something festive i borrowed from post secret....

i keep forgetting to share this with you. i didn't submit it, but the stocking fits, so i'm wearing it:

i'll be laying low for a few days after this, partially because i have a bunch of paperwork to do for job #3 (and christmas just hit my credit card and i need to get it back off again asap), and partially because i've felt a little "off" since getting back to town, and i think my free time may be best spent both horizontal and unconscious.

if you haven't heard from me by mlk day, send a scout- preferably gerard butler. 

home again, home again, jiggety jig

where did i leave off? had my life flashed before my eyes as the winged tin can bounced around in the air? was it before, or after the mass consumption of fudge? was i making snow angels on a square foot of snow surrounded by dry grass, or was there enough snow that passers-by didn't automatically think i was having some sort of a seizure?

none of that had happened yet?

well, i guess we have a little catching up to do, don't we?

my second flight last sunday was on a winged tin can (also known as a cessna). aside from the pilot, rob, and his copilot, whose name i didn't catch, there were four passengers on the plane, including a guy from chicago who had zero experience flying in such a vessel.*

after the pilot introduced himself, he told us to "feel free to ask any questions".

my inquiry regarding whether or not we'd be dusting crops during the flight did not go over well, with my question regarding the stewardess bringing around the beverage service faring only slightly better. (i thought it best to save my query about the "in flight movie" for the return trip. you know- assuming i survived this one.)

aside from some rather, uh, invigorating, turbulence, the flight was relatively uneventful, although our approach for landing resulted in a definite shift in priorities upon landing.**

before i go on, i should mention (especially to those who don't know me well) that i am not a passive vacationer. when i travel, i try to explore as much of my surroundings as possible. going someplace exotic only to get drunk by the pool and catch up on back issues of "people" magazine is more suited to people who have more money than imagination. when i travel solo, i tend to be up at first light, down after dark, and out and about in between.

however, there is one exception to this rule: the annual holiday trip to see mama in maine.

something about being there causes my system to switch to autopilot. i catch up on weeks' worth of sleep. i finish books i'd started reading months before. i brush up on my scrabble skills. fudge is procured from our favorite store an hour's drive away, and if there's any left by the time my departure date rolls around, i declare victory. if we don't plan on leaving the house, i don't plan on leaving my pajamas.

this vacation was no different, except with a surprise extension, due to a moist breath of cold air from mother nature, beginning a few hours before i was supposed to board another winged tin can for the first leg of the trip home. (winged tin cans don't do so hot in high winds or snowstorms, as i understand it.) 

i believe i may have been responsible for this little development.

during my annual visit, i always make at least one snow angel. always. 

given the lack of snow this time around, i did the only sensible thing. i plopped down atop the tiny remnants of last week's storm and made my snow angel.

fortunately, she does not live in the middle of a major metropolis, so it's not like her neighbors were likely to pass by, wondering who on earth was having a seizure in the middle of her lawn.
apparently, such an action is the winter equivalent of a "rain dance", as there was about 4" of snow covering her lawn less than 24 hours later, with a stiff wind blowing it into drifts of 6" or so- conditions that, as i mentioned before, are not ideal when one is trying to fly a teeny, tiny aircraft. 

while i suppose some would have felt inconvenienced by the delay, i was actually pretty thrilled. my next shift at the full time job was still a couple of days off, and there was fresh snow to play in. the only thing that would make the day better would be the addition of scalloped potatoes and ham (which mama happened to be making a batch of for her lunches next week).

play was balanced with a little shoveling, mostly to keep mama from doing it all herself, though i must admit i had ulterior motives- i'd consumed mass quantities of fudge over the past few days, and i was a little concerned the my jeans and i might not be such a good fit for each other upon my return home. (it didn't help that mama defrosted more fudge as soon as she'd learned my flight was cancelled.)

by the time i was asked yesterday morning how much i'd weighed***, i was fairly confident that i'd only gained a pound or two. (thankfully, the ticketing agent/gate agent/baggage handler/little orange baton wielder at the augusta airport didn't shatter the illusion by asking me to hop on the scale. then again, i suppose it was pretty close to the truth by the time we boarded, since i went to the restroom at least twice while we waited for the pilot to free himself from his driveway and arrive at the airport.)

(as you will note, unlike those magic growing sponges, water did not make this thing any bigger.) 

the first leg of my return trip was much like my previous experience on the winged tin can, except this time the question that didn't go over well involved the in-flight movie. oh- and i became seriously concerned as we headed into boston that we might be in for an unscheduled water landing. that would have been a very bad thing, not just because my swimming skills resemble that of a dog with a couple of broken legs, but also because i seriously doubt the extra fudge mama threw into my backpack would float.

