the joints have begun to separate, and the shingles are curling up.

Last night Jill and I spent some time cleaning and shoring it up, but mostly we marveled at the thought and work that went into it.

Wake

My sister and I had a Michael Jackson party tonight, which meant drinking wine and watching the horrible MTV coverage before switching to the video marathon on the ME channel, her dancing passably well, and me bruising my elbow while trying to do a flip off the couch to "Billie Jean."

ME was showing a lot of the full-length concept videos, which was kind of entertaining. I had forgotten about those--aside from "Thriller," they never get played on those Hey, You Guys, Do You Remember How it Used to be the 80s? retrospective shows.

The long videos are all vaguely arty, boring, and equal parts awesome and disturbing. Michael Jackson always plays some absolutely implausible character, like a football star or a 30s gangster or a prep school kid named Darryl. The setups have a lot of exposition and terse dialogue and no dramatic interest whatsoever until, finally, Michael reaches some sort of emotional breaking point and shows his enemies and detractors how very wrong they are and how extremely right he is through the persuasive power of choreographed dance.

I kept complaining about how none of them made any sense, and my sister kept pointing out that it didn't matter once everyone started dancing. She was right, of course; the dancing is tremendous, but in light of everything that happened, those videos seem pretty fucked up now. Also, it's sad and strange to see how very handsome and charming Michael Jackson really was during the Off the Wall era.

That's all I'm going to say about it, except that it was great to be in third grade when Thriller blew up, and also my elbow is still kind of sore.

Teerash

I'm not sure why I'm sitting here watching NYC Prep. Probably someone should come over and hit me in the head.

Yep to it all

No shit, it's really hot. If I were rich I would fill a swimming pool with Topo Chico and keep it chilled at 76 degrees all summer long. But I am not rich, so I must rely on bottled Topo and the already lukewarm public pools.

This weekend Eric and I went up to Plano to celebrate Father's Day and to get some old furniture and the last of my childhood crap. I guess I'll sort through it all this week; I really have no idea what's in most of those boxes. Some funny stuff and some painful stuff but nothing too illuminating, is my guess.

While my parents watched the NASCAR race yesterday, we went out on a field trip so we could participate in this Mapping Main Street project that Katherine told us about. Part of it involves documenting every one of the more than 10,000 Main Streets in the United States. That's a lot of Main Streets, so the creators set up a Flickr pool and are inviting everyone to help.

Well, we like to help. And also to drive around and take pictures of little towns on Sunday afternoons. So we drove around Allen and rural Collin County out by Lake Lavon and grabbed no fewer than three Main Streets. The set is here.

My pictures came out okay. I can blame some of the composition errors on shooting from a moving car and the bright and terrible sun making it impossible to see through the camera, but the truth is I'm way out of practice. Maybe I can remedy that by finding more Main Streets to take pictures of.

If you want to take pictures of Main Streets too--and you should because it's fun--the instructions are here.

Buzz buzz buzz

I am sorry to promote such a gimmicky product here, especially one that is a total racket because you have to buy $3.50 refills for it every few days, but the Off clip-on mosquito repellent fan thingies are pretty goddamn efficacious. I have been sitting outside all evening and have only had two bites as opposed to the usual 30 or so. Actually I don't know how many I would have gotten because by now I would have either retreated inside or hosed myself down with that nasty spray.

They are incredibly dorky because everything that clips on to your waistband is dorky (I'm trying to think of an exception and I can't; can you?). But you know what else is dorky? Going around all summer feeling greasy and smelling like a blend of Raid and cheap potpourri. I will try them tomorrow while actually moving around and watering the garden and we will see if this is truly the (expensive) answer to all my problems in life that I think it is.

P.S. While I'm plugging things, I find Blue Bell's blackberry cobbler ice cream delightful. It makes up for the too-sweet disappointment of their key lime pie flavor.

Vroom vroom vroom

Back to work today. I actually got out of bed at 7:30 this morning, which makes me a good person. (Way to go, me! Pat. Pat.) My car had been making this terrible noise that sounded like a bunch of bolts dropped into a deep fryer, so I got up early to make sure it was still making that noise before I called the mechanic. It was, but I couldn't get hold of him, so I rode my bike to work. Later this afternoon, he said he could squeeze me in to look at it, so I got a coworker to take me home so I could drive over there, and dammit. No more noise.

It even seemed to run better than it has in a while on the way there, as though to taunt me. I was a little embarrassed, but the mechanic was understanding and said it happens a lot. I mean, it's not like I'm going make up a noise so I can go hang out at the repair shop and waste someone's time for fun (although I don't know, some people might; he is kind of cute). He poked around the engine for a while anyway and declared it officially not in imminent danger of explosion, and I didn't have to pay for repairs, so all I lost was a few hours of time off and a tiny bit of my dignity.

So that was my stupid day. Oh, and it turns out aguas frescas are not at all easy to make if you only have a tiny strainer that will only hold a few tablespoons of fruit pulp at a time. I've been working it in batches for an hour now and it's still not ready. I guess I can have it for breakfast.

