I don't really feel like recounting my entire trip to AZ.... maybe in bits and pieces but one long thing just seems tiring. Maybe I'll be novel and actually just tell people when I hang out with them and ask. But, in summary: good times. Two especially nice things were 1) getting to know Brooke, Ryan's wife. I'd met her before and liked her, but never really talked in depth. I'm glad to know she enjoys my poo stories. Even to the point of requesting I tell them again to other people she knows.

2) Mike, who is Ryan's friend, and I've technically known even longer than Ryan, used to be an OK guy but has turned into a dick the last few years. Somehow, he's magically turned into a good guy! I hear the two reasons are 1) moving out of his friend's garage into a nicer place and 2) the biggest reason seems to be his new girlfriend. If this is true, this woman is a saint and I request that she immediately marry him. I mean, I did meet her, and she seems nice, but she must have some sort of "guy whisperer" skill.

Someday I'll have some pictures up and all that.

The other new thing is obv. the rabbit. I think he is going to be 007. He likes to run around the kitchen like mad, and then like freeze when he hears a noise that startles him. It's pretty funny. It does make him seem like he's performing an elaborate secret mission he doesn't want me to know about. Well, other than the mission I do know about, wanting to get onto the carpet to soil it and chewing all the most inappropriate objects (Screaming INAPPROPRIATE! at him in a British accent doesn't seem to stop it).

He is adorable despite being smelly (he himself isn't smelly but is basically a cute hoppy waste machine). I've sort of given up potty training for now... the site I was going by says you watch them like a hawk and make them go to the litter box when they're about to pee or poop, but I've stared at that rabbit's butt for hours at a time and still can't tell if he's pooping or not. I've literally said, "are you pooping?" to him enough times that he probably thinks it's his name. I figure I'll start again later when I'm more likely to have developed rabbit pooping senses and/or when he's older, cause I read young ones are a little harder to train.

I don't know what's in his pea brain re: chewing things though. I mean I know he has to chew things and that he's hardwired to do it. But I got him a bunch of toys and chew blocks and stuff, he's not that excited about it. But if it is plastic and could hurt him, he's all over that. Plus he seems to like chewing on my kitchen table and chairs. Which doesn't peeve me that much because I didn't want them in the first place and they were free, but I don't want him to make a habit of chewing on my furniture, and I definitely don't want him to target my cabinets next.

I got my rabbit today! He seems a little frightened of my picking him up, and I have a lot of work to do with regards to potty training, but all in all, a positive experience. And if you think MY poop stories are gross, try a rabbit poop story on for size:

Rabbits produce two kinds of poop. One kind are called cecotropes, which the rabbits must eat again because they have a bacteria that rabbits need. This is according to my poop of the day calendar, which says this happens in the middle of the night so humans rarely witness it.

So I saw my rabbit licking himself this afternoon, and I think he's trying to clean some glands down there or his genitals, but then he takes his mouth away and starts chewing. Yes, he eats the poop directly from his own butt.

Talk about a pet with similar interests to mine! I mean... ewww, gross!

I'm home safe and sound, yay! More details soon!

Hey, losers! I'll be in AZ until the 20th.... hope ya miss me!

I probably won't be coming back.... Ryan and Brooke are taking me to a cabin in the woods. Ryan is the guy who carries around a signed note from me in his wallet that says he can do whatever he wants with my corpse when I'm dead.

Oh well, at least I'll be buried surrounded by the things I love - dead babies and burnt hookers!

So my car's radiator cracked on Saturday. My dad was surprised, he thought a radiator pretty much lasted forever. The repair guy pointed out that we did get 15 years out of this one.

My dad said he didn't know how much it would cost to repair it, and my car is pretty old, so I might have to get rid of it. Happily, though, the repair cost about $300 and my car's still worth about $3,000, so I get to keep the old girl. I'm really glad, I'm freakishly attached to my car.

The funny bit is I was telling Josh how great Toyotas are and how my car is so awesome and it's lasted forever with only minor repairs.... right when it started smoking and I had to pull over somewhere. Then we had to walk home. Good news is... we were really close to home. Esp. since we were returning from Meijer where he had bought some frozen food items.

Aside from the unscheduled car difficulties, we had a good time. We played Skee ball and air hockey at Wehrenberg and ate fruit salad (I liked the fruit salad Deanna made for Julie's bachelorette party so much that I tried making my own and it was a success) and chicken strips and went to BBB where I bought a pet carrier and to Borders where I got a hand crafted soda.

Today I took my dad out to lunch to sort of thank him for letting me borrow his car while mine was busted and paying for the repair. I should actually do that more often.... he ALWAYS pays when we go out.

I think tomorrow we're going to see the new Star Trek. Woo!

In which I whine about minor things

I am sore.... Somewhat from the hike, a lot from the badminton. I had no idea badminton was so intense. It never hurt in PE back in the day. I'm finally an old lady.

Both were worth it though.

What was not worth it, however, was pinching the hell out of my finger on a toastmasters collapsible podium tonight. That was mainly stupidity on my part, I had a more minor pinching on another finger not that long before, you'd think it would teach me to be more careful.

That is all.

Today: pretty awesome. We had a work meeting and they let us take it to a park. The weather was beautiful, we got to eat good food, have fun playing badminton, and get paid for all of it. I especially liked the badminton, I haven't played it in years! I'm bad at it, but everyone else was too, and we all had a good time. It's amazing how fast you can bond with people you normally don't think you have much in common with once you get playing a sport or game or something. Pretty sweet.

So yes, yesterday was hiking and it was fun!

So we kidnapped Julie, and I decided to feed her crazy misinformation. This included everything from hamster strippers to killing her and putting her in a shallow grave so that I could dig her back up whenever I wanted to have sex with her.

We passed a cop at one point, and we were like, "Man.... it's a good thing Julie knows we're joking about all this."

We (briefly) got semi-lost in a small town named Tonica. They were having a town-wide garage sale and we told Julie that all we had planned was the garage sale (she sort of knew we were lost though and didn't mean it). But like I said, we found our way back quickly.

The weather, though we had worried it would be bad, was absolutely beautiful. We grilled, which went off without a hitch. There was lots of tasty food! Julie and I (the ones with the picky digestive systems) were kind of worried that it would give us the poops (for me in particular eating + walking is an almost guaranteed poop... when I was thinking of this principle I got a terrible flashback to an IKEA trip that was marred by constant searches to get back to the toilet). But it agreed with both of us. We also gave her crazy joke gifts, and good real gifts.

Then we of course hiked. I have more photos of waterfalls than you can shake a stick at now, and it's pretty sweet.

Like I said: a really good day.

I had a good day.

I'm excited, I'm going hiking tomorrow! In the words of State Farm:

"I had too much lemonade at the picnic" meets "I've always wanted to pee over the edge of a canyon....." Yeah, I'm there!

Outdoor fuckin' starts today.

I had a dream last night that Lothar, Corey from work, and I were on a hockey team. In a league exclusively for circus employees. I am not kidding... The sad thing is, it was actually a somewhat boring dream.

Almost late for work today... fucked up my alarm.

Had lady troubles.

Got my first voice insult at work in a long time, some asshole woman thought I had hung up (we generally just hit mute and let the caller hang up unless they forget to hang up for a long time) and was like, "God that woman's voice is annoying," and proceeded to do an extremely unflattering imitation of me. I tried to come back on the line and be like, "Is there anything else I can help you with?" which has shamed people in the past, but I think she'd set down the phone and couldn't even hear me.

Jesus christ, people. You are jerks. Except for the people who read the blog, you're my loved ones. So probably no jerks read this so I don't know. People need to stop being assholes to strangers though. For real.

So all in all, not my finest hour.

So today at work Sally made some cat ears to put on her headphones (the ones we have to wear to take calls). It was awesome and I got her to make some to put on mine too. I kept singing, "Cat, I'm a kitty cat! And I dance dance dance, and I dance dance dance." I wanted to say my favorite line, "I say sexy things to myself while I'm daaaaaaaancin," but I was afraid I'd get the looks I got a few days ago when I was shaking my desk to put ripples in my mug of tea and told everyone I was trying to recreate a scene from Jurassic Park. Good times.