*had mama not found this out from his mother, i probably still would have figured it out. we kept grabbing the seats in front of us at the same time. if "synchronized panic" were an olympic sport, we would have gotten the gold, for sure.

**"hi, mama. where's the can?"

***a question that was just as unsettling then as it was a few days prior

hopefully not the last you hear from me....

"please tell me i'm going to be flying on one of the larger tin cans with wings out there," i said.

the ticketing agent looked at me as if i were insane, then said* "you are on a nine passenger plane."

sh*t

(that's not in quotes only because i barely managed to keep it in my head. it was a close call , though.)

"so, that's a "no"' huh?"

instead of answering my very important query, she responded by asking about my weight.

"well, it was 117 yesterday." 

i thought about pointing out that i'd eaten since then, but i figured it might have been balanced out at the other end during the course of the day. (my love of cheese is well-known, but i didn't have that much yesterday.)

for the first time ever, my carry ons were even weighed.**

now, don't get me wrong- i'm not normally a freaked-out flier. i love airports, from west yellowstone (my favorite little domestic airport), to kulusuk (my favorite tiny foreign airport), to bwi (long live the stained glass crab of my youth), to salt lake city (my favorite place to spend a long layover), to charlotte, my localish airport (though i cursed them this morning, when i couldn't get connected to their wireless internet to save my life.)

i also have come to enjoy flying, which is, let's face it, the most convenient way to travel between airports. 

however, when mama said a few days ago, "you know you're going to be on a tiny plane, right?", i was not filled with the warm fuzziness of happiness and contentment. 

dear reader, i'm afraid i uttered an exclamation that would require multiple asterisks to shield your delicate peepers from its vulgarity.

now, when you also take into account the very rough landing we had on the large plane coming in from charlotte***, you can probably understand why the news that i only have 9 other people with me is not comforting. in fact, i was strongly considering turning around and boarding the bus to bangor, but then i saw this:

i don't normally engage in "retail therapy", but my new swatch is pretty sweet- and waterproof to 100 feet, just in case of a water landing. 

*with more than a hint of attitude, i might add.

**a good thing this isn't a regular occurance. my heavier bag weighs 29 pounds. i'd packed light, for once.

***while i did not toss my cookies, i cannot say i had completely ruled it out, either.

though it's cold and lonely in the deep, dark night....

it's officially the 22nd here in columbia, south carolina.

i'm still here. you're still here.(judging from all of the calls i've gotten here at the answering service this evening, we're not the only ones who survived the nopacalypse.)

i also realized this afternoon that this turn of events (lack of events?) has disappointed not only the mayans, but meatloaf, as well.

on the bright side, the world might not actually be scheduled to end until sunday. i'm not sure if this is due to the mayans skipping a couple of leap days, or merely a mathematical error- i'm certainly the last person who should call anyone out on the latter.

this extension is a good thing, as i still haven't taken care of anything on this list. (not that i intend to do anything involving soccer mom porn, bright red lipstick, or online dating, but i'm pretty sure a ben & jerry's banana split is the breakfast of champions.)

i suppose this means it's as good a time as any to tell you that your outfit is fabulous, your smile is dazzling (though you probably should check for green stuff stuck between a couple of your pearly whites), and i think you have a truly dizzying intellect.

oh, and just in case i haven't told you already, i love you.*

*until the end of time, currently slated for sunday.   

my latest shameful little secret

i should probably be ashamed of myself. 

i suppose i could blame it on being traumatized last weekend (scroll down if you missed the post), though, really, when the "victim advocate" called, i assured him that i really hadn't felt too victimized, as the perpetrator was unarmed. 

i could blame it on the phase of the moon, or this head cold i keep waking up with. 

however, realistically, i have only myself to blame. (well, myself and the catchy hook in this tune, which i have listened to more times than i should admit in the two days since my copy of "now that's what i call music 80"*):

never mind the fact that these guys hadn't been born by the time the new kids on the block released "step by step"- i dig them anyway. 

