Hurry, Before I Lose You

Just a quick one this morning because I have no idea how long my internet connection will last.

Had a second turkey dinner last night with a set of uncle/aunt and mom because mom had her own turkey in the oven when she had to take the pile to the hospital on Thursday. Thus, left over turkey that hadn't been carved yet.

Watched The Departed last night and my crush on Mark Wahlberg is reignited. I'm going to petition Obama to pass a law that Marky Mark has to wear a hollister 24-7...and spew a litiny of profane insults at machine gun speed. Funny how cell phones have changed the face of the gangster movie. While I was watching it, I wasn't all too thrilled with it but when it was over, I decided it was really good. I don't know how that happened.

I'm determined to finish the costuming today so there will be glitter and sequins every where. I hope the cat doesn't digest anything. He's like a little vacuum. If he sees something on the floor, he'll stick it in his mouth first and then decide if he wants it there or not. He's still the best mouser in the universe so he can have his quirks.

The store clerk forgot to take the little ink-filled-alarm-registering thingy off of the shirt so now I have to go back to the frickin' MOA just to have it removed. I'm going to glare at her the entire time.

The cat is up on top of the kitchen cabinets staring at me. Quirky, and I'm okay with it.

That's It??!!

Holy crap, I actually went out shopping today. I had a gift card from my credit card company - you know, those bonus points - for which I also used my credit card when the total went slightly over what the gift card was so this way, I can accumulate more points for another card. Makes sense, right? Totally.

The Starbucks employees are striking by the MOA because they say they're not paid good wages. Everyone wants more money. If you get more money, it means that I now have to take out a loan to get a Ho-Ho Mocha. Wait, that's Caribou. Whatever.

Turkey day was okay. My food turned out damn near perfectly (you don't want things absolutely perfectly because then they don't look like they were made by humans) except that mom didn't make it over until 2:30pm. After getting home from the nursing home on Wednesday, my dad promptly fell in the bathroom and hurt his ankle. It had swollen up to an incredible size on Thursday so the nurse came over, did an assessment and determined that he has six disabilities for which mom can not care for. The X-ray machine was then brought to the house and carted off again to be developed and analyzed at some medical facility. Meanwhile, mom stopped in for food. We had about 45 minutes of enjoyment before the nurse called back and said he had indeed broken his ankle and he would need to be brought into the emergency room. Mom rushed off home to get him hauled into an ambulance then sat for four hours in the emergency room after which it was determined that he could not go home. FINALLY someone in authority decides he cannot be at home because it's unsafe for him. He was carted off to Providence Place again where he sat in misery because he's a miserable person. Anyhoo, Turkey Day came and went in about 45 minutes. Luckily mom left the bottle of white merlot which I was kind enough to polish off for her.

On to christmas.

Finally!!

Finally Wednesday is here. This means that I can start the stuff for deviled eggs. The deviled eggs represent the blue-eyed devils that overtook this land and mass-murdered the occupants at the time. While the butter, onions and CELERY (that's right Ryan, celery) are sauteing, I can trim the foam insulate from around the front door. I could have done that last night but I was busy watching the finale of Dancing With The Stars.

I've got the alarm set so I can get up in time and be out of the shower before Alice's Restaurant is broadcast on KQRS. Sounds slightly anal-retentive, doesn't it? I may be very organized but I'm also capable of spontaneity. Like the time I BOO! ha, didn't see that coming did you.

Okay, so here's the annual list of stuff I'm thankful for:

1. Firemen and wind. Both of which without my house would have burned down when my neighbor's house mysteriously caught fire one night at 3am.

2. Paramedics, EMT's and the like all of whom have stretchers and straps to haul away unwilling participants even when it's for their own goddamn good.

3. My job which pays enough to cover expenses and the FUCKING PARKING TICKET I GOT YESTERDAY FOR PARKING WITHIN 30 FEET OF A STOP SIGN!!!!

4. Netflix which provides belly dancing documentaries; some good and some with Miles Copeland in them.

5. Arms and legs; I'm really glad I have all of mine and can use them appropriately.

6. The Cat who is by far the most efficient mouse-terminator I've ever seen in my life.

7. IAGG for not increasing their prices for, um, since inception so that I can afford to see good entertainment and am then reminded that laughing is really good for you.