The day didn't start out so awesome, though. Woken up at 8 with a call about a pending auto claim. In Phoemeister time, that's like 6. Basically if I didn't call them back (yeah, I didn't answer) by the end of the day they'd just go ahead and pay the other dude. Which is what I wanted them to do so I don't know why they had to call me about it. Esp. since my Dad's the one with his name on the insurance, not me. But I guess I could've disputed that the accident hadn't happened or something. Not sure how, since I struck the dude's parked car on multiple occasions, so I'm 90% sure I DID make the tiny scratch that somehow took $350 bucks to fix ($8 worth of materials, the rest is padding put in by the repair shop, I'm not exaggerating, I saw the estimate). What I really wish is that I could've given the dude $50 to do it himself, but he insisted on going through insurance and I'm not sure if all repair shops are just insanely expensive no matter what or if he picked the most expensive shop he could find just to spite me.

Then, even though I couldn't fall back asleep, I laid down for awhile.... and got a huge headache from the motherfucking loudest mower on earth... I mean, I live on a street full of apartment/condo complexes, and they all have some loud-ass huge industrial mower to mow their one little strip of lawn, but this guy seemed louder than usual and seemed to take forever.

Then... uh, I looked and I actually blogged the other stuff about my day already. True story.

Had the bridal shower a couple days ago, still have to upload picture. I also got video of Julie opening her gift from me, and she looks sufficiently pleased! Did some preps for the bachelorette par-tay, which should even more sufficiently please her. We also played some battlestar galactica at Lothar's house. I have to say: not as turned on by it as most of them. Maybe if you are a bad dude it's fun, but as a good guy most of your time is spent donating cards to make "checks." IE everyone tosses cards into a pot so that something bad doesn't happen. Then... when the bad things come out everyone dies anyway because things are ludicrously unbalanced.

But, I like making my character make out with other characters and judging the relative hotness of whatever character I'm playing.

Not been doing much else.... really mean to clean but am not (SHOCKING, hearing this from ME!). I guess today is good, Josh emailed me finally after I accidently pissed him off last week. And I talked to Tina for awhile, until my battery died (despite being hooked to the charger while I was talking). She's also started twittering, and through her I found links to Brent Spiner & Nathan Fillion's twitters. I already liked them, but I find Nathan Filion even more awesome now that he makes fart jokes on the internet. Spiner is odd but funny, so pretty much how you would expect, too.

Bleh, kind of in a mood tonight. Sort of irritated at some people in toastmasters (not a big deal it'll blow over). I also had a migraine bad enough that I was kind of dizzy and feverish (usually the only symptom I have is the pain).



There were really bad vibes going around at work yesterday.... none of us sniped at each other, but all the people I sit with were mad about one thing or another. Sally was mad at her son, Connie was more than usually angry/upset about customers, and Todd is still butthurt about being kicked off this one committee for no reason awhile ago. I myself was sort of irritated about a continuing project at work that I'm not going into again. Dunno if it's the shitty weather or what.

One nice thing about work is we got to decorate these cardboard eggs for easter. It's lame when you think about it, and a waste of the company's time (they've already let us know they're not going to hire enough people for hurricane season so you'd think they'd be more responsible with money) but I do really enjoy these little seasonal art projects. Ours probably won't be voted "the best" but I think it is anyway. There were a few you could tell people put more money into, but ours looked the most professional, coordinated, and not thrown together as a whim.

We were orig. told it was supposed to resemble our supervisor (though most ended up not looking like a supervisor). I wanted to draw her really ugly and posing sort of as a witch and saying something like, "I'm mean!" in a speech bubble as a joke (I do like her and don't think she's mean at all and she knows it). But I didn't really say this idea because I know if we did it other management might not've taken it too kindly. My other idea was to make something completely BIZARRE like making the egg as the torso of a unicorn with her face stuck on it. But there were other people involved and they didn't want to be weird, which I completely understand. The nice thing, however, was it is still a little weird.... we made the egg into a guy wearing one of our call center headsets, wearing a bunny ears headband, wearing a pink/pastel argyle sweater, with a frenchman's mustache and a bad toupee. I love it.

This weekend I hung with Josh and had a great time. He hates the picture I have of him posted on this blog as eating a carcassonne tile but did not say I had to take it down. I think it looks adorable. And of course we played more Carcassonne... I got one city worth 160+ points. I also got a video of him (well, audio of him, he refused to actually be in the frame) discussing what he hates about various X men characters and goofily singing the X-men (Extra Men according to him) cartoon theme song. But I won't post it, because he hates his voice. I always am amazed when other people (a lot of other people) tell me they hate their voice (I get that it sounds different than when you hear it in your head but still) because they have to know they're saying it to someone who has a way more annoying voice. Seriously: even if you don't personally hate my voice, I have a TON of customers who've told me how much they hate my voice and none of my other coworkers do. So be grateful, motherfuckers!

We played some other games and ate some nice food, too. And we talked a lot which I (obviously) like.

Last Weds my dad and I had stuff done to my car, this regular care is why the Camry holds up so well, I think. That and it has a pretty low mileage for how old it is and Toyota seem to be built well. But car care is important. You put so much money into something like that, spending a few extra bucks is definitely worth it to make it last. Though, I don't know that we had to pay or anything per visit, I think my dad has some walmart tire care package that he bought some time ago that this goes on. I guess it is a pretty sweet package though, I basically got a new tire for free when those jackasses downstairs slashed mine. We hung out and played cribbage, and he wiped the floor with me.

Also last week, not sure when, I finally got some silverware! I needed it badly, I guess I've been accidently throwing away some of it over time or something. And the best part is, I got it for free because I returned this appliance that I didn't want. My dad gave it to me because my mom got it shortly before she got sick and he knows I cook more than him. He's kind of obsessed with getting rid of a lot of her things without letting them be thrown away or go to waste. So I was kind of happy I was able to get rid of it finally but still "get use" out of it way more than I would've even had I kept it.

Last Saturday, I forgot to mention, we did Easter things. It was pretty good, in some ways: the Phew was behaved (for once), the Phew actually enjoyed an activity I put work into preparing for him (for once), decent waffle at IHOP, etc. IHOP did sort of suck though, Phew 2 cried the whole time. I don't know why they take him to restaurants because he obviously hates them. Also I resent things that require me to get up early, and my sister full well knows this but yet still arranged it so I'd have to get up early. But all in all I'd count it as a win, I liked helping the Phew color eggs and running around playing with bubbles with him.

I can't remember what all else I've done since I posted last.... I don't know why I've had blogging dryspells then long recap floods lately.

So I feel like a dick complaining about a blind guy, but here I am, complaining about a blind guy, so I guess I'm a dick. Anyway the blind dude who occasionally used to get a ride home from me comes up to me, and I know he's going to ask for a ride. I get ready to tell him I'm busy tonight. And then he says that the friend he usually has drive him home is going to be off doing something for three months and basically wants me to do it. Even though I think he's a douchebag for other reasons, he did at least ask in a nice way. So I told him it is kind of out of the way for me (i.e. it adds an hour to my journey home cause I gotta wait 15 minutes cause we don't get off at the same time, and then he lives the exact opposite side of town both work and I are located) and maybe I'd do it sometimes but I don't want to do it regularly because I am sometimes busy after work. I wish I had the balls to just say, "No, never again, I used to do it once in awhile because I thought you were nice, but now I know you're a dick." Whatever.

In happier news, I am trying to decide what my bunny's name should be. Technically, he already has a name, "Squiggy," that the people who are selling him to me gave him, but if I buy a baby bunny I feel like I can rename him. Here are some names I can't decide between, but I think they're awesome.

--Spinkl (it's actually from a vanity plate I saw once. I just like saying it!)
--Pony (obvious reasons there)
--Gipper (he's a dutch bunny, dutch=reagan=the gipper)
--007 (dutch bunnies kind of look like they're wearing tuxedos)

I had even more but forgot some. I'll add them if I remember.

Also, if I had two rabbits, I'd get one white one named "ice" and a black one named "hammer." Because I'm like that.

Today: pretty good. I did have to go into work for an hour (meeting) on my day off, but it wasn't bad and they let me take an hour off some other time.

I am happy to announce the completion of project I've been working on (no picture, it's a gift I don't want to ruin the surprise).

I am happy to say I took the plunge and decided on a bunny. It sounds like the place I was looking at is great, they take time to acclimate the bunnies to human, so they're calm and used to humans when you get them. Plus, I'm getting a dutch breed. They are so totally the winner in terms of personality as far as I can tell from what I read. Mellow but friendly are their three middle names. The only thing they lose on is lifespan... but I'd rather have a short lived awesome bunny than a dastardly methusalah. So I'm going to have some potty training and house proofing but I can live with that.

Anyway, the one on the left is mine! I won't get him until May because he needs to stay with his mommy until then.



Today I also hung out with my dad, who bought me an outfit for Easter, and I gave him cookies I had made for him.

Yesterday, had my bridesmaid's dress fitting. Not much to say about that other than that it's at least done.

