FUUUUUUUCK

Yep, that's about it.

Worst witness *evar*

So, I'd left a press conference and was on my way to Target yesterday afternoon, fully immersed in a world of gangsta rap (Thank you, Office Space soundtrack), and waiting for a break in traffic so I could turn left from the street into the store parking lot. And then, as Ice Cube rapped about carjackings, it happened.

A semi was coming the other direction, and was taking a right into the parking lot. And then ... the traffic lights heaved up before sagging down to their earlier position. Holy shit. The semi had hit the pole, and for a second, I wondered if it was all going to come crashing down on me.

It didn't. Yay.

The truck driver hesitated for a second before continuing on to make his delivery to Kroger. I carefully made my left turn into the lot, chatted with a fellow witness, and followed her into Target, where we told a store manager what had happened. Only ... once he confirmed it wasn't a Target truck and that the incident had happened on city property, he really didn't give a damn about the gigantor dent left in the potentially fragile pole. Ooops.

So, yeah, if you are committing a crime, it is totally no problem to have me around. I will never be able to identify you in a lineup and I will wait forever to call the police. You're welcome.

Not hating, just saying

Hee.

In other news, the cat bit the dog today. And even though he could probably fit her entire head in his mouth, no problem, he just sat there, staring straight ahead. He is the Gandhi of the canine world.

Also, I had B.O.

The scene: Monday night, mid-council meeting. I'm waiting for a TV reporter to finish interviewing a city department director, so I can have my turn. He finishes, and it's go-time for your intrepid girl reporter. The director starts by embracing me around my waist. [Side note -- I have had untold numbers of sources, man and woman alike, hug me. Am I being too nice to them? Is it because of my wee stature? Luckily, I don't mind hugs, but still. Weird. Almost as weird as the time I accidentally exchanged a high-five with a school superintendent.] He's standing really close to me, like, leaning in, and I am forced to admit to him that I have dragon breath after sucking down, like, a pot of coffee during the day. Crud. And then at the end, he goes for the handshake, and I have to apologize to him because my hands are covered in cold, slick sweat.

Wow. No wonder people wanna give me a hug. What's not to love about stinky breath and clammy hands?

OHIO STATE!!!

The Dangers of Being a Television News Reporter, via Gawker.

Police report of the week

This time, there are two winners:

Police officers were dispatched to a grocery store in the 1600 block of [Redacted] Road at about 5:20 p.m. April 5 on the report of a drunk man urinating inside the business. Officers arrived and found the man inside the store's loss prevention office, where he was taken, according to a witness, after he was found urinating on bread, ruining more than $200 worth of the foodstuff. The suspect was arrested by police, charged with public urination and transported to jail.

A 24-year old man in the 1600 block of [Redacted] Avenue told police that someone shot out one of his apartment windows April 4. In addition to the $350 in damage to the window, the man reported injury to his mini-blinds, worth $100, and to a painting of Martin Luther King, Jr., worth $250. [Note -- this happened on the anniversary of MLK's assassination. Bizarre, no?]

Fuck you, Skybus!!

I was fortunate enough to check my e-mail about 20 minutes ago, just in time to get the news that Skybus is shutting down at day's end. Awesome. Good thing Kyle and I weren't planning on, like, using it to attend his sister's wedding in New Orleans, right?

Oh, wait. We totally were.

So, 15 minutes -- and a tremendous spike in my blood pressure -- later, I've booked new tickets. God love ya, Priceline. The new tickets are pricier -- $204 apiece, instead of $80 -- but at least we won't have to rent a car this way, so we're not so much in the hole. I just pity the poor souls due to fly tomorrow -- or my fellow passengers who actually have social lives. Gooooo me being lame!

Underwire bras = evil

The Teet and I were just having a conversation the evils of underwire bras, like, yesterday. And then I read this today. Yikes.

More conversation on the hateful bra here.

There's also a Wray, Colorado

School arranges morning-after pills for girls of 14 after end-of-term party descends into drunken orgy

Mark

Well, The Teet pretty much said it.