8. Not-maxed-out credit cards so I can finally get some good footwear for fest this next year.

9. Living only three miles from work so I can walk and save gas in the car which I'm thankful has a big trunk....to hide the bodies. Just seeing if you're paying attention.

10. The release of the Muppet Show seasons 1 - 3 so I can come up with good sketch ideas. Hopefully next year I'll be able to say that I'm thankful that Muppets Tonight was released.

11. To end on a mushy note, I'm thankful for all of the people in my life; the ones that I don't like because they make me face reality and the ones I do like because even though I live alone and am not officially "attached", I'm never truly alone.

Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone. See you in FIVE days! Woohoo!!!

Almost There

This week is all about coffee and cars. I wouldn't be anywhere without them.

I'm all about getting from point A to point B, rarely do I concern myself with the journey. This character trait helps me to get to Potbelly's for lunch and back within 20 minutes but is a hindrance this week. I have every dish written out with notes on when I can prep things so I don't have to do everything on Thursday. Some things could be done on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Nothing can be done on Tuesday because it's either one day too long for something to chill or it's not enough time for something to set. So here I am today, looking back at my list every few minutes, checking to see if maybe there really is something I can do today. I then sigh, put the list down, check the calendar to make sure that it isn't Wednesday yet, and then slowly make myself realize that I'm just going to have to....(ugh) wait...for...Wednesday. I'll read through the Calvin and Hobbes daily cartoon website back to August 2005 to take my mind off of it.

Dad's coming home on Wednesday and I'd love to launch into a tirade about how the health care system sets you up to believe that if you pay for insurance your whole damn life that you'll be covered and oh don't forget we have the lovely Medicare system that pays for everything except that you have to have a 3-day qualifying hospital stay in order for Medicare to kick in and even though you were in the hospital and we discharged you one hour before your qualifying third day you still had to go to a nursing home because you're that incapacitated but we'll make sure that you're family knows that they can never tell you what you have to do but in the very next breath we're going to tell them that they have to come and pick you up and then to top it off we're only going to give them maybe a day's notice to do so. As much as I'd love to launch into that tirade, I won't.

I had dinner with mom over the weekend. She got her new couch. She was explaining to me that it was burgundy but it's a different color burgundy than the first one she looked at. Really? Different color burgundy huh? Don't give me any crap about poking fun at my mother, sometimes she's a really easy target.

I just checked the list again. It's still not Wednesday.

Start Stretching Your Stomach

I shouldn't open my work email until after I write something here and get all comfy at my desk. I did it anyway this morning and exchanged a few um, stern emails with a FUBAR subcontract and now I'm cranky. Oh well, at least I still have all of my limbs. See, when you get angry about piddly stuff like that you have to remind yourself that it could always be worse.

If you missed the IAGG show last night, that's unfortunate because it was wonderful and there won't be one again until 2009 although the holiday season always rushes by and it'll be back before you know it so I guess you're not any worse off except that you missed Jill Bernard's comparison of The Nutcracker to socialism. Too bad she didn't touch on the pedophilia aspect of the story. I'm a bit thankful for that since my mother and I always go to see The Nutcracker every year and this year's turn is coming up on Dec. 13th. I'll just call on my familial traits of tuning the real world out so I'm not bothered by the fact that the wacky uncle is singling out the pubescent girl by slowly creeping towards her with a special gift like he was Gollum giving up the ring, WHY DOESN'T ANYONE STOP HIM...oo, dance of the snowflakes!

All food is bought and in it's proper holding place until the big day which is only three short days away. I've decided that I'm making my own dinner because I absolutely love making a huge dinner like that. I don't know that many people will show up but that'll just mean more left overs for me. I'm fine with that. You know, turkeys aren't as intimidating as you think. It's pretty easy to have them turn out good. You don't need to do the brining thing and you definitely don't need to do the basting thing. I've made two big ones now both with no basting or brining and they've turned out to be wonderful. The problem I have is trussing them correctly. I'm never quite certain how to tie those little fuckers up right. By the time I'm done, they look like little S&M turkeys. I'd make a horrible dominatrix...or a really good one, I'm not sure.

Only three work days this week, how wonderful is that? It's very wonderful.

Dear Days...