I'm pretty sure I did something Monday, but can't remember it whatsoever.

Over the weekend I hung out with Josh and we did some awesome carcassoning.

I had a crazy dream last night that I ruined Julie's life. I told her about it and she found it hilarious as I did (once I calmed down and realized it was a dream). She said she'd thought she was the only one having crazy wedding dreams.

Anyway, my dream was that for whatever reason, Julie's whole extended family had a pre-wedding retreat of some kind, for like family and the bridesmaids and Lothar. The whole time, Julie's mom was acting crazy controlling. I mean, her mom is kind of controlling in real life but in the dream she was seriously acting like Julie was too stupid to do anything by herself. She wouldn't even let Julie go outside without supervision.

Well, Julie's mom was really, really making me mad. So I just started to be a huge dick to her. No matter what she said, even when she was being nice or reasonable I argued with her, and cursed at her a bunch. I think I actually had to pee while I was having the dream, because I kept having to go. And in the dream, her mom would not let anyone be alone in the bathroom and it was driving me nuts, so finally I whizzed on the lawn. One of Julie's cousins caught me doing it. In the dream, her cousin was Denis Leary. And not like how you have a dream and a celebrity fills in for the person, he was actually Denis Leary and acted how Denis Leary would react upon finding out you peed on his aunt's lawn. Her other famous cousin: Tracy Morgan. He acted, as you would expect, extremely stupid the entire time.

Anyway, Julie's mom finally gets so angry that she says if I am the type of friend Julie picks out, she can't pick anyone out so she calls off the wedding and locks Julie up somewhere. I come in and Lothar and a few other people are bawling their eyes out and am like, "Why?" and they explain it to me. I feel so bad that I wake up. For a second I'm really upset, then I remember it's a dream, and then it's hilarious.

So awhile ago I decided I'm in the market for a pet. I'm kind of tired of living alone, none of the people I've offered a room to want to live with me, and I don't want to try a stranger. So: pet.

--I want a mammal. I think turtles and frogs are crazy cute but I want something I can pet.

--My first instinct: dog. I grew up with dogs and like dogs. But... we can't have dogs in the building because they make too much noise. And to be honest, I'm pretty lazy for a dog. I would need to have a fenced in yard before I could even consider having a dog because I'm too lazy to take one out all the time.

--Second instinct: hamster. Again, had a couple growing up. I love hamsters. They are crazy cute and if you're good at it (like I am) you can get them to fall asleep on you and you have a little buddy to cuddle with while you're reading a book or watching TV. And they're cheap and I still have a cage at my Dad's house I could get. But... they die really, really easily. 4 years is if your hamster is Methuselah, and I had one die in less than a year. Also an animal you have to keep in a cage is still like living alone, they never come to the door to greet you or anything. And if the hamster doesn't like you or is a dick it'll hide in a tube so that you can't get it out half the time.

So I've not really gotten an animal (I'll discuss the 3rd obvious option in a second).

Anyway, this weekend I was at a friend of a friend's house for the first time and they had a bunny rabbit. I fell in love. You can apparently train them to use the litter box like a cat and give them the run of the house (as long as you protect your electrical cords from them chewing on them first). The bunny was so cute, and way mellower than most dogs and cats I've met, but still friendly and coming over to be petted.

Now, I'm not going to run out and get a rabbit right now anyway. I am visiting my friend Ryan in Arizona in May and I also have a wedding I'm part of in May, so I think I should hold off till then. But I've been mentioning to people I'm thinking of getting a bunny. The weird thing is people immediately tell me to get a cat instead, at least two people even offered me free cats. Are bunnies actually lame and the one I met just the one good one?

Anyway, I have great memories of my neighbor's cat when I was growing up, she'd always come over and rub against my legs and let me pet her when I was outside waiting for the bus. I like the cat at Waiting Room records who will come over to get petted. If I could get a cat like that I'd do it. But... Josh's roommate has a crazy cat that constantly attacks people and breaks things. Rebecca's old roommate had a herd of cats that constantly peed on everything in the entire house. Pat & Deanna have a cat that is fun to play with but apparently tries to bite or run away if you want to pet it or cuddle. And I've known countless other cats I would describe as "snooty" that don't seem to like me or want to do anything at all with me. So it seems like the odds are low on getting a friendly cat and I hate Josh's roommate's cat so much it's taken away my urge to even gamble on a cat at all.

I don't know. I guess it's probably good I have the time period before the trip where I can think it over. I wish I could just steal the bunny I met this weekend or the cat from Waiting Room. But I hear it's illegal.

So I talked to Tina today. Here's one of the more memorable bits (I'm not going to tell you how we got to this point to begin with):

Tina: My friend Jason said anyone would lick someone's buttcrack for money if they were poor enough, but told him he was crazy. I'd live in the woods and eat squirrels and stuff before I licked a buttcrack. He said he'd still lick crack though because he likes his electronics.

Me: I don't know if I'm just lazier than you guys or whatever, but if I were that poor I would just go on welfare.

I really do think that would be the best solution, what else are my taxes for anyway? But I do think I subconsciously lifted the idea off of the Always Sunny episode where they go on unemployment, and when that runs out, they try to get on welfare. On the negative side, they had to get hooked on crack (the drug, not butts like Tina's friend Jason) to qualify for welfare, but on the positive side, the rest of the time they get to sit around on steps and drunkenly sing Biz Markie songs.

Annoying things:

--Today I called my eye doctor to pay for my contacts. It took 10 minutes and a transfer to 3 different depts. And then it was like $200 even after my insurance. Considering I thought this was going to be more like $30....

--A weekly project I enjoy doing at work might be taken away from me due to other people's arbitrary new rules and the incompetence of people who do the step before I do.

--Everyone's moving away again, it seems. Deanna & Pat might be moving (which I knew, as she has mentioned it on her blog) and apparently Julie & Lothar might be moving to GA, which I had no idea. I feel like kind of a dick, I haven't been keeping in touch with Julie a ton lately because I sleep all day due to the Paxil and she is obviously busy with wedding stuff, but I feel like I should know something big like that. I mean, I knew Lothar had to find a new job but I didn't know they were likely moving almost as far away as possible in this country, or even out of this town. I'm glad that she's selected me as a bridesmaid, and I'm working on a bitchin' wedding or bridal shower or bachelorette party gift for her right now that I know she'll love, but on the other hand I have to wonder why she picked me. I was the last to know she was dating him, the last to know she got engaged, and now the last to know that she's moving.

--Julia Roberts' face is wrong. Like, it's always been a weird looking face, but I have to wonder if she got really bad plastic surgery or something. My dad and I watched Duplicity today (medium goodness) and it's like she no longer has the vertical groove on her upper lip (called the philtrum click here for a disturbing illustration of a baby where the philtrum is pointed out) is gone, so her upper lip looks like an upside down lower lip. It's disturbing. I've heard fetal alcohol syndrome (her face IS freakishly flat too) can cause that, so maybe her mom drank when she was pregnant.

Good things:

--I hung out with a lady from work yesterday. Well a lady married to a dude I work with. I know her from our toastmaster meetings. I really like her, we sit together at most of the meetings. She's wheelchair/crutch bound and doesn't get out much, I guess, and suffers from depression like I do. Her and I were talking about hanging out sometime, but I never got around to it because I kept sleeping too much. Anyway, I finally managed to wake up early enough to do it and it was a good time. We played some card games I brought over (Monopoly Deal, Lost Cities). I find them interesting enough to hold my attention but yet simple enough that they're easy to explain (my parents are about her age and couldn't understand/didn't like Fluxx at all so I was afraid it would be hard to explain something complicated to her. I kind of wanted to bring Caesar & Cleopatra too, but it has cards mentioning "orgy," and she's pretty devout Christian). So we played for awhile and talked for awhile and it was good. She told me about a speech she was going to give at toastmasters that night and she didn't think she speaks very well, and I told her she was wrong. Then she was very awesome and won best speaker! It was good.

--I hung out with my dad today. I got some strawberries the other day (dunno if they still are, but they were on sale three containers for $5.00) and my dad loves strawberries, so I brought him some. We also had some frozen pizza, and saw the aforementioned movie.

--this is due to arrive at my house on Fri, Josh and I went halfsies on it. We like Carcassone: The Castle which is sort of a smaller two player version and we decided if we were going to get the real thing it would be cheaper to get everything at once. I can't wait! I mean, I hear a couple of the expansions are lame, but the game plus the two definitely good expansions actually cost more than all this in one.