I hadn't seen Mark in a while -- most of what I knew of his life in the last year or was what I heard through the grapevine -- but he'd left me a voice mail a few months back, when I was, er, trying to figure out job stuff. As was his way, the message was embarrassingly complimentary and friendly. Mark was the kind of person who could be overwhelming with his gregariousness. He loved telling a story -- either by bending someone's ear or putting pen to paper -- and he could be equal parts engaging and exhausting, his energy especially remarkable for someone more than 10 years my senior, working two jobs and parenting a teenage daughter.

When I think of Mark, I think of riding in his car with him to lunch, the empty soda cans rattling their way back and forth across the dashboard. I think of his non-stop intensity, the way he seemed to put his whole body into smoking a cigarette. I think of how fondly he talked about his daughter, and the affection I saw between them at his going-away party way back when. They seemed more like teenaged friends than parent and child.

I'd left by the time he made it to our office Monday, and even if I had been there, there's a good chance we wouldn't have exchanged much more than a passing hello, as I'm sort of a horrible grouch most Mondays. Still, I regret missing the opportunity.

Mark Major, I wish you could have found what you were looking for.

Oh, the places I'll go!

The Visited States map, via The Farrago. I still have to hit the Carolinas and Alaska, and then I'll have made it to all of the states (although, I have to say, in some cases I was just driving through or switching flights -- I hope to have actual visits to more of these places soon. Man, I (I keep trying to put a heart in here, but the 'puter won't let me) travelin'.

I'm totally normal, except for my small teeth

Obama
Originally uploaded by 10bagspacking

This went up in our neighbors' yard over the weekend. The sign reads:

Hey, if you are wondering why this OBAMA sign is handmade, it's because someone keeps stealing our sign! You can steal our sign, but you can't steal our vote ... [something I can't make out] Florida in 2000. Vote for HOPE. Vote for CHANGE. (And leave our sign alone.)

Anyway, I appreciate the spirit in which the sign was made -- and, I swear, I haven't stolen their signs -- but, with much hemming and hawing, I ended up voting for Hillary. It was not an easy choice: I was arguing the matter back-and-forth with myself while driving to my polling location, and even when it finally came time to cast my vote. When I saw that Kucinich was on there, I nearly cast my ballot for him, in all honesty. But then I touched the screen for Hillary, my vote neatly recorded on the machine's paper scroll. Only ... then I wasn't so sure about it. So then I Obama. OVERVOTE! Whoops. The computer told me I'd have to un-choose her before I could vote for someone else. So I did. And then, when the time came to confirm my vote, I wavered again. Was I just giving in to peer pressure? I mean, yeah, the woman thing was one of the reasons why I've had a soft spot for her, but I like her health care plan better than Barack's, even though I have more respect for his stance on the war. Crap. Moreover, I want people to see that there is support for her ideas (again, that health care thing to me is HUGE), and that she's not fading away.

So, I changed my vote again. Hillary it was.

I have to say that I'm falling neatly in line with most of my fellow Ohioans, who -- according to a poll I saw on the Dispatch website yesterday but can't locate right now -- are voting for Hillary but think Obama will win the nomination and are OK with that. In some respects, truthfully, I sort of hope he wins over her, although in such a scenario, I would like her as his running mate. I like the optimism and energy he brings to all of this ... anyway, I'm going back to my waffling again. Must stop.

In other, non-election news, my mouth has *finally* stopped hurting, after days of steady aching following the creation of my temporary crown Saturday. Apparently, my problem is that I have small teeth (Hey, I'm short, I have a small head, this is to be expected), which makes the proceedure more painful. I have no idea, really, but that's what Kyle said, and he has a degree in that stuff. Crud. So, I'm now really conscious of my teeth, even if the New York Times thinks it could be part of the "advance guard of human evolution, at least in dentition" -- uh, just ignore the part about the story being written in 1988.

Could it be?