*the european series is soooooo much better than the american one

having had both caffeine and adrenaline, i think i'll stick with the former.

sometimes, exciting stuff happens.

last night (well, technically, early this morning) was one of those times. 

i can only come to the conclusion that the universe knows my holiday letter is as yet unwritten and has therefore decided to give me more interesting experiences to add to it this year. unfortunately, the excitement from less than 24 hours ago was not of the "hey....i picked the right powerball numbers" variety. it was more of the "potentially pants-wetting" variety. 

there i was, minding my own business, thrilled by the fact that the incoming calls here at the answering service had finally slowed down, when i saw tail lights in between the cracks in the blinds covering the window in front of my workstation. since this neighborhood is mixed business/residential, i figured someone had merely gotten lost leaving the strip club down the road at 4am and needed a place to turn around. 

then, the banging started. 

i was 90% certain all of the doors were locked (there's one i never check, but no one ever uses it, so i trust it's secured), but after the second bang, i dialed 911.

i was on the phone with the 911 operator when i heard the crash. i assumed it meant someone had gotten in the back door- the one i never check. about a minute later, he was standing across the room from me:

he looked just like this, except he was black, a little under 6" tall, skinny, wearing black sweats, and too surprised to see me to say anything, much less "heh heh heh".

had i not been trying to determine whether or not he had a weapon*, i might have been tempted to inquire as to whether he was trying to find tp for his bunghole. 

thankfully, he was more scared of me than i was of him**, and fled back down the hall and through the window from whence he came. 

meanwhile, i was still on with the dispatcher, who was working on summoning help for me. i looked out the window to try and obtain the license plate number as they squealed out of the driveway, but all i could see was that it was a dark, pontiac grand am-sized car with a 90 day temporary tag. 

the cops showed up a couple of minutes later. naturally, i was a little hesitant to let anyone in without knowing exactly who they were, so the dispatcher had to confirm their identities before i unlocked the door. 

it took a few minutes to determine how the kid had gotten in- i could've sworn the crash was from the back door, but everything was locked. i think the officers thought i was making this up.....until one of them noticed that the air conditioner in one of the rooms down the hall had been shoved to the side and there was now a gap about a foot wide next to it. (did i already mention that he was a skinny little dude?)

after they gathered a little information from me, two of the officers left the third to dust for prints. (i was asked whether or not he'd been wearing gloves. i replied that i hadn't noticed. i was busy being relieved he wasn't brandishing a weapon.) i went back to my calls, while waiting for the owner of the business to show up. 

the last officer left before the business owner arrived, but he gave me a case number, as well as a number to call to have him redispatched, if needed. when the owner got here, he told me this was the only break in they'd had in the eleven years they've owned this building. the only other incident of any sort during that time was about a month ago, when the other girl who handles third shift was confronted by the stripper next door who was fleeing from her abusive, crackhead boyfriend. (she was pretty shaken up by that, so i can only imagine what this morning's incident would've done to her.)

the owner offered to stay if i was uncomfortable being by myself. i told him i was fine, but while he was here, i'd appreciate it if he'd unlock the back office, where the supplies were kept. 

the guy who broken in may not have needed the tp, but the roll in the bathroom was empty and i still had a couple of hours left in my shift.

*thankfully, he wasn't packing. otherwise, i assure you i would've been packing something in my pants.

**actually, we were probably about even on that

not a significant source of saturated fat or calcium....

howdy.

if the contents of my weekend were listed on a nutritional label, the ingredients would be: job #1 (formerly job #4), naps, job #2, vanilla coke, job #3, thanksgiving leftovers, exercise (less than 2% by volume)

so, i'm afraid there won't be any epic posts from me for a couple of days, while i try to get caught up with myself. hope you don't feel gypped. 

to entertain you while i'm gone, might i suggest one of my favorite sites, though it isn't recommended for children or those with sensitive ears....errr.....eyes:

www.theoatmeal.com

i'd like to thank the academy.....

i have always wanted to say that.

over on facebook, i've seen friends posting all month about the things they're thankful for. it's been a while since I last posted a list over here, so i suppose now is as good a time as any to take care of two birds (turkeys, perhaps?) with one stone:

ten things i'm thankful for at the moment

1. i've always been the "glass is half full" sort. 

sometimes, shit happens. however, it's usually possible to step over it and keep it from totally ruining your day (and those sweet new shoes you just spent a fortune on.)

2. it doesn't take much to make me happy.

in fact, today i noticed there was mistletoe in my favorite tree, and that was enough to make me happy. seriously- seeing mistletoe was enough to do it. imagine what would happen if i had a winning powerball ticket....

 (on the other hand, i know people who are never happy, no matter how much they have. i pity those people.)