--I talked to Josh today! He saw asian hipster lesbians at a white trash pizza buffet! I told him I can never eat alone at a restaurant because of the one time I tried it at Pizza Hut and the servers reacted surprised, then pitying when hearing I was eating alone and then saw a guy I had a crush on on the way out who did the same.

The interview was weird and intense... he asked a lot of questions regular interviewers don't, like how I've done in previous interviews and how I liked working in TV back in the day (it's on my resume). But I think I did pretty well, I've done like a thousand mock interviews lately so I'm a lot more confident in there. My old supervisor was a help with development, but this new one is definitely a lot more hands-on and involved, which I like.

This weekend I'll get to hang out with Josh, which is the first time in awhile. He's been going through a rough patch and likes to be alone in those situations.

Not much else going on this week... I've been sleeping all day again. Which certainly has not helped with the cleaning up of this place. But I shall soldier on.

Pills have been helping, so yay on that count.

Today sort of sucked, I had a lot of pooping issues all day. I hung out with some work people and had fun, but I had to cut it short because I was still not feeling good.

In other news, I have an interview on Mon. I don't even know if I want the job that badly, but I've prepared enough I would be annoyed not to get it at this point.

Couldn't go to work today, I was still crying and panicking pretty bad. And had my second weird bought of hypoglycemia in awhile. Anyway, I think I should be alright tomorrow.

If there was any doubt that I needed antidepressants, the last couple of weeks has certainly erased it. Everything I've been able to distance myself from the last few months because of them came pouring back. Which begs the question: will I ever be better? Will I always need a drug to feel alright. Will I always be the same loser locked up in a house full of garbage crying all day on my day off? Will that person always be lurking under the pleasant facade of antidepressants just waiting to get out? And what's more, is that person the real me and everything else I do from now on just a lie?

At any rate: yeah, couldn't stop crying all day. Awesome.

Good: My wiring's fine

Bad: I was an idiot not to know that in the first place.

Good: think my ipod might be working again? It froze and wouldn't even turn off, so I waited until the battery was dead and am charging it. It seems to work...

Bad: wiring still fucked up. But of course I haven't tried to fix it, I thought I'd wait until I'm on drugs again so it's less stressful

Good: I get my drugs tomorrow

Bad: Annoying situation with a dude at work. Dude is legally blind, and so can't drive himself home. I have occasionally in the past, and more and more frequently, given him a ride home, the bus doesn't run at night. It's somewhat of an inconvenience because he gets off later than I do and lives on the complete opposite side of town from me. All in all, it takes 45 minutes. But I do it anyway cause he can't help being blind.

Well, he's friends with a friend I have at work, and recently he's been a dick to her and it makes me mad. I don't really want to go out of my way to do a favor for a bastard. But I don't want him to be even more of a dick to her because he thinks she's badmouthing him to people. She's not badmouthing him, in fact I think I hate him more than she does at this point. I'm not going to go into the long backstory of why they fought and why he's a dick and she's not but this is my assessment.

Anyway today I did go ahead and drive him home, but another friend said I could just lie and say I have plans after work next time he asks, which I probably will do. It's just annoying to be in the middle of something like that (which, technically I'm not in the middle, my friend is actually so nice she thought it would be mean of me to stop giving him rides, but it's annoying to do favors for someone I now think is a jerk).

Good: Josh doesn't hate me and didn't actually mean it as a threat.

Bad: half the wiring in my house and my brand new Ipod I haven't even dropped yet are fucked up.

So, my story starts a couple months ago, when I spilled a bunch of my antidepressants in the toilet. I tried to skip one now and again to make up for it, but the end of my prescription is Weds and I have been trying to stretch the few I have longer by skipping some in between, but I basically have been off Paxil a week, which sucks.

What made it even worse is I had a friend, the only close friend I have anymore, threaten to end our entire friendship over one voicemail I left him complaining that he wanted to ditch me to drink alone that day, and asking him if he is mad at me. Apparently he wasn't, but is now.

After a few hours of crying I ended up going to my Dad's house so I didn't have to be alone with my thoughts anymore. It's nice to have one person in your life that's always glad to see you, and I wonder morbidly often when he's going to die and I won't ever have unconditional love ever again. I guess in the way of relatives I have my sister, but she doesn't really give a fuck either way. She doesn't even hate me or anything, we just aren't really anything to each other. I used to secretly want to make her children love me a lot so I'd have someone to visit me at the nursing home when I'm old, but I'm getting tired of trying to find ways to invite myself into their lives when I'm not particularly wanted. Anyway my dad and I ended up watching some of the Terminator movies, which was somewhat distracting, at least. I find big dumb action movies strangely comforting when I am sad.

Today I stupidly had a M & M McFlurry and my colon's making me pay for it. I should really know better by now.... every time I'm sad I eat more candy and then my colon explodes and then not only am I sad for the orig. thing, I'm also sad because I hurt really bad.

Now it's back to crying and pooping.

So Tina found this thing online that sort of makes art out of the most frequently used words on your blog (not of all time, just of what is displaying right now.


title="Wordle: http://phoexxor.blogspot.com"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/620474/http%3A--phoexxor.blogspot.com"
alt="Wordle: http://phoexxor.blogspot.com"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

As you can see, the above is mainly dominated by the rants I've had in the last two weeks about the wiener who keeps throwing away the mug I keep at my desk. I'm surprised and happy that the only "lewd" word that is big (i.e. used the most) is wiener, which I use to refer to the person in that story. Whereas stuff like fuck and asshole I use enough to be represented there, but thankfully not the biggest. Also, I feel bad for poor Connie at work who has to be below poop, and Anna has to be right next to whipped anus. As far as I can tell, no one else's name is in there.

So the wiener who sits at my desk at work (no, not me) has now complained to my supervisor about my mug, because of germs (once more, I must ask: is this fucking psycho so stupid that she's afraid of accidently forgetting whose mug it is and drinking out of it? This is the only way I can see germs being spread by it. Plus, she has nothing to fear if she did. I have a flu shot, I haven't gotten a cold all winter, and no one ever makes out with me so no danger of mono).

So I have actually been told by The Man that I must no longer keep a mug at my desk. I really, really hate this because not only is the childish person who throws away people's property and goes and cries to mommy when they can't get their way being rewarded, but it is an utter double standard because tons of other people get to keep mugs at their desk simply because they don't have a wiener sitting at it (again, not me).

I'm not mad at my supervisor at all, but I do kind of wish she'd told the wiener to fuck off, I think my previous supervisor would've (tactfully, of course). Anyway, I straight up told my sup that I was just going to keep my mug at Connie's desk from now on (I love Connie but it reminds me of the double standard again--the woman has 8 million things on her desk), since I already had been, since the wiener had been throwing away my property, and the sup didn't mind.

Actually, instead of keeping my mug elsewhere I had planned on bringing mug after mug in just to annoy the wiener, I have about one million mugs I've inherited from my older sister that I never use anyway because they're too small. But when Connie offered a win-win situation (i.e. I can basically keep my mug at the same place and the wiener won't freak out) I took the offer, because I AM NOT AN ASSHOLE UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE WHO SIT AT MY DESK.

Yesterday was pretty awesome. Anna had a birthday party. It's the first time I've seen her since August. We both like each other and find each other hilarious but are both too busy(her) lazy(me) to keep in touch.

Anyhoo, I had some limes left over from a pie I made from work, so I made the beautiful pie from the previous post. I think I actually like it better with just the lime, without all the whipped cream and strawberries, because it doesn't taste that limey this way, and I like strawberries better on their own too.

We had some fun with mad libs including one with all poop that produced the sentence, "when the leaves have lost all their feces, and the ground is covered with bloody snow diahrea," and another one where the theme was toys/dolls where a Catherine the Great doll required "thousands of dollars of suspenders" to operate.

I got to play Ninja Burger (awesome) and apparently I am really good at wii Mario party.

I also had pie and a ginormous slice of this really good chocolate cake with cherries in it. Unfortunately, my colon thought eating a few apples, a lot of pink lemonade, and two slices of dessert was a bad idea, because on the way home my colon senses started stabbing. I also got a migraine at the same time, and got to lay down the rest of the night hoping that my loud downstairs neighbor would shut the fuck up.

Yeah... I can't complain TOO much considering this guy is way better than the other people who lived down there, but he's been really loud the last two or three weeks. There's lots of bangs and shouting suddenly coming from down there, and I'm frequently treated to a loud nickelback concert. Hell, I don't know, maybe the place has changed hands a THIRD time, I saw a for sale sign out front awhile ago.

Key lime pie with strawberries on top. Oh yeah! Probably the prettiest thing I've ever baked.