Yes, there is such a thing as HappyJournalist.com. It is, as one might imagine, nowhere near as popular or incisive as AngryJournalist.com.

Gawker has a good post-by-post analysis on the differences between the two sites.

This, so far, is my favorite HappyJournalist quote:

I’m happy that my company gave me a boatload of money to retire from the profession I love and will now pay the new employees half or less of what we got. I’m happy that this site will receive many fewer comments than AngryJournalist.com.

When the power goes out at work

I end up working from home, which is not all bad -- I mean, hey, how often do I get to watch marathons of Tori & Dean: Inn Love? Er, a lot, actually -- but there is one challenge. The cat's all-abiding love for the laptop. Specifically, she loves climbing on the keyboard while I'm trying to type. And this is what happens when she does.

Dear Snow,

Enough already!

Best,
J

Yesssss

The small private conference room in our office that is generally reserved for telephone interviews with prospective employers (if you’re any number of my former co-workers) or paying off your traffic tickets, so the county will remove the two bench warrants filed against you (if you’re me). Today, I was walking by when I noticed that the lights were off – always a good sign of a juicy happening – and there was someone talking inside. The only words I could catch (before I was caught lingering outside) were “dirty-ass ho.” Beautiful.

In other good news, Kyle just called me and told me that one of his employers has agreed to finish my root canal for free, basically. He’s going to take what the insurance company is offering for both steps of the process (fitting me for a cap, giving me a temporary cap and then a permenant one) and nothing more, which is, like, totally rad, considering I am, as always, Brokey McBrokerson.

Next up: wisdom tooth removal! Woo hoo!

This makes me so happy

This is one of the three freakin' adorable mascots for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Is it wrong to want to go to the Olympics just so I can see them in person? Love. There are some cute games on the event Web site, too. I think, at the very least, I'm gonna have to get a comemorative pin or somethin'.

And last night, I bought a new print. How lovely is this? And I get buttons with it, too.

More good news: I have had issues with my car for months now, and last night I brought it in for the dealer repair guy to have another look. Every other time I've done this, he's basically told me that I'm crazy, that everything's been fixed. This time, the voice mail he left on my phone was something like this: "Hey, just looked at your car, and, well, we're replacing the transmission ... [me, inwardly: SHIT!!] ... and it's covered by your warranty [sigh of relief]. I'll call you when it's done." Then, a few hours later, another message: "Hey, the car's all fixed, and as we were fixing it, the check engine light went on. It was your thermostat ... [ARGH!!] ... but it's covered under warranty, so we've replaced that, too."

Aaaah. I feel better now.

Things I don't want to hear at 7:30 a.m.

"Uh, I think the cat peed on your clothes."

Sigh.

And then there's this

Which both of my (semi-bitterly divorced, but politically aligned) parents have sent me in the last few days: We bruise our daughters when we bash Hillary Clinton.

Recently, I learned that some airport shops are selling a "Hillary nutcracker." She has a smile on her face and metal spikes between her thighs. I don't worry about the candidate, who has learned how to handle such misogyny, but I do dwell on the young girls who might catch a horrifying glimpse of those steel jaws and decide that no woman should invite such vitriol.

Dreading March 4

For the first time I can remember, I don't know which Presidential candidate I will be voting for in the primary. And man, it is making me crazy. I just took one of those online quizzes where you can answer questions to see which candidate best suits you, and Hillary and Barack frickin' came in tied! Ack!

Annnnd ... I just took another poll, and it looks like my winning candidate is ... Mike Gravel, probably only because Kucinich is no longer a choice. Yeah, that's how I roll.

OK, another site has Obama matching me at 85 percent, tied (natch) with Kucinich, and followed by Hillary at 83 percent. In other words, too close to count.

[Edited to add: And the fucking USA Today poll has me with Kucinich first, Gravel second and McCain third. Perfect.]