3. my parents raised me to have a decent work ethic

this has come in pretty handy on multiple occasions- especially with my recent job change.* my sibling and i were taught at a very young age that if we needed money, we needed to find a job. (in my case, that's usually meant adding on another job.) self sufficiency is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

4. i have very good friends/family.

they'd probably take my collect calls from jail, even if they might not actually pay my bail. were i to wind up in the hospital, seemingly unresponsive, they'd have the doctors checked to make sure i'm not actually suffering from "locked in" syndrome. they live in places i want to visit... and give me a place to crash when i darken their doorsteps. they look after my mini saber tooth when I'm out of town. they let me vent. they send me care packages. they keep my secrets. they warn me when there's something stuck in my teeth- and when i've gotten toilet paper stuck to my shoe.....again. they let me use their song pop accounts** when i feel the need to show off my musical identification prowess. they don't openly wince when i massacre those same songs on karaoke night. in short, they pretty much rock.

5. while I'm far from rich, i make enough to pay the bills and be able to travel.

life is short, and the world is a mighty big place. 

6. i've never been the sort to get drunk and wind up topless on film (or in pixels).

i will be even more grateful for this if/when i become famous- i have no doubt. 

7. i'm not allergic to cheese.

i know this sounds silly to you, but believe me, a life without cheese is something i cannot fathom- and not just because string cheese = instant happiness. 

8. like my dad, i don't take life too seriously. 

life is short....might as well have at least a little fun. when i get around to getting hitched, i can assure you it won't be to a stuffy grown up. it'll be to someone who appreciates my childlike exuberance and zest for life.***

9. i have my health and my youthful good looks.

the former is more important than the latter by far, and not just because i'm currently uninsured. 

10. i can spare a little to help out others.

warm fuzziness from helping others makes me pretty happy, too. (not as happy as getting kissed under mistletoe, mind you, but it ranks above both string cheese and those little baby cheese wheels that come encased in wax.)

*don't worry- it'll be in the holiday letter this year.

**i'd get a gadget and set up my own but, seriously, i'd become an addict and never get anything else done.

***and my puns. gotta be able to appreciate my puns, most of which are bad. 

stuffing: in me? yes; holiday letters in envelopes anytime soon? not so much.

thanksgiving is almost upon us, and you know what that means.

stove top stuffing (forgive me, but sometimes i'm just too lazy to whip out the family recipe) is on sale for dirt cheap at the grocery store.

retailers have had their christmas stuff out on display for at least a month now. 

so far, three holiday catalogs have come in the mail from the world wildlife federation, urging me to symbolically adopt animals.*

someone, somewhere, is playing "a message from the king". 

i have about six weeks to get my holiday letter written, printed, folded and mailed to a list of friends and relations that's approximately ten times the number of times "turkey" is mentioned in "the thanksgiving song":

 

the countdown has begun. the drafting of the letter, however, has not. i have several excuses at the ready:

       excuse #1: home computer on strike.

(it gave me the blue screen of death the other day, then went into a seemingly endless bootup loop. lacking the patience to deal with it, i'm not even touching it this weekend, in the hopes that the mini-vacation will inspire it to behave itself on monday.)

       excuse #2: too busy working.

(in the grand scheme of things, being able to pay the rent ranks higher than getting my letter out on time.***)

       excuse #3: planets poorly aligned

(seriously. i cannot get things done when the moon is in jupiter and pluto is no longer considered a planet. however, this alignment means that the best numbers for powerball this week are: 10, 25, 37, 45 and 56, with 3 as the powerball.****)

i swear i'll get started on it one of these days- most likely after i've figured out how to fit 27 boxes of stove top into my pantry. 

*aside from the fact that they send an annoying number of notices in the mail, i highly recommend them- and not just because some of their plush animals are stinkin' cute.**

**sea turtle excepted. one of my favorite animals, and somehow, they've made it look like it was squeezed out of a relish bottle or something.

***recipients of said letter, especially those toward the end of the alphabet, know that "on time" generally means "sometime before martin luther king jr's birthday". 

****let me know if that actually works out for you, so i can tell you where to mail my share of the winnings. 

lost....and found

it's been quiet around here......almost too quiet. 

for that, i apologize. 

i used to post religiously, and then i went on hiatus, and then i posted sporadically, and then i went back on hiatus, and then i had a streak of posts and then i disappeared for a brief period (during which i ran away to florida to, well, run, actually.)

and now i'm back. 

looking at my little stat tracker thingamajig*, it appears a couple of folks missed me, including the person in peru who searched for "gerard batler look" and found me, as well as the individual somewhere in texas who was trying to find a picture of "gerard depardieu skinny".

i don't think they found exactly what they were looking for here, but how often does one really find exactly what they're looking for? i mean, i've yet to come up with the violet velvet doc martens one of my tennis partners sported in high school. (black velvet? yes. purple? no. allanah myles would be satisfied. i, however, am not.)

on a vaguely related note (believe me, it's a stretch, but at 1am, you should expect such things from me), i'm really looking forward to finally being able to witness a celestial event later this evening. the leonid meteor shower is supposed to peak just before dawn, and for once, the skies are clear here. since i'm working, i won't have long to look, but if i can find just one shooting star, i'm going to declare it a success.**


*yes, that is a technical term.