Whipped cream ended up sort of gritty. This was my first try at homemade whipped cream (okay second but the first time had unrelated problems), I guess I'll use powdered sugar next time.

So, looks like I'm going to have to choke a bitch.

I keep a mug for tea at my desk. Our desks aren't "our" desks, anyone can sit at them. But I sit there all the time and it saves me a time consuming trip to my locker to get it and take it back every day. Plus, lots of people have TONS of stuff at their desks, the least of which are mugs.

Anyway, I'm getting to the part where someone threw away my mug, I brought in another one, and they did it again. Now, technically I'm not allowed to be annoyed at this or complain about it, because there is the rule about workstations, since anyone can use them, anything can be taken or broken or what have you, if it's valuable keep it in your locker. I think they do it so they don't have to arbitrate over a billion stupid arguments about who accidently ruined someone's paper crane or who stole who's what, or people sulking because someone sat at "their" desk. But I feel that this is not the same sort of thing, it wasn't anything valuable someone took because they wanted. It wasn't an accident that someone broke it, they're systematically destroying my property.

So I left a note saying, "Whoever keeps throwing away my coffee mug, please stop." Instead of "I'm going to find you and rip your anus out for twice destroying my coffee mug" like I wanted. And I get a note back saying these are shared workstations, and my mug spreads germs and increases the likelihood of spills.

Okay, I admit: I probably should've emptied my mug out every night. It was pure laziness that I hadn't been, and even though I wouldn't care if someone else did it to me, it is probably gross to some people.

But holy shit, man.... shared workstation or not there's a better way to resolve a situation than to purposefully, repeatedly throw away someone else's property, however cheap and insignificant. This person could've sat at one of the other BAJILLION seats in the dept instead of mine. This person could've left ME a note saying I was gross. This makes me SO angry. Like, if I had bird poop on my car, which is gross and spreads germs, and I parked it at a parking space at a store ANYONE could park in, would it justify them vandalizing my car, just because I left it somewhere I don't own and it was gross to them?

Also, I find the spills argument retarded, even if I did have liquids in it, because I wasn't putting the mug in the middle of the desk, I put it back in the corner out of the way.

So I left a note that was probably more aggressive than it should've been:

1) Like 800 other people keep their mugs at their desk
2) It only spreads germs if you're drinking from it too
3) If you disliked it so much, you could've left me a note instead of repeatedly destroying my property
4) I will make sure to empty it out every day from now on

I don't know. It's a little thing, but the more and more I think about it the more it pisses me off. Not only is this person a dick, but they think they are completely justified in being a childish dick, and there's nothing wrong with it and I should've just psychically known not to leave my cup in their goddamn domain that they don't own either to begin with.

Oh and update on the suspenders:

I actually feel like more of a fat old man than a hip 80's lesbian. So that sucks.

But the pros are it makes my pants stay up, and I can make this pose any time I want to to cheer myself up:

I love the 'phew, I really do. But he does have the weird habit of scrunching his face into a painful grimace whenever you take a photo of him, because he thinks he's smiling. That, coupled with the crazy eyes and the placement of his right hand, makes picture #2 of this photoshow HILARIOUS to me.

put this baby on pause when you get to it

So today I went out and bought myself some suspenders. It's the one thing on earth, besides liposuction, that I feel can possibly hold my pants up. Belts have been useless, and apparently there are no pants built by anyone on earth that will stay over my ginormous "someday someone is going to ask if I'm pregnant and I will cry because I'm not, I'm just fat" gut. Seriously, I've found out that even if I lose weight, I will be skinnier in general, but still with a large out of proportion gut.

So anyway, I'm hoping suspenders transform me from, "Hey, who's the fat slob with the plumber butt and the enormous gut hanging out between her shirt and pants in front?" to "Hey, who's the cool butch lesbian from the 80's?" First impressions are important.

I meant to do other constructive things today, but instead I:

1) looked up origami paper on the internet
2) sat around playing solitaire on my ipod
3) and lastly, but not lastly, watched a bunch of episodes of this old hokey show called The Pretender on hulu.

I don't really get people who don't like their birthdays. I get not wanting to get older, but that's going to happen regardless of whether or not you remember your birthday and tell people about it.

Anyway, I LOVE my birthday, I always have. I, like everyone else, have had the occasional crappy birthday, but for the most part: awesomeness!

So like I said before, work people were extremely nice to me. They made me little paper crafts, and got me a few little fun cheap gifts. I hadn't even expected anything!

Then, I hung out with my family. We went to red lobster and 3/4 of us did not get any sea animal to eat (my brother in law stayed home with Phew harder, so it was me, my dad, my sister, and the Phew). I picked red lobster because we had gone there in FL and I had this awesome chicken dish and wanted it again. Plus, delicious biscuits! The 'Phew literally had Kraft mac and cheese. Apparently Red Lobster has a deal with Kraft, which I found amusing. Then I got a buttload of giftcards to restaurants in my area of town that I had asked for, some music, books, games. I've tested out the games and so far Jambo is a win, but I'm not sure if I'm doing Blue Moon correctly. If I am, Blue Moon is pretty lame.

Then, I hung out with Josh. He gave me this awesome, "Wildcard, bitches!" shirt, which is a reference to Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He also gave me season 2 of the Sarah Silverman Program. He got me a book I asked for, and two games: Monopoly Deal (a card game sort of based on monopoly, but quicker to get through), and Scrabble Slam (a card game sort of based on Scrabble). Monopoly is a win, Scrabble is a lose. Perhaps scrabble would be better with a bigger group, but I don't know. We watched Sarah, played my games, and ate tasty food. Unfortunately, he got food poisoning or something from the tasty food. That or the 24 hour flu... poor guy was throwing up and had a fever. Happily, it went away very fast, so that was good.

Then there was a party with my crew! Lothar's birthday is close to mine, and he really loves pirates. I really love ninjas. Hence: the ninja pirate party! They got me this ninja gear, and pirate gear for him. Everyone dressed up as a pirate or ninja. Pat & D have pictures of dragons in their basement, and Julie went through and made little pirate hats or ninja headbands for all of them. Then, there were cupcakes iced so that they looked like a ninja with a mask on, and a carrot cake shaped like a pirate ship. We played the battlestar galactica game (we've never watched the show, but apparently someone played it with people who had, liked it, then acquired it) and watched some Monty Python. Lastly, but not leastly, they, too, got me a gift card for food and got me a stuffed pony that smells of beef. Yes, that's right, they searched all over town for a pony and finally found one in the dog toy section. He has a squeaker, too!

Then yesterday, Ryan called me for my birthday! He said he was sorry it was belated, but I said it worked better because I wasn't really doing anything at the time, whereas I was busy on my birthday. He agreed with the awesomeness of Ninja party and Wildcard shirt.

I promise, this is WAY better than Sir Mixalot Copy Shop. It's an oldie but a goodie.

Damn you webmd! I need something for my computer like parents get to block all the dirty sites from their kids, only mine would block webmd and similar sites.

I have no idea why, but my joints in my knees & ankles have been sore today, and my back. Quick trip to the webmd says I'm dying. Or I could be a hypochondriac.

I do need to talk to my dr. though.... I'm still halfway convinced I have diabetes, anemia, and like 8 different autoimmune disorders besides the one I already know I have.

Which, btw, has been a bitch this week. The brownies gave me the shits for two days. Then I was really constipated for two days. Today I'm both at the same time. THANKS, COLITIS.

Good news about today: celebrated my birthday at work (most of my buddies work the earlier part of the week so today was the last day to do so this week). I hadn't really meant to make a big deal about it, but I did mention it was my birthday and I was taking off on Sun (they worry that I'm sick if I don't show up and don't tell them why I'm gone ahead of time). So today they made me this awesome card, bought me a cookie and some other little gifts, and sang to me. It's nice having friends at work, finally.

God damn. I felt shitty today so I didn't go into work. Now I'm feeling better, and I'm soooo bored that I really wish I had managed to suck it up and go to work.

I really could clean... oh yes, I could really clean... but I don't want to. I could do stuff on the computer... but that just makes my butt sore* for the next time I do work.

Bitch, bitch, bitch, moan, moan, moan, etc.
____
* I reference this all the time but am not sure I've thoroughly explained it. My company gives us the best of nearly everything... except the fucking chairs, they're awful. And I have a job where I can't leave my desk much. Hence: my ass perpetually sore, even sitting on comfortable things hurts. The only thing that helps even a little bit (though not that much) is standing or laying the whole rest of the time that I'm not working.

Most romantic way to spend VD: doing my taxes with my dad.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. Not even my worst VD. Hell, not even my worst tax experience (that would have to be last year when I hated my life so much I spent the entire time taking it out on my dad and screaming at him about IRA rollovers).