Ugh. Rebecca Traister had an essay in Salon a couple of days before Super Tuesday that, well, it's like she has tapped into every single feeling I have had about this race. I had a hard time picking out the parts that most spoke to me, because, well, it all does, but here are some excerpts:

I think, every day, of what it would feel like to vote for Barack Obama. I can feel the pull of Obama-mania, how thrilling it would be to see the country come alive with excitement for a young person, someone with fresh ideas, a man beholden to few in Washington, a candidate who has lived around the world, who does not seem to take a cowboy approach to foreign policy, who has forsaken big business opportunities in order to address the problems of the working class. I think also that, in the United States, race (especially when combined with class) remains a more formidable barrier to professional, political and economic success than gender. Hillary Clinton may have a harder time getting elected than Obama because, frankly, Obama can be comfortably looked at as an exceptional black man, not as a harbinger of what's to come, whereas Hillary will stand in for all those pushy broads coming to take your jobs, college admissions letters and seats in Congress. If Hillary's success is less exceptional, does she deserve my vote as much as Barack?

. . .

And then I think of how, when I was 9, my dad took me into the voting booth so that I could pull the lever for the first female vice president, and how he told me that he hoped that in my lifetime I would have the opportunity to vote for a woman at the top of the ticket. And I think about the fact that this is it -- my chance to pull that lever for her, so that I can do it again come November.

. . .

There is shame in voting for Hillary Clinton, make no mistake -- pulling a lever for someone who voted for Iraq and proposed anti-flag-burning legislation provokes its own brand of self-loathing. When I think about doing the deed, I consider the fact that she's brilliant, that she's competent, that she knows her shit inside and out, that she's battle-tested, tough as nails, and that she wipes the floor with Obama in the debates. She provides a steel-solid track record, he a nimbus of vague hope.

. . .

But here is the honest part: Hillary Clinton is a woman. And so am I. And my president doesn't have to look like me, any more than she has to be a person I want to have a beer with, but I can't pretend that it doesn't mean something, something really important, that we've never had one who looked like me before.

Can’t it ever lede without bleeding? Ever? Ever ever?

AngryJournalist.com is my new favorite thing on the internet.

A sampling:

Angry Journalist #185:
I’m pissed that community journalism is dying and being bought out by bullshit companies who don’t care about grass roots reporting and the important position it holds in small town America.

Angry Journalist #245:
I just want to punch someone

Angry Journalist #276:
Editors who tell you to “dumb down” the writing, not trusting the reader’s intelligence. The public who doesn’t give a shit about what’s going on around them. AP style, nut grafs, and ledes. The lack of balls in writing style. The large MSM outlets who skew the news and make community journalists look like assholes. The lack of truth in journalism. The fact that politicians try to make themselves look good in the press, rather than give the truth, and we have to take it as is. The fact that the state I live in has one reporter opening a month, we have a popular journalism major at a state university, and dozens apply to each job that comes up. What are the rest of the kids doing? The fact that I can’t pay off my debts as a community journalist, and in fact only create more. The fact that if I ever want to move up in this field I have to give out blow jobs. The fact that writing shitty stories over irregular hours makes me so numb I can’t bear to sit and write fiction during my time off. The fact that I am considering a trade job to get out of this field I worked so hard to get into. The fact that I love the concept of the news, but hate the way it is done, and am disillusioned by how I am told to do it. The fact that papers look to hire journalists with online and multimedia skills, but only take paper packet applications. The fact we have to write the same amount of stories we always have AND do more multimedia on top of it. The fact that there is never enough time to really spend out in the public chatting with the people who matter most — the readers. Shall I continue?

Angry Journalist #293:
I should have gone to refrigeration school.

(Via Gawker)

Meredith, for the win

It's snowing fairly heavily right now, and has been since I got here at 8:20 a.m. It was 60 degrees yesterday; today the high is expected to be about 20 or so degrees.

And it just thundered.

Meredith: "Why are we living The Day After Tomorrow?"

Now with 10 percent fewer brain cells!!