Drink your dinner

It's already too hot to cook, so I'm focusing my energy on drinks instead. They are much more interesting to me than food right now.

I used to shun flavored vodka because I used to be a stupid snob, but my sister made me a grapefruit vodka and soda last week, and I thought it was pretty good. So I got a bottle of raspberry vodka and used it in sparkling lemonade. Holy candy-flavored super-easy girl drink, those were good. I counsel moderation.

I also figured out how to make my own version of the Goodflow honey ginger lemon-lime juice I've been pining for ever since they got shut down by the bastard FDA. I heated up some honey so it would mix well with the juice of two limes, grated some ginger in there, and topped up the glass with Topo Chico. Close enough! I'll throw a lemon in there next time too; we were out.

I also want to try to make aguas frescas. I don't think it will be hard. And I'm still enamored with smoothies. I've been making them with pineapple and mint from the backyard (the mint, not the pineapple).

And of course I always love beer. The pilseners have been tasting really good to me lately. And I love cold water. And hot coffee. And all those other drinks that are delicious.

Conversion of labor into goods and services

As I may have mentioned nine million times before, I hate shopping for clothes. I hate shopping for anything, really. I wish I could be an adult about this shopping thing. It's not cute and it's not about any high-minded desire to consume less. I suspect it's just mulish stupidity.

Still, I hate it. I hate looking at things, trying them on, spending money, refusing to be added to mailing lists ("But you'll get coupons!" they counter, affecting bafflement).

Sometimes even my shopping-averse inner three-year-old has to concede I need stuff, though, especially when I am cycling through about six shirts and three pairs of jeans every week. Besides, I hadn't spent any significant time with my sister in a while. So she and I had a sort of shopping day camp for overworked adults this week. We shopped and shopped. For two days in a row we shopped, and she also treated me to a belated birthday pedicure.

So now I have a bunch of tops, a pair of shorts, some pants, and four pairs of shoes. Oh, and a dress, and shiny red toenails.

Although it was a net positive and I had a really good time running around with my sister--strangely, my sister loves to shop; she was beside herself with the shoppingness of it all--I feel like I should not have to go back out again for anything at all for at least a year. Unfortunately I still need jeans, bras, and a bathing suit.

Also I need a dryer to dry all these things, as the motor is going out on the current one and apparently that would cost more to fix than replace. I flirted with the idea of doing without and rigging up a clothesline out back for about two seconds, but our yard is full of trees. My clothes would be covered in pollen and birdshit, and then all that good shopping this week would go to waste. The shopping, it never ends.

x=x=x=x

Twenty years on and I am still having stress dreams about being unable to solve the quadratic equation. I hate those.

I was abysmal at math in junior high and high school. I got a 69.45 in the first-semester of precalculus in 11th grade, which rounded up to a 70 (at least I know rounding!) and led everyone involved to agree that should be the end of my career in high school math. I was able to fulfill my degree requirement at UT with a community college class charmingly titled "Math: Its Spirit and Use," which involved such rigorous assignments as mapping out a garbage man's route using as few left turns as possible. I still only got a B.

I have considered taking and trying to ace a basic college math class as an adult to put that behind me once and for all. So far I haven't had any concrete need for algebra, but it's starting to feel like a personal failing, especially since it's giving me nightmares into my 30s.

Freeeeeeeee

After three days off, the overwork and associated self pity are beginning to recede. We drove around today, saw friends, went out for our joint belated birthday dinner on my parents' dime--thanks, guys!--and saw Drag Me to Hell. You know, normal-people stuff. Tomorrow I'm going to the lake. Tuesday I'm going to buy clothes and get my toes done with my sister. The rest of the week I will ride my bike, swim, and start taking care of the hundred little things I've let slide over the past few months.

That and a few out-of-town trips to visit friends and family are the sum total of my plans right now. The rest of the future will have to take care of itself.

Game to play

I love Crush the Castle.  Hurling rocks at your enemy is so simple, so satisfying, so hilarious.

Old man yells at cloud

I am tempted to call in a noise complaint on the police helicopter that's been circling my neighborhood for the past 20 minutes.Go ahead and fly and fly and flash your searchlight and irritate everyone as much as you like, guys, but you're not going to find what you're looking for because you never do. You could probably hire 10 more cops a year with what you spend on fuel for that stupid thing.

I can't get that mad, though. I bet it's totally fun to ride around in the blinky buzzy helicopter all night.

Lycopene

I ate Tiny Tom tonight. He was sweet, savory, and delicious. He has about 50 little brothers who are also about to reach the age of consent. I will hook you up with one if you come over. I am a cherry tomato pimp, but an ethical one.

Tomorrow is my first day off in almost three weeks. I still feel weird.

Full

I have finally crawled out of the workhole. I should feel triumpant about that, but instead I feel as though I've been beaten with sticks for the past month. It's going to take a while to feel right again. Twelve hours of sleep tonight and taking next week off will be a good start.

Ditch

I'm still stuck in a deep, dark workhole. But not for too much longer.

And you? How are you? How'd that thing work out for you? Did you buy that stuff you were wanting?