Okay Friday, you better be good to me. I've worked really hard and have accepted all the crap your cronies have thrown at me, especially Tuesday, that little bitch. Tuesday was very mean and I want you to kick her ass. I expect you to be very pleasing tonight and to know exactly what I'll need to relax and then go tell Saturday to stretch out because I have a lot of things to do. Sunday is already in my good graces since he'll have the last IAGG for the year, he doesn't need to do much more than that to make me happy.

Listen Friday, I'm not done with you yet. What's with your drunk uncles November and December? Did they really have to put their holidays at their ends? Why don't they stick them up front where we can get them over with? And what's with December thinking he can stick christmas on a Thursday? Thursday??!! I love Thursday. Why does he have to soil Thursday with his stupid holiday? Does December realize that business communication will come to a halt now for his bottom half? If I try to get any answers out of anyone on the 16th, they may respond with "I'll get back to you by the 18th" but really they won't because the stupid office party will be on the 19th for which they have to start getting ready for on the 18th and then the 22nd and 23rd will be "call it in" days because what can you accomplish in two days? and then nothing will end up being completed until 2009. Your uncle's an asshole.

I have to go now because while you may be promising nice things at your end, you're demanding action on my part before I can get to it. Tease.

Where Did All of These Plebs Come From?

If you're just headed out, I feel that I should warn you. It's a bit windy. My eyes watered the entire way to work, which is about 45 minutes. That's a long time for your eyes to water. My cheeks are nice and rosy though.

I'm a big fan of any documentary having to do with the British Monarchy. I couldn't stand Princess Di though. Anyway, PBS is airing The Royal Family At Work which is a slightly remixed version of the Queen Elizabeth documentary they aired last year but that's okay with me. They're concentrating more on the Queen's daily activities and social engagements. One thing I noticed about her is that when she's asking someone a question, which most people would consider inane chit chat, she will look straight at the person very intently, right in the eyes, and really listen to the answer. She's not looking over the head of the person, or looking around the room, she really seems interested in the answer. I think it'd be great to have a conversation with her. I think I'd probably start by asking her if Winston Churchill ever hit on her.

I hope you don't run out of food this weekend because this is it, the big weekend, the weekend to never step foot in a grocery store...the weekend before Thanksgiving. Most of the food items served for this dinner really can't be bought too far ahead of time. Potatoes, veggies, all that stuff really needs to be bought as close to the event as possible. Just to prove how wacked I am, I'm actually looking forward to going to a grocery store on Saturday. No wait, it should be Sunday because that's when the new fliers will be out with all the specials. It's better to go to the higher end stores like Lunds or Byerlys because that's where all the rude people are. It's fun to watch people who are used to waltzing in and picking through the fruit pile for the perfect item with no one invading their space have to start throwing elbows to get to a package of bacon. Yes, there are times that I revel in others' displeasure (is that apostrophe in the right place?).

There's going to be a hafla in Hopkins on Dec. 6th of which I will be dancing in with my class and also doing my quaint little drum solo. I'm nervous again now. I've been practicing it lately and I don't like it anymore. Well, I like the beginning but I don't like the last half. I have to work on my costume again because the coin top I got for the first show doesn't work well with what I do. When I move my arms in front of me, I hit the coins and they stay up which looks hilarious. I'm going to make some goddamn arm bands this time too.

I missed last Monday's class because I wasn't feeling well so Leslie said I could come to tonight's class as a make-up. She was thinking of moving me up to this class anyway. I'm a bit apprehensive about that because I like being an intermediate; you're not a beginner but you're also not held to perfection. I like keeping people's expectations low. Now I may have to forgo that, work harder and actually get better. Hopefully I'll get better. What if I don't? Aaaack! I don't need peer pressure, I provide my own.

I have to go now to write out my grocery list.

Turn the Radio Off, Just Use Your iPod

Another day, another.......day. It's Wednesday right? Yes, I just checked. I forgot what day it was yesterday too. When tomorrow comes, I'll be thinking "Gee, where did the week go?"

Mom got dad into the nursing home again on a short-term stay so far. Hopefully that'll turn into long-term. I think there's a good chance for that. He's been getting weaker quickly and has been having more small strokes more often. His mind is pretty much completely shot. He doesn't make any sense when he talks but instead of being a sweet, confused old man he's a mean, confused old man. That's unfortunate. That means that no one wants him around. The end of his life, which is now, is going to be difficult for him and everyone around him. Oh well.

