Merry F***ing Christmas!

Today's Activities:

Wake up at 11 am.
Stay in bed and read until noon, but only get up because I really, really need to pee.
Make and eat breakfast (toaster waffles and free-range turkey sausage patties).

Wait for 1pm to roll around, so that I can start watching A Christmas Story from the beginning (it's on for 24 hours straight on TNT, hard to miss).
Watch Black Adder's Christmas Carol and start preparing dinner.

Dinner menu:
Roasted turkey breast. Turned out magnifico, mahogany skin and juuuiicy.
Stuffing. Stove Top brand, but I added dried cherries and pignolas to it.
Cranberry sauce from a can. Gotta have those ridges or it just isn't right.
Mashed potatoes. From scratch, thank you.
Gravy. Packaged, but with all the juicy bits from the turkey added in.
Fresh asparagus with real Hollandaise sauce. Yum!

Eat dinner and watch The Ref (a Dennis Leary holiday movie that is effin' funny), sporadically interrupted by calls from family.

Clean up. A little.

Watch the last bit of The Ref, followed by the holiday songs episode of South Park (missed the dreidl song, but caught "Merry F***ing Christmas, so all was not lost).

Finish the evening with A Wish for Wings That Work. Opus!

Early to bed to read, likely finishing my book from this morning.

All in all, a happy holiday!

A holly, jolly, bitchy Xmas, to you

So, I was at Border's today, giving myself a nice little present of some books for the holiday. Very traditional for me. If you ever need to get me a gift and don't know what to choose, get me a gift cert at any bookstore. Anyway, I'm trying to find one more book, just to take me over the credit left on my gift cards, so that I have two less pieces of plastic in my wallet. Good excuse, no? I'm sitting in the aisle browsing the Japanese cooking books. Whenever someone comes by to browse, I would tell them to "let me know if I am in your way," since I am blocking part fo the shelf, because my parents raised me to be ultra-polite, or at least regular-polite. Only two people came by, and I got into one book, not noticing how long I was sitting there for. Could've been ten minutes, coulda been 30, I don't know. You know how you can get when your attention gets caught by something, and I wasn't in a main pathway, or so I thought.

So, imagine my surprise and flabbergastment when this, this...woman pushes by me, saying loudly that she thinks that I have spent enough time blocking the aisle and that I should go somewhere else if I was going to read the books. She also said some other things that I don't remember (likely because they dribbled out from my ears and through my dropped jaw), and went to stand by the water fountains at the end of the row (which were more easily reached by going around my section anyway, so that wouldn't be a good enough reason to get mad), face to the corner, practically shaking with her rage. She mumbled a few other things to the wall, apparently thinking that it could solve the situation. Psycho bitch. A man who was walking past glanced back (and down) at me, smiled and rolled his eyes.

I mean, I was trying to be considerate, letting people know that I am aware that I am potentially in the way and totally willing to move, but I am browsing the bottom shelf. In a bookstore. Where browsing is socially acceptable. Many smooth comebacks went through my mind, but all I could think of was to get out of the crazy-woman's line of fire, and I got out of the store as quickly as I could, scanning the customers for her. Gah. And the main thing that keeps running through my mind is if she had the balls/ovaries to make a scene, why couldn't she use her fortitude to simply ask me to move? Too much holiday shopping? I'm lucky she didn't have an uzi under her winter coat. Oh well, I made it home, and I have all my ingredients to cook a turkey for dinner tomorrow.

Hope she gets eggnog poisoning.

Learning Curve

What have I learned this week?

1. Do not put lit candles anywhere that a cat may want to jump to.

2. Burnt cat hair smalls really, really bad.

Poor kitty (he's okay).

September baby

I have always tended to fit into the Virgo profile. Of course, you can trick yourself into fitting into anything...

From Brandy, via
21yo_curmudgeon:
Choose your birth month and cross out those things which you feel do not apply to you.