We also saw the International, which is alright but nothing to shout about.

Then we had dinner with my sister's family, which I was actually not invited to but Dad took me along anyway. I was about ready to strangle 'Phew 2 who spent the whole time crying at the top of his lungs. Literally... the manager of the store kept coming up to us and trying to give us ice cream or other things to placate the kid. It was awful. On the other hand, the 'Phew, who I normally bitch about, was like the best behaved kid on earth.

Unfortunately, though, I did take him out into the gift shop (we were at the Honkey Barrel), because my butt was sore and I wanted to get up, and he is normally antsy and wants to get up too when anyone else does. I forgot that kids don't browse, kids want to buy things. He didn't whine at all, though, so I did get him this little snoopy phone filled with candy to reward him. He hugged me at the end of the night, the first time I can recall him spontaneously doing this without being prodded into it by myself or another relative. It felt so good, it made me love him again. But of course, I don't want to buy his love either. I mean 1) that's not real love, and 2) he has a bunch of other relatives who are already doing that and have much deeper pockets.

I also told Tina's man (Archie) to feed her some sausage tonight. *wink wink*

And that is my VD.

Ginormous update

Trip to FL

I had a great time in Florida. I didn't do many "Florida-y" things, didn't go to the beach (don't like the beach anyway) or Disneyworld. In fact, it was their coldest temperatures in 6 years down there.... though I hear it was worse up here during that time. Also, my grandpa couldn't do much because he's hooked up to oxygen nowadays.

The one touristy thing I did was go to Seaworld. Which was awesome, I'm glad I made that choice. I like animals better than rides, so that sort of makes me more inclined to do Busch Gardens or Seaworld than Disney or Universal, and Busch probably has a lot of zoo animals I can see at Miller Park anyway. Even if the animals and shows weren't awesome (which they were), it was one of the nicer days and it was awesome to walk around in nice weather for a few hours. My one regret: Dad did not let me go to "Gatorworld," which we saw an ad for on the way to Seaworld. Who goes to FL without wrasslin' at least one gator before leaving? Seriously!

The rest of the trip was basically hanging out at Grandpa & Phyllis' (his girlfriend) trailer. Phyllis is an awesome cook and made something great for every meal. I felt bad that she went to so much work for us, especially since I didn't know her that well, but she insisted and it was pretty delicious (my dad and I probably gained 10 pounds). And I really did enjoy getting to know her, she's a pretty neat lady. I hadn't really gotten a chance to know her before because my mom didn't like that my grandpa had moved on after my grandma died, and hence kept my grandpa & Phyllis from visiting much after that. In fact, even aside from Phyllis, this is probably the most I've seen my grandpa in the last 15 years. I'm glad I got to hang with him, he's a really cool guy and my one remaining grandparent. The only thing that sucked is he's on an oxygen tank now, so I'm thinking he's probably dying. He's had a lot of trouble breathing the last few years, he inhaled too much dust or something back when he was a carpenter, but when you need oxygen you're probably on your last legs. Plus he's at least in his mid 80's. I really wish I had been able to hang out with him more over the years.

Bridesmaid's Dress Shopping

Upon my arrival, Julie asked me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. My answer: an enthusiastic yes! The only person I've ever bridesmaided for was my sister, and that's pretty much a given. So it was nice to be asked by someone who actually wanted me.

Dress shopping was fun in a lot of ways, I really liked hanging with Julie, D, and Laurie a lot, and making fun of (and trying on) the store's more unfortunate looking dresses. I'm not a girly girl, but I do like trying on something nice once in awhile, and there were some good ones too. All in all, I'm glad for the dress shopping experience, and look forward to the other bridesmaid stuff.

There were some downsides though.

1) Our salesgirl was AWFUL, and I cannot complain about her enough. She was incompetent AND kind of a jerk to us. First of all, she gave D and me the wrong size bra's like 8 times instead of just telling us she didn't have the right size. I just started going commando after awhile, because the bras were so awful. Secondly, I know the store was busy, but she gave us no one on one time to help us choose the right size dresses or bras, which I could've used some help with. She kept giving me these size 12's I needed the jaws of life to get into, and in one case a 10 that I couldn't get into at all. Thirdly, we'd ask for a specific type or cut of dress and she'd say they didn't have it, then it would turn out they did have it. She was new, but for god's sake, she could've asked someone else for help finding things. Lastly, and maybe this is my fault, but she was really snippy and almost wouldn't let me try on a weird zebra stripe dress for fun. Julie is the best friend in the world, because she told the lady she would seriously consider this dress just to get the woman off my back so I could try it on. This woman is getting the commission on 3 $160 dollar dresses, you'd think she could let me try on one ugly dress for the hell of it.

2) The store was really, really hot, it was a super uncomfortable environment to try on fancy dresses.

3) I feel worse about my body than usual. My boobs are small and wouldn't fill up any of the boob places on my dress, whereas my gut is enormous and sticks out of all the gut places on the dresses. I hate that all the weight I've gained lately is in my gut... nothing fits right. My pants fall down because they won't stay up over the gut, unless I wear something so tight I can't breathe. All my shirts show I have an enormous gut, and it hangs out under them half the time. I stopped exercising after awhile, but even when I was really working on it I couldn't get my gut smaller. I'm doomed to have a fucking beer gut the rest of my life, and it is depressing. Seriously, even if I get skinnier, I'll just be skinnier all over except for my gut.

The last few days
Yesterday, I almost locked myself in my house and couldn't get out. There's something wrong with the one lock, it won't turn very well... but for some reason from the outside, with a key, it works fine. Anyway, I have two locks so I've just been using the other when I'm inside since, but it is sort of scary to be locked in.

I also looked pretty dumb, I was opening the door for a delivery man. My dad sent me internet brownies for valentine's day! Quite tasty! Only one downside. Well, 2 if you consider the previous rant about being fat:

phoemeister (12:40:57 PM): all these brownies are giving me the shits :/
GOWALLSGO (12:41:07 PM): :: laughs :: well damn
GOWALLSGO (12:41:22 PM): don't you just hate when something that tastes really really good does that?
phoemeister (12:41:27 PM): yeah
phoemeister (12:41:31 PM): it's like... worth it
phoemeister (12:41:37 PM): but not as good as it would be without the shits

Today I had an interview in another dept. It did NOT go well.... there are so many goddamn depts that I honestly read up on the wrong dept. and did not know anything I was talking about. It's okay though, I'm not sure if I wanted the job that badly anyway.

I've sort of decided I kind of don't want to take a promotion at work unless it's a real improvement. I've been happier where I am lately. While some of that is no doubt due to antidepressants, there are some perks from being where I am that I don't want to lose unless the other job is actually better instead of just nominally better.

1) call volume has dropped like crazy the last few months. I actually, crazily, have enough time between calls to actually finish a sentence to a coworker or work on other things. Some of the other depts I'm looking at are still call centers, and have been having a really high call volume.

2) I'm involved in a lot of "extracurricular" activities that I really enjoy, such as toastmasters, the newsletter, etc. that I don't want to lose.

3) I finally have FRIENDS in my dept after working there 2 years and I don't want to spend 2 years finally getting to know other people.

So all in all, I'd appreciate a quality promotion rather than just some lame half-step where I have to entrench myself all over again at.

Time for some more brownie shits!

Today, when I got up, I panicked for about ten minutes because I couldn't find my phone. Then I found it. Ten minutes later.... I have no idea where I put it after I found it.

My butt's been exceptionally sore from the trip + my period so I haven't really felt up to sitting down at the computer and regaling everyone with details and pictures from my adventures in FL and bridesmaid dress shopping, but rest assured, I will.

I just felt like recording some of the bizarre dreams I've had lately quickly, because I know I will forget them otherwise, and they are hilarious.

Item 1: In FL I had a dream where Josh and I were poisoning stranger's food and killing them a la Last Supper or Arsenic & Old Lace. We didn't have actual poison, so we were putting shampoo in people's food.... somehow, they didn't notice. The first time, Josh just wanted to see if it would work. The second time, we just had so much fun the first time we wanted to try it again. The third time, Josh wasn't around and I did it myself. My mom somehow caught wind of this, and asked me if we'd been killing people. I think, "Man, I'm bad at lying. What the hell, I might as well tell her." When I tell her, she gets really upset and I can't understand why.

"You murdered people!?!? I don't want you hanging out with that Josh anymore! Oh Amy, now that you've killed people, you can never go to heaven!" she says.

"Mom, why are you making such a big deal?? Besides, I killed that one guy on my own. We didn't shoot anyone, it was just shampoo."