If you haven't discovered it yet, you may want to brace yourself. Christmas music has begun on the two twin cities stations that must be owned by satan. There should be a law that nothing related to the holiday season can begin until after Thanksgiving. The exception would be the BNW's holiday show. Everyone should see that regularly. It'll help, trust me.

I'm sorely lacking in the writing-capabilities category today. I'll work on that tonight. Now...to the paperwork.

My Nails Are Now Red

Well, there's another weekend come and gone. I ended up spending a fair amount napping due to the double whammy of Nyquil and Dayquil. I felt something coming on Friday and decided to nip it in the bud. I was so sluggish that I think I would have rather walked around with a sore throat. We're all infecting each other right now anyway so don't give me that 'contagious' crap.

Saturday night I went out to the Beirut Restaurant in West St. Paul and holy crap is that place fun. Really good food mixed with really good Middle Eastern music and dancing and people end up staying from 8:00pm - 2am. Reservations are required otherwise you have to stand outside with your face pressed up against the window. It's not a big place.

I enjoyed a nice show at Improv A Go Go afterwhich I got a phone message from my mom saying that dad had another stroke and is in the hospital. She's hoping he stays there for three days so she can get him into a rehab/nursing home facility again and have the tab go to Medicare. Medicare owes her. They wrote a letter dated last November, which didn't arrive until April, saying that dad didn't have the three-day hospital stay required for his last trip to Edina Healthcare. He did but she missed the period to appeal because you only have ninety days to do so or some such thing. Mom started down the long path of trying to show people the discrepancy in correspondence dates and that he did stay in the hospital for three days anyway but got no where with the insurance companies, Edina Healthcare and Amy Klobuchar's office who first told her they would help, did nothing, then said "Oh, we don't really handle things like that". I've gotten off topic. Hopefully he'll be tossed in a facility and this will be a good holiday season.

After not being able to fall asleep right away, I finally started to drift off sometime around midnight when I suddenly noticed bright lights shining through my front door accompanied by knocks and the door bell. This shot me up out of bed to find Minneapolis' finest at my door. My first thought was that there was something going on with the burned out house next door but it turned out to be a wrong address. They were given my address my a security company saying an elderly lady needed assistance. I wasn't her. It's a little unsettling knowing that someone's assistance was delayed because of a possible transposed number. After my heart stopped racing, I fell asleep around 2am. I'm now sleepy. By the way, police flashlights are like spotlights. They lit up my whole living room from just one little hand-held metal tube.

This could be an interesting week.

Hmph

I can feel that today is one of those days where I have little to no patience. That's bad timing because I have two meetings and one college assembly over the lunch hour. I have no patience for bullshit and I have a feeling I'm going to be fed a lot of it today. I also have this sinking feeling that I forgot to turn my headlights off. At least I'll get more exercise walking back the eight blocks to my car. I'd rather have more exercise than a dead battery.

I got the same lovely letter from my county that Fitz got about taxes and I'm not trying to copy him, but I definitely share that same feeling of anger. At least it wasn't like last year's letter that told me there were still back taxes on the property that needed to be cleared up from the previous owner. My taxes are increasing 1.3%. Luckily I'll get a 3% salary increase in June which will net things out to 1.7% overall which is lower than the 4.something% the U of M's union was striking for last year when Obama came through town and wrote a letter to President Bruininks about how unfair he was. I wonder if Obama will blow through town again and write a letter to Hennepin county for me? I don't see that coming. I'll have to take another look at the line items but last night I seem to remember seeing that specifics such as sewer and garbage were decreasing. So it may be that my property taxes will be going more for things that aren't related to my property.

Hmph. At least I have a house and the furnace works...and I can still afford Netflix...which reminds me!....Casino Royale kind of sucks. I was bored to tears. Why were Daniel Craigs' eyes digitized so much? Okay they're blue, we get it. I don't need bright blue laser beams emitting from my television screen. They were scaring The Cat.

Off to other things. Have a good weekend.