SEPTEMBER:
Suave and compromising. Careful, cautious and organized. Likes to point out people's mistakes. Likes to criticize. Stubborn. Quiet but able to talk well. Calm and cool. Kind and sympathetic. Concerned and detailed. Loyal but not always honest. Does work well. Very confident. Sensitive. Thinking generous. Good memory. Clever and knowledgeable. Loves to look for information. Must control oneself when criticizing. Able to motivate oneself. Understanding. Fun to be around. Secretive. Loves sports, leisure and traveling. Hardly shows emotions. Tends to bottle up feelings. Very choosy, especially in relationships. Systematic.


Of course, I can't figure out how to cross out things on this site, so I'll put in italics the things which don't sound like me.

Edited to add: Brandy showed me how to strike things out! Yay! People are actually reading this. Eek!

All hail the Illinois State Patrol!

So, there I was, trundling down I-57 on my way to Charleston for an SCA get-together. No passengers luckily, even though I offered rides to any who asked. Whn suddenly, the car starts making a horrendous rumbling noise. I quickly sort through my mental list of "things that need to get fixed when I have an actual income" and can't come up with anything that fits the bill. I decide to pull off onto the shoulder, where I discover that my right rear tire is flat. Very flat. Dammit.

Well, fine. There goes my day of fun in southern Illinois. Being a capable woman of the 90s (what? Okay, woman of the two thousands. No, doesn't sound good.), I get out the spare tire and proceed to switch good for bad. I've got all the lug nuts loosened and see a state patrol car pull off the road, going the other direction. Since I am naturally a guilty person, I go through my mental list of "why the police should pull me over." Of course, I'm already pulled over, so that is kinda moot. The nice officer actually drives across the median and stops over on my side of the road and proceeds to take off his tie (hubba!) , explaining that he is on his way to a funeral, but that he'll help me change the tire (aw!).

We switch the flat for the donut spare, get it all screwed on, and then discover (to our mutual dismay) that the spare has something sticking out of it. He pulls it out, then hastily shoves it back in when all the air starts hissing out. God DAMN it. Now I have a flat and a....flat! Sonofabitch. Seems that some sort of plastic furniture leg slide pin-doohickey must have fallen off something while I was moving to my new place and got lodged in the spare.

He calls a tow truck for me (even though I have my cell phone along) and apologizes that he needs to get to the funeral, being that he is in the honor guard and all. I reassure him that I'll be fine. Then, a second patrol car pulls up! So they swap out motorist-watching duties. So me and the new officer have a nice chat about living in small towns versus large towns and how nice the weather is and such, punctuated by slapping the bugs that are enjoying a nice snack off us.

The tow truck comes, and the officer puts out road flares for us (aw!) before he leaves. We get the car all hooked up and proceed on our merry way to the Wal-mart in Savoy, which is where the nice officers recommend me taking the car, since pretty much everything else is closed on Sunday.

Now, I won't bore you with the interminable wait at Wal-mart, where I found out that the tire needed to be replaced, but that they didn't have the tires in question in stock, or with the phone-tag I played getting more information on new tires, but I will say that the State Patrol did a wonderful job of keepign me sane and entertained while I waited for everything to play out on the the side of the ride. Thanks guys!