**hey- at least it puts me ahead of the person looking for "gerard batler"....

in which i rock and roll all night....

actually, i haven't decided how i'm going to be spending my extra hour this evening.

for most folks, this is a non-issue, as the hour we* fall back happens at 2am, when most of the population is fast asleep. of the past 12 years that i have lived in south carolina (i know- it doesn't seem like it's been that long to me, either!), i have reaped the rewards of an extra hour of sleep a few times, but i have enjoyed getting paid for an extra hour of work a greater number of times.

most of that pay came from one radio station or another. the first time we "fell back" after i moved here, i was working overnights at a rock station. i can't, for the life of me, remember whether i pulled the saturday night overnight shift over at the classic rock station or the "modern" rock station, but one way or another, i assume i was able to either play this:

or else i was trying to figure out if i could get away with playing this**:

by the following year, i was gainfully employed by the top 40 station in town, where this might have been on the playlist:

more likely, though, i was stuck spending part of the extra hour talking to the "marble mouthed man", who liked to call local radio stations in the middle of the night and try to hit on female djs. (i know i've talked about him before, though it was a long, long time ago. if you search for "marble" on here, he'll probably come up toward the top of the results, especially since it's not like i've devoted posts to extolling the virtues of fancy countertops or anything like that.)

after a few years at that station, i found myself across the hall at the country station. i'd give you a "night" song i might have possibly played over there, but given that i spent my time at the country station feigning a fondness of country music, i prefer to give you a more current guilty pleasure of mine:****

by last year, i was no longer working the overnight shift at the country station, so i'm pretty sure i got that extra hour of sleep that most folks will enjoy this evening. 

this year, however, i'm back to working overnights on the weekends- this time for an answering service. there won't be any real rocking or rolling this evening, unless i get bored between calls and decide to burn calories rolling around the building in one of the "less than stable chairs" we have floating around. (while most are perfectly normal, there's one that no one warned me about. i sat in it and almost immediately wound up on the floor. i believe my reaction, aside from laughing my head off, of course, was to declare that it was not a chair, but a thrill ride.)

fortunately, at this job we answer for a lot of hospitals and medical practices, so when i injure myself, at least i should be able to get medical attention within a reasonable amount of time.*****

*except for arizonians, of course

**answer: probably not. sadly, in 2000, slaughter didn't really have a niche in the current music scene, despite the fact that they toured that summer with danzig, cinderella and poison***

***i know, because i went to the show in kansas city that summer, just before i moved out here. unfortunately, the other two musketeers and i miscalculated the line-up at that concert, and instead of missing danzig's show while we were at the local tattoo/piercing parlor, we inadvertently missed slaughter's performance. while jamie and lisa were relatively unfazed, i was almost as annoyed by this miscalculation as i was at the drunk concertgoers who kept talking about my blue hair. (it was purple, dammit.)

****holy crap- when did corey feldman and debbie gibson become old enough to be believable parents of someone over the age of ten? that's just not cool. it reminds me of that "star trek" reboot, where winona ryder was cast as spock's mother. :~(

*****thank goodness there are folks in the medical profession who aren't getting that extra hour of sleep, either. 

time warped

it was pointed out at work this morning that there are only 54 days left until christmas. i'd like to make an even more exciting observation:

there is less than a day left before halloween candy is 25% off*. 

let me share with you the happy dance i have already begun practicing, not only in celebration of this fact, but also because it's a great way for me to preburn all of the calories i'll be ingesting (at bargain prices!) over the next few weeks: 

granted, if i had a kid, i would have access to free candy....and free exercise!

i suppose i won't fully understand what it's like to be a parent until i have kids of my own, but i think i've worked out what a brilliant plan the whole "let me check your candy for razor blades" routine is.

i mean, really. 

when i was little, i fully believed  the stories my parents fed me about nefarious sorts tampering with my goodies. i know now that the annual "screening of the treat bag" always resulted in a dramatic decrease of reese's peanut butter cups, tainted not with poison, but with deliciousness. 