Post Script

An hour after I posted yesterday's blog, I thought "Wait! If two of us tied for 5th and then they skipped to 3rd, they did have an extra medal. One marked '4th' which we should have been anyways. What did they do with that medal??!! Why couldn't they have given it to me??!!" That whole situation stinks of deceit.

I have only randomness today:

• I paid my electric bill twice; once online and once by mail. I'd like twice as much electricity for the month now please.
• Since my vacuum is broken and I can't afford a new one and The Cat won't agree to stop shedding, I'm going to dye The Cat blue so he matches the rugs.
• While I respect the office of The President, I am looking forward to George W. Bush leaving office and taking his goofdom with him. Sometimes people may comment about a person like that saying "He's one of those folks you could have a beer with." No, I wouldn't want to even stand by him around a bon fire drinking heavily. Now T.P.ing I might do with him. I think he'd be good at that.
• Cryptic item: Stop following? Really? Stop following? Now I'm going to read everything twice! Maybe even three times. HA! Take that!
• I caught a small group of people trying to pull some crap by using a grant in a way it wasn't intended for. They continued to try to intimidate me by lying and I totally busted them. I feel invincible.
• I left my office keys inside my office yesterday and had to have my co-worker let me into my office this morning. Invincibility was short-lived.
• I am now becoming consumed by the organization bug and am organizing every closet, cupboard, nook and cranny in my living space. Don't stand too close to me, I may organize you.

It's rainy and dark outside. I want to stay in my office and read various news websites. No work, just news.

Let's Tie One On

You know what's great about waffles? Besides the fact that they're waffles and usually nothing more needs to be said? You can make a whole mess of them at once and they'll keep beautifully in the fridge for days. Maybe a nice big plate of warm waffles would help the current senate situation. I don't know how but it wouldn't hurt.

So Sara Palin is now being interviewed in her kitchen while she whips together a chicken salad or a side of moose or whatever it is she cooks. Ooooo, she can wash her hands and talk about energy options at the same time. One clip shows her counting off on her fingers "coal, natural gas, oil..." don't get these mixed up with the eggs and milk. Wouldn't it be funny if she left the refrigerator door open at the same time? That tends to happen when you're in the middle of a culinary masterpiece and you need an onion...and then maybe some cheese...hang on, anything else? Um, no, okay I'll close the door. If her door isn't open during the interviews then I think that proves she really isn't preparing any food item.

I caught a commercial last night on the Blue Pages of the phone book as a place to find legal help. The commercial listed off some situations where you may need legal help. The screen graphic showed "BUI" but the announcer said "Boating while intoxicated" and I thought perhaps the waffles had interfered with my hearing. That wasn't the case though as the next graphic was "SUI" and the announcer said "Sledding while intoxicated." Are we replacing u's with w's? I think there may have been some editing while intoxicated during production.

I have a kind-of-sports question. Let's say that there are four people competing and at the end, there's a first place, a second place and then the last two people tie. Do they tie for 3rd or 4th place? When I was in high school, I tied another girl on vault (I mean that we both received the same score for our performance on vault) and I thought it was going to be 4th place but the judges said we were tied for 5th and then skipped over a 4th place and went on to 3rd place. On Dancing With The Stars, there were 5 couples left with two of them tying and the score board said they were tied for fourth, why weren't they tied for 5th? Just because it's a reality show, I don't think they should be able to just change the rules of tie-dom.

You know what added insult to injury? Not only was there not a type of element associated with my 5th/4th tie, there was only one medal so we flipped and the other girl won. Then my coach bought me a medal so I'd have one too and had it engraved with 6th place!!! I covered it with a piece of masking tape and wrote "5th" over the "6th". I could have written"4th" but I figured the rules of tie-dom were finite and unyielding.

My Nails are Hot Pink

This just in, Queen Elizabeth II is upset at a specially chosen composer (can't remember his name) for his choice in music for Prince Charles' 60th birthday. That man is never going to be king. He's already 60 for crying out loud. I wonder if there's any family tension there. What ever happened to the good old royal intrigue and killings? Has the increase in real-time media coverage put a stop to it? Maybe that and crime labs. Bummer.