Appetite

So, I get home after a day of shopping, tired and stressed out and I'm all like "Ooo, what am I hungry for? I know, I want some coffee." So I make myself coffee, using milk instead of my nummy soy creamer, 'cause all I've got is vanilla and I really prefer plain, and I need to use of the milk that is two days past it's date (see previous blog). So I drink the coffee and now I'm all like, "Ooo, now what? I know, I'll have a chocolate (they go with coffee) and some chips. Oh, but chips don't go with coffee." So I finish the coffee, then I have some chips. Now it is 7:30 and I'm thinking of more substantial things. Now I'm going, "Hmm? What's for dinner?" So now I go through the fridge, and the freezer, and try to figure out some kind of more nutritious meal than chips and coffee. I decide to thaw a steak for tomorrow (bought them yesterday from a guy who came to my door and probably got ripped off, but I'm a sucker, so oh well) and continue the search. Find the last two pieces of Chicken Alfredo pizza from Papa John's (I don't recommend it, too dry) and heat them up, along with the remaining garlic dipping sauce (read: garlic powder and oil goop) and some spaghetti sauce because I really wanted red sauce on my pizza instead of what they call "alfredo." I finish the pizza (eh) and watch some more tv. A commercial for Quaker Brand oatmeal comes on, singing its praises for lowering cholesterol. Now I'm hungry for oatmeal (it happens). Then I find out that not only are there no packets of instant maple and brown sugar oatmeal (one of my favorite comfort foods) there is no plain oatmeal. I find some funky hot cereal mix and cook it up. Now I'm eating cooked cereal with brown sugar, butter, and a touch of the aforementioned vanilla soy creamer, because I used up all the milk in my coffee.

And I wonder why I gained over 100 pounds while I was married.

Fridge

So I wake up bright and early (and very, very cold) this morning to the sound of squirrels dropping walnuts on my car's windshield. Ah, fall!

Go to make myself some breakfast and find out that something has died in the refrigerator overnight. Bleah. Avoid the fridge for a few hours, then decide that I need to go excavating. I pull out the chicken breasts that have been in the bottom of the fridge for probably too long and try to decide if they are still safe to eat. Even after working for the health department I am still sometimes too adventurous for my own good. I pull them out and there is some sort of fluid everywhere. Ick. I pull out the offending meat, the bacon that was sitting on top, and the leftover remains of the chicken tagine from Radio Maria's, which my sister had deemed "too spicy" and left for me to finish. I then discover that the chicken has not sprung a leak, but that the freezer has decided to defrost itself and there is now at least a half-gallon of stale, stinky water at the bottom of the fridge (it's an old unit). Real fun to clean up, let me tell you.

So now the kitchen is a mess, I need to disinfect the fridge, and I am out the money spent on the chicken breasts (boneless, skinless, expensive), which have been sitting in contaminated water for the gods know how long. I tossed out a few other items that had likely gone bad, fried up the spinach fritters that were past their due date, ate a few, then tossed out the remainder, which I had decided were too iffy.

Now, to make up for it all, I am making myself Negimaki (thinly sliced beef rolled around green onions and sauteed, served in a slightly sweet sauce) because the ones I got last week from a local Japanese restaurant *suuucked* (sorry Shea). Much better now.

Misha

Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief, the books fit. Barely. Now I want more bookshelves just so I can display my pretties.

Cats are fun. My male cat (Misha) "helps" me feed the fish each morning. I yell, " time to feed the fish!" and he races out of wherever he was hiding and flies across the room to sit next to the aquarium. He then waits, not-so-patiently for me to finish spreading food granules on the surface of the water, so he can get a kitty-treat. Usually he sits down, opens his little mouth just like bird and I plop one in. Sometimes I drop it in too far and he gags it back out before he chokes. Hey, he apparently likes this little routine, so don't get mad at me! Otherwise, he keeps his mouth closed and I balance the treat on his nose. He looks at it cross-eyed for a bit, then lets it fall off, with a look on his face like "what am I, a dog?" and waits for me to pick it up off the floor or nudge it closer to him. Yes, I'm a sucker.

Books!

I have bookshelves! All hail the bookshelves! I finally know where all my books are!

Now I just have to fit them all in. May need to buy another one. Sigh.

My week

Gah.
Let me say that again. Gah.

Been a long week. So, I finally get my bookshelves from Lowe's. The next day I go shopping for stains and finishes, and this takes all day because I really can't decide on what color I want the shelves to be, Finally decide on a red oak finish, with tung oil to protect it all. Too tired to start staining, so I decide to do that the next day. I spend all the following day prepping and staining the bookshelves. Now, I have two bookshelves, each 84 inches high. This is a LOT of wood and it takes all day. My wrist, shoulder, and elbow are so sore that I have to wear my carpal tunnel brace for the next two days. Not looking forward to rubbing in the tung oil after the stain has dried. Luckily, the next day it rains. And the next day it rains. And the next, and the next. So now I am stuck with pieces of stained wood blocking my washer and dryer, because that was the only place to put them. The yard is soaked, I have a small lake in the backyard, and it is so cold and damp that you would swear it was October. Today is finally sunny, but it is still really muddy out.