This weekend has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. The highs: the continuation of Kyle and my Valenversery, good food, getting in some exercise, spending time with my mom and friends. The lows: bickering with Kyle over stuff so pointless that I can no longer recall anything we fought about, eating *way* too much rich food and misplacing -- I hope! -- my iPod.

But perhaps the most exciting moment happened Saturday afternoon shortly after our workout. My muscles were starting to tighten up, and I decided that the best thing would be a long, hot bath. So, with Kyle out shoe-shopping, I got the bath started and shortly thereafter noticed that the water was much, much too hot. I needed to add cold water, and impatient being that I am, I hopped in and used my feet to swish it all around.

That might have been a mistake.

I was facing the wall on the long side of the tub when ... it started to move. Or rather, I started to move, as my feet sled forward and my body catapulted backwards. It all happened quickly, but as I fell straight back, I had enough time to think "Huh--I'm finally going to know what it's like to be knocked unconscious." With my knees hanging over the edge of the tub, my elbow hit the floor and my head slammed into the wall. FUUUUUCK! For a second, I wondered if Kyle would find me there on the floor, naked and bleeding. I wondered if I had a concussion. Genius that I am, I held two fingers in front of me to see if I had double-vision. My already-poor eyesight seemed no worse for wear. And so I gingerly climbed back into the tub, bathed and then tended to the scabs forming on my elbow and leg. Apart from those cuts, I haven't seen any lasting effects, except, uh, tonight at tennis, I didn't have my own racquet, so I borrowed the club's. Aaaand when tennis was over, I walked out with it. Whoops. I think my memory might have taken a hit.

There will be blood

After years (eep!) of procrastination, I finally went to the dentist yesterday. It was a trip I dreaded not so much because of the dentist himself (he's a pretty genial guy) or the inevitably painful tooth-scraping, but because of the visit's impact on my wallet. The verdict, after a protracted scaling that left my gums bleeding and raw? One cavity, which will be filled next week. Oh, and I still have to get my root canal finished and my wisdom teeth removed. Man, my wallet's already hurting in anticipation.

Anyway, the dentist. I have this ongoing joke about how nothing in his office has changed since 1972. Several of the walls are wood-paneled, and one exam room has a sepia-toned photographic mural of a nature scene. And then yesterday, I saw what's pictured above: Tons of back issues of Soap Opera Digest.

Oh, and a children's book on West Germany. Wow. I always thought I was a bit of an exaggerator about the place, but, yeah. There it is.

Anyhoo, my gums were tender last night and this morning, and when I woke up at 7 a.m., I decided to take a Tylenol PM and go back to sleep. That may have been a mistake. When I woke up four hours later, I decided I should probably go to work. Only I couldn't find my glasses. So, I watched some Martha Stewart, caught up on my e-mail and then started what would be a two-hour search. Dammit. Do you know how hard it is to find glasses when you need them to find anything? It is quite difficult.

After moving the bed, stripping it, wrestling with dust bunnies and finding our lost DVD remote, I finally found my specs, which were on the floor on Kyle's side of the bed, caught in a tangle of wires. Argh. I put them on, and headed to the office. Everything was pretty uneventful there, except I finally gave in and started playing this, which is both terribly addictive and allows me to think my laziness is doing some good in the world. So, yeah, that's pretty rad, although I have a feeling my productivity is going to plummet. But hey, starving people will get rice!

Wiener Poopie

I have no words for how amazing this is. (Via Dooce)

Can we talk about my shoes?

Let's.

OK, so I have been coming apart at the seams since my beloved Pro-Keds came apart at the seams (quite literally, sadly). After two-plus years of solid use, they just started disintegrating, and no amount of Shoe Goo could keep them together. I loved these shoes. They were like Chuck Taylors, but with actual arch support and a more substantial sole. They were a staple of my wardrobe, and with their loss, my ability to dress myself for work declined significantly. To make matters worse, when I attempted to find a proper replacement, I learned that the line had been purchased by Rocawear. And y'know, as much as I used to love to don hip-hop clothes as a kid, the thought of wearing logo-emblazoned shoes like this makes me cry. So I've been looking for something to take their place. I wanted comfy black shoes that I could wear to work (I interpret our office dress code very loosely), wear out and not hear my footsies cry in pain afterward.