do you recall your parents ever "finding" pins/razor/blades/swiss army knives sticking out of those nasty hunks of wax that are wrapped in orange and black wax paper and passed off as "caramels"? of course not! the "tainted" stuff was always the good stuff. post-"screening", the ratio of mary janes, twizzlers* and those little pieces of bubble gum that lose all semblance of sweetness by about the third volley between the teeth to milky ways, caramellos, and the aforementioned peanut butter cups was dramatically different from the pre-"screening" ratio.

i'm pretty sure if i'd thought to check the trash can instead of spending my post-"screening" time sorting my goodies into little piles (inedibles vs. edibles- further sorted into coins**, stickers/toys, and candy by type/brand***), i would have learned the horrible truth:

the wrappers made it to the trash, but their contents made it into a receptacle of another sort- the warm confines of my parents' bellies.

(actually, knowing my parents, who knew that my sibling and i were relatively bright, precocious kids, the wrappers were probably hidden a couple of layers down in the trash can, under the eggshells and coffee grounds.)



perhaps i should ask for a kid in another 53 days or so. 

until then, you'll probably find me in the "bargain candy" aisle at kroger. 


* and about a week before it's half price. granted, most of the good stuff will probably be gone by that point, but still........

**good only for whacking people you don't like, in my humble opinion

***$2 in quarters was a great haul....and i can't say i'd turn it down today, either.

****m&m's, reese's pieces and skittles were further sorted by color, but that's not confined to halloween. i'm just a little weird like that. 

of ecto cooler and lobster dinners

in honor of the upcoming holiday, last night at chez duff we had an ernie hudson film festival.

i was going to tell you all about it, from my pondering why hi-c no longer makes ecto cooler* to deciding whether or not the fact that i remember when brandon lee was killed while filming "the crow" qualifies me as a geezer or not to trying to work out why they still haven't made a sequel to the ghostbusters sequel**.

that was the plan.

however, the words just aren't flowing freely for me today.

eh, it happens.

so, instead of going into detail on all of the above, i'm going to present you with a preview of this evening's feature presentation:

*does anyone have a delorean i can borrow? i need to go back to 2001 and ask the powers that be over at Hi-C what right they have to kill Slimer.

**should the movie be made, i would like to suggest this addition to the cast. 

on a roll over here.....

i don't know about you, but i'm my most productive when i'm procrastinating.

i have things to do today. actually, there's just one big thing that has to be done- a mountain of paperwork for job #3.

however, i'm having a hard time getting focused. i keep thinking of other things i need to do around here- the downside of working from home.

it's not that i haven't accomplished anything since i rolled out of bed. au contraire, mon frere.

10:00 am- rolled out of bed*

10:05 am- cat fed. green tea #1 brewed. morning whiz taken. witty observation posted on facebook.

10:10 am- ignore cat's threats to notify the aspca of my negligence, as her bowl is empty already and she is not-so-subtly rubbing against my leg in a way that guides me to the cabinet where her food is stored. notice kitchen counters are, well, kind of nasty.

10:20 am- kitchen counters have been scrubbed. ziploc baggies i meant to rinse a while back have been added to the recycle pile instead. green tea #2 brewed. morning whiz #2 taken.**

10:30 am- feline assault on ankles while i finish wrapping a care package for best friend from high school. throw handful of treats into another room to distract mini sabertooth for about a minute and a half. notice pile for goodwill is growing, but is not yet large enough to be carted off. decide to go through closet. i don't wear all of the hundred something t-shirts i own.

10:30:30 am: i haven't worn the purple tank top since i last hauled out my rasta overalls***, but it's the only shirt that matches them, and i should keep it, just in case.

10:31 am: but i love my collection of hard rock cafe shirts. can't get rid of those. they're collector's items!

10:33 am: but i love my collection of kdlx shirts. can't get rid of those. they're collector's items!

10:35 am: but i love my collection of columbia radio station shirts. can't get rid of those. they're collector's items!

10:40 am: add three whole shirts to the goodwill pile.

10:45 am: during whiz #3**, notice rubber duckie shower curtain's feeling the funk. spray it into submission with half a bottle of tilex. also notice cat had been gnawing on wallpaper in bathroom. admonish cat, who is too busy complaining about her empty food bowl to listen to what i have to say.

10:50 am: start dragging materials for job #3 into living room, as i can't work at desk, lest i be tempted to check facebook 50 bajillion times to see if anyone has responded to this morning's witty, insightful post.