First weekend in the new place

Well, I finally have all my utilities connected, I know where most of my stuff is, and the cats aren't hiding under furniture all the time. I have quite the moving story to tell, but that will have to wait until after I go through my 300+ emails that have accumulated in the 6 days that I was offline. Most of it is spam, of course.

Before 10am today I was visited by three firemen who wanted to test my smoke alarm (hubba, hubba) and two Jehovah's Witnesses. I find that I've mellowed in my old age, as I actually listened to them prattle on for about 10 minutes. Plus, my snappy comeback mechanism seems to have reoriented itself. They kept talking about man this and God that and then asked me if I felt that man would ever be able to fix everything that was wrong in the world without God's intervention. I replied that maybe things would improve once woman took over. Hey, I made them laugh. In a good way.

Whiny, yet hopeful

Moving! Why am I doing this again? Stupid UHaul. They are all booked up at the local office, so I may have to "travel" to get my truck. Dammit. And I am desperately trying to find people to help me schlep stuff. Again. Only one good neighbor so far (thanks Shea!), but I put out another whiny email to the local SCA group, in hopes of suckering in a few others.

At least once I move into my new place I can unpack everything (remember that living out of boxes thing?). I may be able to find my spare styli for my Visor handheld. And more clothes, since my only pair of jean shorts has developed a worn-out spot. You know how everyone has particular wear-patterns on their clothes? Well, mine is on the inner thigh, usually the left one, towards the back. Looks like I've been rubbing my ass with sand paper.

Oh yeah. The American government sucks.

And on the feline front, I have never vacuumed so frequently in all my life. I feel like a 1950s housewife who cleans every day. The floors looked like I had taken both cats and dragged them around by their tails untlil all their fur was rubbed off on my carpets. I am sooo looking forward to having wood floors again.

Sucky

Bad things that have happened lately:

It is hot again. And sticky.
One of the cats peed in the comics that I was going to sell (I saved most).
I don't have enough summer clothing that isn't packed away in boxes.
I found out that my friend C has had a relapse of his cancer.

Good things that have happened lately:

I helped Shea put together his new bed. Hammers were used to threaten said bed.
I made chocolate malts. I make good malts (I'm an ex-soda jerk).
I got half the dishes washed (yay me!).
I visited C in Chicago. He and Darryn have a new apartment/condo; very nice. Good visit, good friends.

Whiny, whine, whine

Eeeeyaarrrgggghhhhh!!!!! I am so sick and tired of living in this pigsty!

Not my fault, I'm subletting and waiting to move in to my permanent place of residence on Agust 1st. I am not so much as living out of boxes, and not able to reach my stuff because it is all in boxes. I can't find anything, I can't start or finish any projects, and I can't cook in this tiny, useless kitchen! I couldn't live in my sublet without having some of my stuff out, so I have furniture, basic dishes, and such, but now I'm going to have to pack it all back up again. Son. Of. A. Bitch. I hate moving. Unless the new place tumbles down around my ears, I'm staying there until I move out of the city, if I ever do.

I hate carpeting, I hate that there is little to no airflow in this hovel, and I hate that I am living so close to other people. I need my space! No more apartment complexes for me, especially ones that areso fucking small.

Time to go pack for my trip to Chicago. Hopefully I can find everything I need to take with me.

Yay! The heat has ceased a bit! Still need the fan on, but I can now successfully sit at my computer and surf aimlessly without breaking a sweat! After all, what use is web-surfing if you get exhausted doing it? I've been hiding from the heat at Shea and Kathleen's place because they have central air. All hail the blessed CA! I have a window air conditioner in my bedroom, but that will only cool the one room. Good for sleeping (even if I have to exile the cats to the oven that it the rest of my apartment, and then feel guilty about it), but not much else.