My plan for the weekend was to find brown pants. My favorite pair, as I said a few days ago, were destroyed by an uncapped permanent marker left in my pocket and I needed a new pair for my work uniform. I headed to Old Navy to try and find the dream pants. No dice. As much as I love Old Navy, it all went down in a manner that I am accustomed to at this store. One pair of pants was so tight that no waist extender in the world would would help. When I went up a size, however, the pants were so big and baggy that I could pull them down even when properly zipped and buttoned. So, no dice.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, shoes.

Anyway, Kyle had asked me to grab some Method all-purpose pink grapefruit-scented household cleaner at Target (seriously, he wants to make babies with that shit) while I was out pants-shopping. Um, you want me to go to Target? Hells yeah! Guilt-free consumerism, here I come.

And it was there that I found them. Target now carries fabric Converse One-Stars. Do you know how difficult it is to find cute, non-leather shoes? Very. The adult shoes were $29.99, but nearby, and looking remarkably similar (and by "similar," I mean, "the same") was a kiddie version for $19.99.

Check it out: Adults. Kids.

OK, are you back? Good. So, I decided to try an experiment. Would my size 6.5-7 tootsies fit in kiddie shoes? Oh, yes. Yes they would.

I'm wearing my new kicks now. I don't love them as much as those Pro-Keds (now collecting dust bunnies under the bed, as I can't yet bear to throw them out), but hell, they were cheap and reasonably stylish and not made of dead cows. And now I'm eyeing a pair in bubblegum pink.

Crybaby

Those who have known me for any length of time might have already heard this story, but forgive me for repeating myself for a moment. When I was in the third grade, I had a teacher, Mrs. B, who I, for some period, thought was the bee's knees. The reason was simple: she had traveled the world with her husband, and would tell us great stories about schools in other countries, about the proper way to wrap a sari and about her true hair color: her hair was naturally near-black like mine, but she had long kept it a yellowy bottle blond. I was enchanted with her stories and her frank talk. Up to a point.



That point came midway through the year when Mrs. B, as brittle as her suicide-blonde hair, mocked me in front of the class for my poor penmanship. Embarrassed, I stopped emulating my dad's scrawl and mimicked my mother's girlish hand instead. But Mrs. B wasn't done. Later in the year, I broke my arm and midway through the healing process, I was due for a doctor's appointment to check my progress. Instead of riding the bus that day, my dad was due to pick me up at school. But there was a problem: under our school policy, the only way to not be put on the bus was to have a parental note or phone call alerting our teacher to the change. My dad had been too rushed to give me the note, and promised to call the school secretary. Later, he would tell me the message must not have been passed on, but in retrospect, I tend to think he just forgot. But I am meandering off-topic here. Anyway.



So, near the end of the day, I told Mrs. B that my dad was supposed to pick me up. She told me she hadn't heard anything of the like, and that I would have to ride the bus home, per usual. Now that freaked me the fuck out. You see, my dad has a notoriously bad temper (one of my early childhood memories is of him making Trish, a family friend, cry) and I was worried about what would happen when he arrived at my school and I wasn't there. I (barely) held back my tears as my brain worried over what I should do. And then it happened. A kindly student teacher looked over, saw that I was upset, and asked me what was wrong. And then the floodgates unleashed. She clucked sympathetically as I explained, through tears, the situation.



And then Mrs. B noticed me. From across the room, she shouted, "Why are you crying, crybaby?" Which is sort of an answer and a question all wrapped up in one, y'know? And just plain mean, to boot. So, yeah, imagine my surprise -- and delight -- this morning when I heard the local news broadcast about a woman who'd been attacked by bed bugs while on vacation in Cincy. It was her. And then I set to googling her. And that's when I found this, which included comments such as [Mrs. B] was the worst professor I have had at OSU. She was unprofessional as she just complained to us and never actually taught ...