10:52 am: you know, if i'm going to try to post to my blog daily, i should probably get today's post taken care of. otherwise, i may be too busy pondering what to write to get any work done. head to computer, stopping to fix comforter on bed along the way as, for once, its disheveled appearance bothers me.****

10:54 am: check facebook again. no one has responded to my witty, insightful post. perhaps the fun people aren't awake yet.

10:55 am: google chrome crashes while blogging.

10:55:30 am: google chrome crashes while blogging.

10:56 am: @#$%^&$$%^%ing google chrome! walk away for a minute, lest i give in to the temptation to beat my monitor with my keyboard.***** decide to use this time to hunt for cat's missing toys.

10:58 am: two balls, seven mice, and four toothmarks on my ankle later, i return to computer to post. cat follows me, threatening to call the authorities to report animal abuse, as her bowl has now been empty for over 45 minutes. bring to her attention her lack of opposable thumbs, preventing her from being able to dial the phone.

10:58:30 am: cat stages sit-in on top of computer keyboard. since chrome has crashed again anyway, return to kitchen to obtain more treats to buy myself approximately two minutes of peace.

11:00 am: close door to bedroom and sit back down at the computer. spend next 45 minutes alternating between typing and hitting "save", lest chrome go down again.

11:45 am: post finished. despite the fact that i have clearly accomplished a lot today, decide to spend rest of day working. for real.******


*before you give me a hard time about this, i'd like to point out that this is the time i usually get up on the weekends- after going to bed at roughly 7:15, as i work an overnight shift for job #4. apparently, my body got a little confused about the whole "weekday vs. weekend" thing. maybe the beatles were onto something with their "8 days a week" idea......

**perhaps i should slow down a little on the tea, huh?

***i'm pretty sure that was in college.

****my own disheveled appearance, however, is another matter. i'm not planning on leaving home, except to work out, and i can easily avoid mirrors until then, provided green teas #1 and #2 don't run through too quickly.

*****this is a thought i find myself entertaining more and more, since switching to chrome.

******just as soon as i feed the cat and brew another cup of tea, that is. 

in which i revise my birthday wish list ever so slightly

my original plan was to post about something completely different today, but then i saw this.

given that i'm notoriously hard to shop for, let me help everyone out by telling you i now know what i want for my birthday*.

there are 2087 days left (at the time of this writing) until my 40th birthday. by that point, billy idol will be 62 years old. given that he currently looks like this:

(he's on the right in this AP photo, for those who've lived under a rock for the past 30 years)

......what are the odds he'll still be able to dance around in a pair of leather pants (and not much else) without becoming the subject of ridicule in another 2087 days?

actually, i'd say they're pretty good. he's billy freaking idol, after all.

however, what if i no longer look good prancing around in leather pants by that point? (actually, come to think of it, i don't think it's possible for leather pants to look good on yours truly. some attire just isn't designed to flatter short people.) i don't want our meeting to be like one of those bad blind dates where you know what the other person's wearing but lie to them about what you'll be wearing so that when you first lay eyes upon them and realize they look not so much like gerard butler,

but more like gerard depardieu in drag,

you can try to obscure your face (with the groucho marx glasses you've thoughtfully stashed in your pocket, just because you knew it was highly unlikely that gerard butler's twin would actually be single and ready to mingle on www-dot-singleandlonely-dot-com***) and make a hasty exit, stage left, followed by faking your death in an effort to discourage further contact.

though billy idol in groucho marx glasses does make for an interesting mental picture, perhaps it'd be best to hedge our bets.

there are 260ish days until my 35th birthday. i'll work on  looking good in leather pants**** if you can figure out how to get me billy idol for my birthday.

*besides a shetland pony**.

**and new wheels for my rollerblades, which will undoubtedly have been worn down to the point that simply strapping them on will cause folks in vegas to start betting on how soon i'll make an involuntary skin donation to the asphalt down at the columbia canal.

***i was afraid to make that an actual link, as whatever it points to probably has either way too many internet cooties or way too many folks living with their parents not because of the economy or because they're acting as caregivers, but because the rest of society finds them socially unfit.