Had a good 4th of July. Shea and Kathleen hosted Meat Fest 2003. Shea went smoker-mad and cooked much flesh. Very yummy. My cornbread salad was a hit, even though people didn't take any leftovers with them and I am now stuck with an enormous amount of salad in my fridge, which I will never be able to eat before it goes bad. Poor Kathleen was sick the entire time (not from the party, thank the gods of public health), and Shea has a torn pec, and I'm easy (!), so I got to play Feast-o-Crat (tm) and order people around the (indoor and air-conditioned) kitchen. I am mistress of the vegetable slicing, yes I am! "Boil those potatoes! Wash those hands! Avast, ye scurvy...uh...."

Gah. I am still trying to come up with a domain name for myself. Nothing too long, easy to remember (and spell), and makes people think of me. I have http://braid.freeservers.com to myself, but it would be nicer if the "freeservers" part was gone. Makes email addys much easier to type out. Oh yeah, I'd also like it to be a "dot com" address, simply because that is what most people would type in. I've got a long list of favorite words (nouns and adjectives), but no go so far on good combinations.

The sewing theme:
stitchbitch (.com not available)
sewlost (kind of depressing)
sewmuch (cute, in a smarmy, kitschy way)
I decided that I didn't want to be forced into making my webpage have a lot of sewing stuff on it (it doesn't right now), so I'm nixing the sewing theme. Same goes for any type of "craft" names.

Living Space

Forgot to mention that the video game was also originally a reward to myself, not just for relief of boredom. I found a new living space! A wooden floored, two-bedroom duplex on a quiet circle. Has a bit of a yard, washer/dryer hookups, and a window in the bathroom (important when you have cats). The only drawback is that I wanted a different duplex in the same circle, but that particular one wasn't available until August 18. Since my sublet is up on August 4, it made things too complicated. The duplex I did get faces North (not good for Midwest climates), has two dogs living in it (I'm allergic), and is currently filthy, filthy, filthy. The landlord will have the floors sanded and revarnished, and make sure everything is cleaned and such, but it is one more thing to worry about.

One big thing out of the way, one more big thing to go (job).

Oh dear. Played Dungeon Keeper for 9 hours straight. Took me 2 minutes to type the previous sentences because my right hand is so sore. Need to develop mentally controlled mouse. Yeah.

Must find job (I'll look at the want-ads on Sunday, I promise!).

So, I've been unemployed for almost a month now. It would feel like more of a vacation, except it is so hot here that I don't feel like doing anything. I don't have cable, so other than watching DVDs, no moving pictures. I've been reading a lot (finished a 400 pager in 3 hours) and have been randoming perusing the internet. Basically, I'm bored, and I'm also trying to not spend any money (see reference about being unemployed).

So yesterday, I decided to install and play one of the video games I have. Never played it before, and I've had it for over a year. Hahahahhaha! I played for 5 hours straight! Missed dinner, missed the sun going down, and the cats were really concerned about me shrieking while staring at a big shiny thing (monitor). The game? Dungeon Keeper, from 1997. Yeah, I'm behind a bit. Last night I dreamt of little else other than battle strategies and building dungeons.

I need a job.

Oh yeah. If anyone is expecting any blogs about my moving experience, don't hold yer breath. I am trying really, really hard NOT to remember anything!

Origami boulder
Hee. Hee hee. Hehehehehehehheeeeehheheeee!

Yesterday evening's projects:

Cleaning and emptying a 30 gallon fish tank in anticipation of moving and trying not to slip and break my neck on the wet floor

Freaking out over trying to catch a 14-inch long plecostomus (sucker-fish) with my hands

Using a coffee can lid to scoop the previously-caught pleco from the bucket of water into the temporary 10 gallon tank. I am nothing if not inventive.