And let me tell you, the 9-year-old in me couldn't be more pleased with this development.

This might be my favorite movie review ever

On Meet the Spartans:

This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline under the weight of too many pop culture references.

Oh. Shit.

So, Kyle has what I had earlier in the month -- the "death flu," as he's taken to calling it. Last night, I stayed up with him 'till 4 a.m., rubbing his shoulders and listening to him moan about achy bones and such. It was no biggie, after all, I worked 13.5 hours that day and was still revved up from a late-night council meeting. That, and wide awake after looking up scary nutritional info on some of my fast-food choices. Like, those small onion rings at Burger King? They're a relatively not-so-terrible 140 calories. That "zesty sauce" offered by the employee at the window to go with said onion rings? Uh, that was 150 calories. Shit. But I digress.

Anyway, my plan after that late night was to sleep late today. That didn't quite work out as planned. I woke up around 9 a.m., rolled over, and ... sniffed. I smelled something that smelled suspiciously like cat poop. And then I turned my head a little bit more and saw it. It looked like a Twix bar. But it was not a delicious chocolatey treat. The cat had shat on our white, 700-thread-count sheets just inches from my face. Shit. Shit. Shit.

So, I hauled myself out of the bed, pried the (thankfully) solid poo off the fabric, stripped the bed, remade it and went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I lazed around after that and stayed in bed until past noon. I needed to haul my carcass out of bed for a scheduled lunch meeting, and just as I was about to leave, I noticed it. The cat had vomited -- twice! -- on my nice vintage couch. SHIT. And we were out of paper towels. And all but a drizzle of pet stain remover. I sprayed what I could and used some Jersey Mike's napkins stashed in a kitchen drawer to do what I could before I left for the lunch. Lunch was good -- happily, it involved no shit- or vomit-related incidents.

Later, there was a meeting, more Kyle-related care-taking, some cabbage soup-eating, TV-watching and internet-surfing. Happily, there was no more shitting.

Oh, and an update: I just discovered that I destroyed my favorite brown pants yesterday when I accidentally left a permanent marker uncapped in my pocket. Sheeeeit.

Hillary Clinton = Tracy Flick?

The evidence is pretty damning, huh?

Quirky? I'll give ya quirky

Maybe. I have a hard time distinguishing what is quirky from what is regular. But here goes (I hope you're happy, Teet). Here are six of my quirks:

1.) I like to sort of disassemble Twix and Three Musketeers bars as I eat them. Namely, with a Twix, I like to peel off the chocolatey layers before then gnawing off the caramel layer and, finally the cookie. It's similar with a Three Musketeers bar: first goes the chocolate outside, then the cloud-like nougaty innards.

2.) I won an NFL alumni scholarship for scholar-athletes for my freshman year of college, thanks to my high school academic prowess and my time on the tennis courts. This had nothing to do with my beloved guidance counselor being married to an ex-NFL player, obviously.

3.) Home keys? What are they? I cannot type properly. I never took typing, home ec or shop in middle school because I was allowed to take art instead, and and I never took it in high school because the teacher was a heinous biznatch. This may have been a mistake.

4.) My highest-paying job per-hour remains my time tutoring kids for the SAT. Who knew a test I took on a Saturday morning my junior year of high school would have a more beneficial impact on my career than would my college diploma?

5.) In middle school, my music of choice was gangsta rap. I owned two Oakland Raiders shirts. And an ankh necklace. They were rad. West Coast for life!

6.) When my hands are cold at home, I will stick them in the dog or cat's legpits to warm them. I am not proud of this. Nor are the animals.

Oh, and since I'm not convinced that more than two people read this, I will forgo the tagging. Unless you are indeed reading this and have not yet replied, in which case

Tag. You're it.

Oh, and there's this

Ahem.