I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything, but I finished some christmas shopping this weekend. Actually, all of it. I know that I've already said that no one is getting anything, but timing is everything. See, because I'm paid bi-weekly, I get 26 paychecks in a year which means that 2 of them end up being "extra" paychecks. The usual monthly paychecks go towards mortgage (the first one of the month) and bills (the last one). Twice a year, I get an extra one that falls in between the two usuals. One of those times of the year is this month. It also happens to correspond to me finding some nice gift boxes at Penzy's Spices and then having a flash of creativity and finding other cheap stuff that'll make great gifts. So....I'm done.

In case you are now mad at me for having one of the biggest holiday pains in the ass completed, this next news bit will make you feel better. My vacuum broke. The wiring on the cord finally split and there's no hope because I'm not an electrician and because a cheap Dirt Devil is not worth finding an electrician for. My hand vac also broke. I need to correct that - my hand vac never worked so it' still broken. On Sunday when I tried to vacuum up all of the floating hair balls (both The Cat's and mine), I became enraged at the breakage and threw them both out the back door. That feels really good by the way. If you have an opportunity to do so, throw things out of your back door.

I took the lovely Miss Leslie Kennedy's Turkish dance workshop over the weekend and it was loads of fun. Not so much fun for the calves with all the hopping, but the floor work was great. I'm now into floor work. There's lots of fun, creative things to do on the floor. *snicker* The only thing about practicing floor stuff is that The Cat has to get in there every time. What is it about cats and their tails? They think their tails are the best thing to ever hit this earth. Have you noticed that? If you get your face down to within a foot of the floor, they'll run over and swish their tail in your face "Hey, while you're down here, look at my tail!"

Well, on to getting some work done. Bye.

Alright, if you say so...

Boy, I hope the majority of Americans are right. I really do. I've been witnessing massive outbreaks of joy and happiness around me along with the "status updates" indicating so but I can't seem to share that feeling. I remember it though. I felt like that the first time I could vote in 1992 when I voted for Clinton and was uber excited for all of this "change". Since then, it's been 16 years of presidential disappointment. Within those 16 years, I've also experienced disappointment with us regular Joe's too.

I think I put too much faith in others. I build them up too much so that when they lie or deceive, I take it really hard. Failure is fine, people fail all the time which doesn't mean they're inherently bad, it just means that their actions aren't working out. Lying is different. Lying is an intention to deceive, it's betrayal, it's a very bad thing to do to someone. I try not to believe in things or people anymore, I think it's more realistic to look mainly at the facts and form your opinions from there. If you believe in someone and they end up doing the exact opposite of what they told you they would do and worse yet, purposely deceive you, it can be pretty painful. You wouldn't have to go through that pain if you didn't believe in them in the first place.

Obama has made the claim that he will always be honest about the challenges we face and that if I don't currently support him, he'll try to earn my support. Great, I hope you do. Now that you've said you'll be honest, you damn well better be. One thing I was glad to see is that he didn't mention anything about Joe the fucking Plumber.

Here's What I Think...

I refuse to contribute to the barrage of election result commentary that will attack us for the next several days if not months. Instead, I'll just say that reviewing the actual results is fascinating to me because it's the only time I can gauge what the rest of the country is feeling. I think it's as accurate as we can get. Polls and surveys don't really do it, actual votes do. So I will study the results on a webpage to eliminate the human voices telling me what to make of them, and then use those results to form opinions of the rest of you.

One thing that should be done immediately is to pass a mandatory opening hour law for all coffee houses to be open no later than 6:30am. Waiting until 7:00 is just ridiculous.

I have to go look at a bunch of red and blue bar graphs now.

Where'd The Time Go?

It's November 4th...do you know what that means? It's already four days into NaNoWriMo and I haven't even started yet!!! How did this happen??!! I remember sitting last week just waiting for it to be November so I could start and now I've let four days go by with no activity! This means I have 40,000 words to catch up on today or if I wait for the weekend, that'll be 80,000. I'm very disappointed in myself. Oh, and I get to vote today.



I can't recall any election in the past that I've been so glad to see finally get here. Not because it's supposedly "earth-shattering" because all of them are, but because the ads will finally end. Maybe the news will start reporting on things like the Joint Economic Committee hearings or the crop estimates or the traffic, fuck, anything! Anything! Please, report on anything else! In spite of this little rant, I still do get excited about voting. I'm damn glad I get to do it.