Closing up several partially-packed boxes, because having a path throught the apartment is a good thing

Making fun of the cat who jumped up onto a box, only to find that the soft, fluffy towels had mysteriously vanished and been replaced by cardboard and sealing-tape.

Note to self: Do not spread strawberry cream cheese on a cranberry bagel before making sure that it is not actually a sun-dried tomato bagel. Gak.

[Frantically] "Meow, meow, meow," [flop]. "Meow, meow, meow," [flop]. Oh look, it's the new I'm-literally-dying-of-hunger-while-you-take-your-sweet-ass-time-braiding-your-hair interpretive dance. Hee.

Ah! What a great weekend. And you know why? Because I didn't do a blessed thing!

Woke up around 8am, decided I wanted to sleep in some more, so I pulled the covers back up and didn't wake up until 1145am. Whoops! But it is Saturday, so that's okay!

Decided that today I would clean the bathroom. Nope, didn't get to it. I think it is mentally controlling me somehow, like I forget that it is even there until I need to pee. Hmm.

Decided that I would back up the computer, so that I could reinstall Windoze, because my computer has told my monitor that it can slack off and only show 32 colors. Didn't get to that either.

But I did balance my checkbook, get a cell phone, make goulash (Nebraskan, not Hungarian), and I am now sitting down to a late supper of fresh-baked biscuits and homemade sausage gravy. Yum!

I like weekends.

Well, it is officially Spring, despite what the snow outside is telling me. I visited Nebraska this last weekend (Dad's retirement party) and it was in the high 60s to low 70s the entire time I was there. [sarcasm]Gods, I love the weather in the Midwest[/sarcasm].

Time to work on cleaning the bathroom today. I (well, Misha and Missy) use a natural, corncob-based kitty litter that turns into some sort of cement-like substance when damp and left to lie on the tile floor. I bought a putty knife for the express purpose of chiseling it up off of the floor. This will be followed by vacuuming, mopping, and resting from the exertions of cleaning. Boy, my weekends are fun.

I also need to do laundry, but that can wait until tomorrow. I returned from NE to find cat upchuck on a rug and on my bedspread. Anyone wanna tell me why my cats prefer to puke on everything except the easy to clean wood/tile floor? I must say, that my linens have never been so regularly cleaned before, though.

Well, I just found out that it is actually in the low 50s, not 60s, but I'm still keeping the windows open for a bit longer. Of course, the fresh air is moving all the dust around in my apartment, which is causing my allergies to flare up. More kleenexes are going to an early grave.

Ahhhhh. It is in the low 60s, and I have opened three windows in my apartment. Much better. The cats are incredibly happy to be breathing fresh air (they don't get out much). I'm also bleaching my shower curtain (canvas) to get rid of a horrific build-up of mildew (never had this problem before, must be the apartment), so it is really nice, and much safer, to get a cross-breeze through the place.

My recent accomplishments: Cleaning the rug shampooer, vacuuming the bathroom (easier than sweeping), cleaning the old litter boxes, in order to store them, doing a shitload of dishes, reserving a plane ticket to my Dad's retirement party, boxing up out of season clothes and things I just don't wear very often, cat-proofing my bedroom closet (found out that Misha was clawing at the plastic clothes "protector" that housed my wedding dress and another delicate dress, which is now snagged), tidying my coat closet, tidying my linen closet (hmm, lots of closet work lately...), and getting more snags and snarls out of Misha's coat, caused by the bath which he needed after grinding poop into his fur. Leather gloves are much better than suffering from the now-permanent scars on my hands from his teeth. Dumb cat. Okay, okay, dumb owner too.

Let's see, I'm getting over a nasty cold, I'm starting to box up my apartment in preparation for moving (3-4 months from now, but who's counting), and I'm trying to convince myself that while a bit of messiness keeps me sane, coffee cups stuck to the counter are not good. Cat hair all over the apartment is not good. Leaving the dirty water sit in the new rug shampooer that I bought for the express purpose of cleaning up cat-poo from all the rugs in the apartment (I actually took pictures, it was so gross) is not good. I need to clean.