103.3

That was my temperature Sunday night after I woozily dragged myself out of the steaming hot bathtub. Said bathtub had been the only thing stopping me from being overcome with violent shivers, but perhaps poaching myself in the tub wasn't the best idea, ever. Once my core temperature had settled down, it registered a less hospital emergency-room worthy 102 degrees, according to my semi-reliable Kroger brand thermometer. I shivered and shook and tossed and turned Sunday, and by Monday, it was irrefutable: my seven-month not-getting-sick streak was over. And then Tuesday, it got worse. My voice was little more than a strained whisper. I couldn't breathe properly when I tried -- and failed -- to sleep, and when I gazed in the mirror, thinking that perhaps I'd spot a swollen tonsil, I noticed that my uvula was resting on my tongue. Troubling.

So, yeah, I went to the doctor's office the next day. A strep test came up negative, but my temperature was still strong at 102, so it was time for drugs. Nothing fun, just some antibiotics in case I actually *do* have strep, and some Tamiflu to hopefully shorten the course of my treatment if it was indeed flu I was afflicted with. So far, so good: I slept better last night (although the double dose of Tylenol PM didn't hurt, either) and my uvula seems to have returned to its normal size. I'm still hacking up globby, gelatinous pieces of goo from my lungs, but sometimes I can almost talk like a normal person, so, yeah, things seem to be improving. My dad brought me soup and Orangina (oooh, and some cough syrup with codeine) earlier tonight, and the plan is to veg out to some Law & Order and let the healing begin. I guess I'll truly know that everything is back to normal when Kyle and I can share the same bed (he's been sleeping in the guest room to stay away from my cooties, and so I can toss and turn at will). Someday.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

I'm pretty sure the kitty has asthma. Do they make cat-sized CPAPs? In any regard, the sound of her wheezing snore is loud enough to be heard over the whir of the laptop and the television.

In other cat-related news, Rosa (when she's not snoring into the couch cushions) has discovered that the laptop is the lurve of her life. Whenever I'm tip-tapping away on it while reclined on the couch, Rosa will do her damnedest to make her way from a perch on my stomach to a seat directly on the keyboard. It's annoying, but it has honed my ability to touch-type. Anyhoodle, today I was, as the kids call it, "surfing the 'net" when I noticed Miss Kitty, who was pressed up against my side, staring at the screen. And then I tried an experiment. Rosa loves chasing the light of a laser pointer. Would she do the same for the cursor?

Oh, yes. Yes she would. So, I spent a goodly chunk of my afternoon moving the cursor around the screen and watching Rosa periodically attempting to smash it under her paw. Good times.

In other news ... I, uh, am totally satisfied with my life, my finances, my job? HAHAHA! Early April Fool's!

Um, probably the highlights of this week were, on Thursday, getting a tour of the outer reaches of our office's warehouse area, where we saw vats of ink, towering stacks of rolled newsprint and the Rube Goldberg-esque contraption that prints our publications. Pretty neat-o. Oh, and the coffee vending machine was giving out free drinks for some reason, so I got a tongue-searing cup of hot chocolate. Yum. Yesterday (also known as Friday), I went out with coworkers, a former coworker and a soon-to-be-former coworker. We drank, ate Mexican fusion food and played a rousing game of "Would you rather ... ?" The less said about that, the better.

Oh, and I did some wedding stuff last weekend. After I finish this o-so-exciting entry, I will head over here for an update.

I swear, original content's a comin'

But until then, I again must raid the Gawker media empire (this time for my favorite, Jezebel) with this.

May all of 2008 be like this

Today started off rough -- I slipped and fell on the snow, my engagement ring flew off my finger, hit the cement and rolled into the white, white snow -- but has steadily improved. After just over an hour of searching and sifting snow in the kitchen sink, I found the ring, and then I came to work and discovered this on The Internets. Things are starting to look up.

Hmmm ... and today is Wednesday. I'm not sure what's up with that time stamp.

And now I fixed it! (But I'm still just talking to myself.)