****you wouldn't happen to be able to recommend any stilt-walking classes, would you?

dear app: what's been going on in that head of yours?

dear song pop app,

i love you. in fact, i love you so much that i have gotten other people to add you to their iwhatevers so i can borrow said iwhatevers and play on their behalf, because i know that if i install you on my facebook (given that the only iwhatever i have is an old school ipod nano), i will be too busy cultivating my song-identifying skills to get anything else done.

with that in mind, i feel i must share one tiny observation. i know it may seem like a small thing to you, but because of my nitpickiness combined with my geeky musical obsession, particularly with that produced by men wearing spandex and aquanet, it's a huge deal to me.

please, please, for the love of all that is holy (or, in the cases of the  jeans of many bands of that era- holey), fix the typo regarding track 5 of poison's "flesh and blood album".

back in the day, bobby dall was pretty skinny. therefore, i can assure you that c.c. deville and bret michaels would not write a song needling him for putting on a few extra pounds.

admittedly, i have not seen a photo of him lately, but somehow i doubt he's aged like certain other leather-clad rockers, whose physiques reveal the pitfalls of being able to afford luxuriously fattening gourmet cuisine. (mike reno, i'm looking at you.)

should you wish to double check the video to ensure i know of what i speak (do you really doubt me? really? maybe our problem is bigger than poison, then....), i am including it for your reference:

love,

duff

p.s.~ there's no need to tell me i told you so. i already know. 

in which i make my triumphant return****

have you ever noticed how, when trying to catch your connecting flight, the distance between your arriving and departing gates is inversely proportional to the amount of time you have to cover that distance?

coming back from arizona recently, i found myself at the memphis airport with a hair over two hours to kill. in some airports (atlanta, salt lake city- i'm looking at you), this would be ideal, as my flights are inevitably separated by the greatest number of gates within the terminal, if not the greatest possible number of terminals themselves.

memphis, however, really isn't that big. (not that all of my favorite airports are big ones, mind you. while i like having plenty to look at in the event of a long layover, my favorite airport thus far is the one in west yellowstone, mt, where the baggage claim and the front sidewalk are one and the same.) in fact, when one has over two hours to make their connecting flight, which is located one gate over from their arriving flight, there is only one rational thing to do in memphis.

okay- make that two rational things to do, but i'm just not a huge fan of barbeque.

yes, dear reader, i spent the better part of my layover looking for the king.

the last time i came through memphis, there he was, in all of his denim and rhinestone glory. (you'll have to take my word for it, because i was in such a rush to rifle through my backpack, dig out my camera and snap a photo of him before he boarded the shuttle to the other terminal that instead of a hunka hunka burning love, i got all shook up and wound up with a hound dog.....and a blurry one, at that.)

there would not be a repeat of that debacle. i was in it to win it. 

i had the camera ready.

i was ready to do that sneering lip thing, perfected by both him and billy idol*.

i was willing to accept him in whichever form i could get: old, young, thin, fat, hunchbacked, lazy-eyed, or even a little confused. (sure, they're not as famous, but i'm sure the elvis costello impersonators are out there, too.)

i would've settled for someone wearing blue suede shoes, for goodness sakes. 

however, as i wandered down the last hallway for the last time, i realized it just wasn't meant to be.

you see, i clearly recall there being a shuttle and a statue of a flying pig- neither of which were present at the memphis airport. (trust me, i was thorough.)

both, however, can be found at the cincinnati airport.**

so, when this realization settled in after an hour and a half of wandering, i did the next logical thing. 

(no, not barbeque. haven't we been over this already?)

i wandered over to the elvis shop and bought postcards with pictures of elvis and his favorite recipes on them, which i spent the next half hour scribbling out for my friends and relations under the watchful eye of my new elvis-impersonating bear.

his name is costello.

*no chance of seeing the latter in the memphis airport. i'm a realist.***

**what was elvis doing in cincinnati and not memphis? i do not know. discounting the possibility that he was being interviewed on wkrp that weekend, it doesn't make much sense to me, either. 

***and i'd already checked the tour dates on his website.

****okay- i'm a little rusty. however, the return part is the more important part, isn't it?

wait- that's not ketchup......

while i pride myself on generally being pretty decent in the kitchen (i've yet to poison anyone or hear, "wow...uh....taco bell's still open, right?"), 9 times out of 10, my attempts to make hash browns end in horror and carnage. since i successfully made a batch a couple of weeks ago, i foolishly thought i'd try again this evening, as the curse had been lifted.

oh, how wrong i was. 

there are bits of potato all over my kitchen, myself, the hallway, and i'm still trying to figure out how one piece wound up in the dining room. 

i grated my thumb twice, and a chunk of my thumbnail is missing. MISSING, I TELL YOU!

i'm beginning to understand why so many people turn to ore ida for their hash brown needs. 

on the plus side, i only have to suffer through this eight more times, and then the 9th batch should be absofreakinglutely perfect.