But I'm still sniffly and I ache and I wanna sit on the computer and wander aimlessly around the web until I decide on a domain name and read everyone's blogs and copy down nifty craft projects and add yet another dozen books to my reading list and forget all the gazillion logons and password combinations that I have ever made up and not be able to sign-in on any of my accounts and pick up all the kleenexes lying on the floor because of my damn cold.

Dammit. I've come full circle to cleaning the apartment again.

Grumble.

Time for The Friday Five!

1. What is your most prized material possession?
My books.

2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest?
My teddy bear, Boo-Boo. I've had him since I was born!

3. Are you a packrat?
To a not-insane point, anyway. I used to be worse. Much worse.

4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum?
Some clutter is absolutely necessary. And unavoidable. No matter what my ex-husband says.

5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there?
No themes, at all. I am an ecelctic decorator. I guess there are fish in various forms in the bathroom, but there is also a 30-gallon tank of fish in the living room, so it could just be coincidence. I also like dark colors in my bedroom.

Gee, Jenn, how would you like to spend your Sunday? Oh I don't know, cleaning up cat puke sounds fun!

Grumble.

I can't believe I posted a personal ad. I also can't believe that I have already (since yesterday) gotten two responses. Huh. And without a picture.

So of course, I decided I needed to put up a photo of myself, since my repliers (repliees? respondents?) actually had pics of themselves to offer. Taking (good) pictures of yourself without a tripod is an interesting feat. And humbling. I actually went and put powder on my face because of the awful shine. Gak! Those who know me personally know I do not wear makeup as a rule.

So here I am in my apartment, finding suitable backdrops and smiling cheesily at the camera. I also found out that I look much more attractive if I use my teeth when I smile. I don't usually flash the pearls because I have a gap on one side. The tooth is there, but it is pushed back, like someone took their finger and shoved it behind the flanking teeth. Oh well, makes me unique (and wish for orthodontia).

What?! You don't know who Mary Sue is? You need to read more fanfic.


What type of Mary Sue are you?
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Why, oh why, do the underwear companies not make bikini underwear suitable for us larger folks? You may not have noticed, but any underwear larger than a size 6 is not available in a variety of styles. And why are the sizes so funky? Can women's clothing be more clearly sized, fer cryin' out loud?! What the hell does a single-digit number have to do with my hip size?! And why can't I buy underwear that only covers what I consider the "essential parts", which does not include my belly button? I don't like elastic around my waist, it irritates my skin. Hence, the desire for bikinis or, when I can find them, "hipsters", aka hip-hugger underwear. Sheesh. Yet another conspiracy against fat people. Hmpf.

Visited my family in Nebraska this last weekend for a post-holiday-thing. One of these visits I'm going to find something else to do rather than be shuffled around to various relatives, sit around watching TV, and listen to complaints about the other family members from my family members. Not that it is my family's fault, I can't think of anything to do either.

Lincoln has gotten more and more run-down. I don't remember it looking so barren. Of course, I always seem to visit in the Winter, so that could be the problem.

Happy New Year! S novym godom!

So I was sitting at my computer, eating leftover malt-o-meal (yum!) and deciding what to do with my day. Aha! I shall start another project that will never be completed! Of course, a blog, by definition, is not something that is ever complete, so I have been caught in a logic circle. Curses!

Anyway, today marks the start of a full year of being single (got officially divorced in Nov 2002) and I hope that it will be a much happier year than 2002 was. I'm making plans for Library School and enjoying living on my own. I have few bills and a regular work schedule, so that I could become much more socially active, that is, if I wanted to.

Time to go put on a sweatshirt, since I forgot to turn up the thermostat. It's kinda like the frog-in-boiling-water example: you get cold veerrrry slowly and freeze to death without noticing. Luckily, I have higher brain functions than most amphibians.

Do svidania for now....