Let's move on to Facebook. Here's an interesting thing that I find is bothering me. People I graduated from high school with are contacting me now. As you may know, when you want to look at someone's profile you usually need to make a request that they add you as a friend. So you add the person as a friend which only means that you give them permission to view your page. Does Facebook have to use the term "friend" for this? Let's make it a little more accurate and call them "authorized personnel" or something a little more cold and unfeeling. That way, when you really want to deny their request because they didn't keep in touch with you starting the hour after the graduation commencement and they barely made you feel like a friend during the high school experience, it won't seem like a personal attack; or if they rebuked your advances or you're still waiting for an answer to the "will you go to the dance with me" question, you won't seem like someone who's harboring past resentment. If I just removed the part of my page where I list my high school and graduation year, I wouldn't have to contemplate things like this.

I have two interviews this week. They came up rather quickly. I've been half-heartedly applying to other positions around the U thinking that a change may be good but I haven't heard back from any of them...until now and then I get two in one week. Our own little micro-market is very tight. People are jumping ship everywhere mostly because of the new financial system and people's reactions to it. How you deal with stress tends to show your real colors. People suddenly discover that they don't want to work with the people they're working with and that any other place would be better than where they currently are. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about my current work situation but I better make a decision about it quickly. I hate wasting people's time. A half-hearted interview is a waste of time.

Speaking of work....

"tis the season for goddamn holidays

One holiday weekend down, only three more to go before we can get back to planning for summer.

I was in costume the whole frickin' day on Friday from 6:00am until 9:30pm and I've never wanted to get make-up off of my face so badly. I was disappointed that barely anyone at the U had dressed up. I love dressing up as Miss Conception (the pregnant beauty queen from hell) because people have such a great initial reaction to it but trying to type with satin gloves on and work with a Barbie tiara digging into your head is difficult. I also had about three meetings to go to that day so I was walking across campus several times. I then also went out for lunch because while I remembered to walk out of the house with everything I needed for my night costume, I forgot to take my lunch. I wasn't ever nervous or self-conscious about being practically the only one in costume walking across campus, but it is difficult sometimes to keep a straight face when you see someone walking towards you who is slowly realizing what your costume is.

After work, I rushed out to St. Louis Park to join my friend's little production that she likes to put on for kiddies in the neighborhood. We haven't done that in a while because Halloween falling during the week is a pain in the ass. I did the quick-change from pregnant mess to somewhat put-together Elvira look-alike. Yes this was appropriate for kids because cleavage did NOT make an appearance that night and I don't have a southern accent. By 9:00pm I was pooped and my feet were killing me to the point where I was actually getting shooting pains through my feet when I would step in a certain way.

Saturday morning I woke up feeling like crap and figured I had spent a little too much time outside in a backless dress. Even though it was warm for October, it wasn't warm for a backless dress and I was chilled the rest of the day. Even though it was nice out, wait, was it nice out? I can't remember. Anyway, I repainted my bathroom and did all the other stuff you have to do when you repaint the bathroom which always includes caulking. I'm getting really good at this. It helps when you use the correct type. See, there's outdoor caulk and there's indoor caulk. If you use outdoor caulk on your bathtub, it'll crack. Just a little hint.

I made three trips out to Ridgedale to get liquid eyeliner (long story) and practice has now commenced. Painting black liquid lines on your eyelids is definitely something that requires practice. I'm not bad considering that I don't have the correct brush. It'll get better. Until then, my coworkers are going to have to put up with me possibly looking pretty frightening some days.

A recap of TV viewing: campaign ads, smearing campaign ads, another campaign ad; American Bellydancer which is a documentary of the "best" bellydancers on tour with Miles Copeland who seems to be the perfect example of the money-grubbing music exec trying to categorize or quantify middle eastern dancers as the best or not the best strictly on whether he likes to look at them or not; Caligula with Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud and I got it because Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud were in it and I figured "how could it be bad?" well, it's...it's...um...holy crist you can get this thing on Netflix?!!; and finally, D.L. Hughley's show had one good episode, the first one, and now it sucks. It sucks so bad that it could suck a watermelon through a garden hose, that's right, the show could suck a watermelon through a garden hose. This show is horrible. Who did this to him? Who's responsible?

Time to make the donuts.