We argue quite awhile, but she never gets me to understand what the big deal is about killing people.

Item 2: I had a dream where I was absolutely wailing on Jason from Friday the 13th. He wouldn't die, which was what my aim was, so I just kept having to beat on him. There were a bunch of people I went to grade school with in this dream too, randomly milling around. I think during this whole thing I was trying to also exchange lockers with Kimberly Edgecomb because Chad Krueger was stealing stuff out of mine.

Item 3: I had a dream last night where I got in a conversation with a stranger about this wrestler called "The Boogie Woogie Man." Josh loves this guy because he's crazy, even for a wrestler. He says "baby" over and over only he pronounces it "Beh-bay," and steals children from bystanders. He has a crazy ZZ top beard as well, and a crazed look in his eye. I think the elevator thing started out because the woman said "baby" in that way, and I started telling her about Boogie Woogie. This pretty much played out like it would in real life, and she looked at me like I was a weirdo.

woo

So I'm off to FL tomorrow morning, so if you communicate with me in some way and I am sluggish at getting back to you, that would be the reason.

An awesome thing that happened to me today: Tina's belated Christmas gift got here. It's an adorable teapot & two cups that look like frogs. Now, I'm usually not a big fan of "cute" but they ARE so cute. And also mitigating the cuteness is the awesome fact that the frogs look pretty surprised and disturbed by the fact that they are now serving as teaware.

Plus.... frogs! I heart frogs.

Today was pretty good. I don't know why, but yesterday I started thinking of the one bit from the Simpsons where Bart has hid something of Lisa's and tells her to find it, she will have to follow a series of clues, each more fiendish than the last. Of course, it being Bart & Lisa, she finds it before he finishes the sentence. And I was thinking it would be fun to do something like that in a nice way.

Yesterday Connie from work was upset, her father has something akin to Alzheimer's disease, and she's been slowly losing him for a long time now. I can't even imagine how horrible that must be, though I worry about it pretty often for my own dad (Alzheimer's runs very strong in his family). Her mom died of cancer a few years ago. Anyway, she had a doctor's appointment with him yesterday, which made her upset, and on top of that she was late to work and wanted to use her paid time for it. Our supervisor would let her, but she's gone so Connie got some random supervisor on the phone, who said she would need to run it by our supervisor to get approved, only our supervisor's not back until after the paycheck for that period is issued. And Connie's already got financial difficulties thanks to caring for her father, so not getting her full paycheck because of some bureaucratic BS is a serious problem.

I feel bad... there's nothing I can really do. Doctors are the only ones who can do anything, and of course they can't even always help enough. I feel stupid being like, "If there's ever anything you need," or any of the stuff people usually say. But when I was thinking of the above Simpsons-related project, I figured I could at least give her a minor cheer-up today.

So anyway I made this puzzle where I had several questions, and then certain letters from the answers spelled out a message, "look inside your candy jar," because she has a candy jar on her desk. Then in the candy jar was a rhyming note which pointed to another note which pointed to another note, etc. I actually had a lot of fun coming up with the clues, and incorporating them with things in the office such as a coworker with middle name Lamont or a mysterious pile of generic mac & cheese that's been sitting in this one area for months now.

I went to the office earlier today, and someone was like, "Earning overtime?" My response, "no, doing this scavenger hunt thing for a friend," and I earned a weird look from the lady. It was great, though. I worried that one of the notes would be found at the wrong time or by the wrong person, but everything went according to plan.

At the end was a gift card to Hobby Lobby, where she shops at sometimes. I had orig. thought of maybe making one of my weird homemade cards or coupon book, but I figured on the off chance that she didn't find the treasure hunting process as amusing as I did, I should reward her.

I guess I didn't need to worry about that, I got an email from her saying she found it and had a blast doing it, so woo! I win at life.

Damn. I feel so old tonight. Not old in the sense of actually old, old in the sense of having used up so much of my life and still not really knowing what I want to do with it. I feel like I've been waiting, all my life, holding my breath, getting ready for what I'm going to do with my life. And I still don't know. I don't want to waste my entire life waiting, I want to do some doing. But I don't know what I want to do.

Which is actually somewhat of a lie.... I know things I'd like to do.

So I guess I mean I don't know anything "I want to do" that intersects in the venn diagram with anything that "it is practical and I would have an actual shot at doing it."

I just know that I don't want to do what I do now, but sadly it's the one lone entry in "things someone would actually pay me to do." I get so frustrated sometimes... I really don't feel like I'm any better or more qualified to do anything than anyone without a degree, but at the same time I feel like why did I waste all that fucking money and time getting a degree when it just isn't getting me anywhere. And I wonder how I got this far in life without any real, marketable skills. I'm not even qualified to be a secretary, or even other things within my company that are far easier than what I already do, because people actually want that job, and no one wants to do what I do. And I'm tired of working with people 9 years younger than me, because it basically points out to me that if I weren't such a piece of useless shit, I'd be 9 years ahead of what I am now.

I just wish I found the thing I like doing, that maybe I don't love to do, but I at least don't hate it, and can remember individual days instead of having it blur into one boring angry blur. I feel like once I have that, I could be like a kid again, and stop constantly worrying about what I'm going to do with my life the way I have since the last couple years of High School. I dunno... the worry's not that bad, thank you anti-depressants, but it's there and I'm tired of it all the time.

This weekend was nice. It was Josh's fake birthday* and we had good food, good fun, good times. I got him a gift card from Schnucks, one from Amazon, and 3 surprisingly cheap games from Dragon Talon Games. Balloon Cup, which we immediately "broke" in one game by accidently using up all of one type of card and forcing play to a standstill. Next was Pick and Pack. I think the jury's out on that one. Last was Carcassonne: The Castle. Now, I've never played regular Carcassonne, I primarily picked this one up because it was a 2 player, which Josh and I have been having success with lately. Anyway: we both really like it, so I guess I did well on at least one out of three.

We also played Party Playoff which is a really fun game that reminds me of Apples to Apples. Unlike Apples, this is somewhat doable with 2 players, but it makes for great conversations/funny arguments.

It was a fun time, esp. since Josh and I haven't had a chance to hang out in a long while.
____
* Every time we celebrate a special occasion when we can be together but not on the actual day, "fake" is appended to the name.

Suibrom (3:38:07 PM): crap that reminds me.. have you ever seen the comedian mike birbiglia?
phoemeister (3:38:17 PM): yeah a little bit
Suibrom (3:38:29 PM): he totally reminds me of what you would be like if you were a boy
phoemeister (3:38:40 PM): hahaha how so?
Suibrom (3:38:56 PM): dunno.. the sense of humor, the way he dresses, talks, mannersisms, etc
Suibrom (3:38:59 PM): mannerisms
phoemeister (3:39:04 PM): hunh
phoemeister (3:39:36 PM): I get that apparently.... Andi thinks this other stand up comedian, Eugene Mirman, thinks like me

So I should be a standup comedian.

My State Farm agent just gave me the most bizarre "free gift" imaginable.

It's a personalized calendar. Which is... creepy.

January's picture is a car with snow on the windshield and some of the snow has been scraped off to spell my first and last name. Feb has hot chocolate and the cinnamon on the froth spells my last name, the steam coming off of it is my first name. March is a field of buttercups that spell out my name. April, it's three baseballs with A, M, and Y. May is the earth from above with clouds spelling out Amy. June, lilypads on a lake, July fireworks, august birds against a sunset, sept fridge magnets, Oct jack o lanterns, Nov some sort of embossed book, Dec a present with a gift tag. All with my first, last or both names on them.

I realize that I'm probably not the only one who got something similar, my agent wasn't up all night with photo shop doing this for me, State Farm must have a deal with people who mass produce this sort of thing. But it just seems weird that someone would think people are narcissistic enough to want to look at their name all year.

It reminds me of this other offer I was getting in the mail awhile ago, where you could get '"your last name" University' printed on a shirt. Which... is doubly weird because I don't know if I want everyone on the street having my info. As Josh remarked whilst mocking it, "Yeah, I'm also going to get my home address printed on the ass of my pants, and my social security number tattooed on my el-bee-bow." (elbow).

That said, I think I'm going to keep it, because it is hilarious.

This was orig. a funny conversation, but it is quite possibly the worst comic I've ever made....



The orig. person I was talking to did not call me an idiot, but I put it in the comic as my way of apologizing for making this comic.

Today my dad and I saw Clint Eastwood in, "You goddamn kids stay off my lawn!"

It. Was. AWESOME. Seriously, the best movie I've seen in a long time.

There's obviously funny bits in the trailer, but before you see it you have no idea how hilarious Gran Torino is. Like... there's some "serious" dark stuff in there, but if you cut out like three scenes it would be a straight up comedy, and a good one too. But since it also has emotional depth, it is more meaty and sticks with you longer. Sooo good. I recommend it to anyone who is not offended by a constant stream of racial slurs emitted from the mouth of an elderly thespian trying to make young people stay off his lawn.

I repeat: I should not be allowed to use WebMd. This morning I woke up with a headache and decided I had glaucoma. And shingles.

Good for me I realize I'm an idiot. And that Paxil mitigates anxiety.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm a sleep camel or something, the past couple days I have woken up early when the past few days before that I slept all day. Though, I guess today I blame it on the headache. Sometimes laying down makes me feel better when I have a headache, but sometimes laying screws me up more. That was the case this time, so I had to get up. Still DO have the headache, but it's not as bad as when I first woke up.

No one person should have as much wrong with them (real & imagined) as I do this young. 80% of it is probably my own damn fault in terms of my shitty diet, though. Eat your greens, kids! Don't get glaucoma like me!

Meh... I went to bed two hours earlier than usual last night (12) thinking, if I sleep a lot, at least I'll sleep through two of my least productive hours and wake up earlier during more productive times. So I woke up at 2 again.

Yes, that makes 14 hours of sleep, ladies and gentlemen.

So... I may have anemia or whatever, but given that I didn't do this before the Paxil, I'm guessing it's mostly paxil. However, I do still find sleeping to be preferable to crying, so I'm sticking it out. I wish I could have normal sleep and not crying, but I dunno if it's possible.

Another day wasted

I got up at 9 am for an appointment I had. When I got back, it was 10. I called a friend, who didn't answer. I decided to lay on my bed for a little while and try again. I fell asleep until 3 p.m., and got ready for work.

Though... work was better than usual, I had a few meetings including my Toastmasters where the theme I selected for the meeting was the 80's, and it was a lot of fun. I love how Connie always goes all out with her outfits.

I'm sadly falling behind on my exercise.... Part of it is, I am tired all the time, but the other part is I am lazy. It's pretty pathetic that I won't do it, especially given that I can FEEL the good results, ie dramatically less colitis pain.

One awesome thing that happened lately is I got to go to a party. I have a feeling they forgot about me and I wouldn't have been invited otherwise, but basically Julie and I had plans on Sat, which was apparently when her friends were planning a surprise party for her. Her boyfriend, or should I say fiancee, found out at the last minute, told me about it, and all was saved. I feel like sort of a chode, I didn't get her anything except some of my coupons that I made up at the last minute (especially since I also forgot to get her anything for Christmas and she gave me an awesome belated Christmas gift at the party), but I did help pay for decorations and food etc. I actually had a lot of fun, even doing the set up, and running around buying things with Deanna.

I'm also going to Florida soon. To be honest, I'm looking forward to not working more than the actual vacation. My dad and I are going down there to see my Grandpa, and for whatever reason, I think he's gotten less keen on me over the years. He never returns phone calls or calls me, though he apparently calls my dad all the time. When I call him, we sort of run out of conversation pretty fast. So anyway my dad asked if I was ever going to visit him since I have all the money from mom, and I told him I'd like to, but I don't think I could keep up a conversation with Grandpa and his girlfriend for a week without a fourth person there. So my dad is coming too, and that's what's going on with that.

Bleh... my digestive system hurts. I've not been exercising as much as I should, so it's gone back to sucking. The weird thing is, the abdominal stuff which is the most unpleasant to do, is the easiest to prod myself into doing, because it only takes 6 minutes. The aerobics, however, take over an hour. Plus they take energy I just don't have, it seems like I just get tireder and tireder.

I am now 99% sure I have anemia, though... I hung out with my friend Wendi for like the first time in over a year. Which was sweet. She's not really one of those people who was too busy for me, she just literally had like every calamity possible fall on her when we had scheduled something in the past. I'm not kidding, people died, she fell down some stairs and broke her face, other things too. And I saw her face after the stair incident. Woman was NOT lying. Anyway, I asked Wendi about the anemia cause she's had it a long time, and it sounds like I have it (though the pee issues are probably something else, possibly some of the chronic dry throat as well), because her and I have a lot of similar things going on. Plus, colitis makes it difficult to absorb iron, plus I have been bleeding intermittently the last year when I poo (I plan to see my poo doctor about it, but he didn't seem that concerned the last few times I saw him, so I figured it could just wait till my yearly colitis check up). I should see a doctor about the anemia (Wendi said sometimes it's good to get even more high powered iron supplements than even over the counter stuff) but it just seems annoying considering I can probably just keep taking the iron I am taking and be fine eventually. But I probably should. And I should probably see if I can sort out my pee issues. And I should probably try the wart freezing again, it hasn't taken.

Oh, but anyway Wendi was awesome. One of my favorite Wendi quotes is "Try transforming all of those fuckers!" RE: her son's love of transformers a few years ago. She told me this time he was older and it was legos. Then we started talking about how much it sucks to step on a lego and she came up with this precious gem. "The worst part is if it sticks to your foot, and then you step on it again. It hurts so bad that you want to piss yourself! Well, that's legos for you."

So... I should not be allowed to use webmd, but once I start it's hard to stop for awhile. I'm convinced I have all of these, and probably have none.

--Anemia due to an iron and/or B12 deficiency (Symptoms I have: difficulty sleeping, fatigue, pale skin, tires quickly, leg cramps, upward curving of nails, cracks at corner of mouth, cold all the time, headaches, pins & needle sensation in hand or foot)

--some sort of sodium deficiency, it can be caused by a lot of diahrea, apparently, and I'm the king of that. It's just, my eyes and throat and skin are so dry sometimes, and I pee all the time. So I think if I have a sodium (or potassium) deficiency, I might be getting rid of water in my body before I'm supposed to, leaving me chronically dehydrated no matter how much I drink.

--Sjogren's syndrom... an autoimmune disease. It is not specifically stated that colitis & sjogren's are related, but it seems to be that a lot of autoimmune diseases are related, and if you have one you might have another. Symptoms I have: dry eyes, dry nose/throat/mouth, dry skin, dry vag, frequent urination.

--Fibromyalga... ditto what I said about Sjogren's. Symptoms I have: dry eyes,body aches and pains, dry eyes, difficulty falling asleep, depression, fatigue, headache, frequent urination

--Hypopituitarism, something glandular. Symptoms I have: anxiety, cold, digestive issues(inconclusive because I clearly have something that already gives me digestive issues), depression, fatigue, tires quickly, frequent urination

Stupid hypochondria.

So I didn't clean my whole house, but I'm pretty happy with the bed, kitchen, bath, and living room. So all I have left is the one extra room, plus some miscellaneous stuff (CDs I need to put back in their cases, mostly) which I'm hoping I can gradually clean over time instead of having to do a huge purge like with the rest of them. So all I have to do now is keep it clean... which is easier said than done, but I'm going to make a conscious effort. I mean... the vacuuming or whatever isn't even that hard, it's spending the time picking up all my shit so I CAN vacuum.

In other news, I talked to Mike last night for the first time in ages, like over a year probably, so he didn't really know what's been going on with me. We had a nice light conversation (he and I were never that close anyway). But anyway, the reason I'm mentioning this is he said thought I might be anemic because I'm cold all the time. Which... I've never heard as a symptom of anemia, and I looked it up and still didn't see that symptom, but in the course of looking it up I noticed a lot of other issues I do have that could pertain to iron deficiency. Dunno if this will really help me all that much, but I'm going to load up on iron & vitamin c (vit c helps you absorb iron easier) for a couple of weeks to see if it does anything.

Marsupials are fucked up

Don't ask me why I'm reading about marsupials on wikipedia on a Sunday morning, because I don't know. Anyway, I knew about the pouch, but this other part seems even weirder, actually.

"Marsupials' reproductive systems differ markedly from those of their placental mammal cousins (Placentalia). Females have two vaginas, both of which open externally through one orifice but lead to different compartments within the uterus. Males generally have a two-pronged penis, which corresponds to the females' two vaginae.[4] The penis is used only for discharging semen into females, and is separate from the urinary tract.[citation needed] Both sexes possess a cloaca,[4] which is connected to a urogenital sac used to store waste before expulsion."

Double genitals! If this isn't fake (wikipedia, after all) this is even weirder than the fish with wangs that only go left or right who have to find women fish who's vags go the opposite direction.

Well, maybe it's a tie.

I never used to think I was obsessed with animal genitalia, but at 26 I now have a surprisingly large cache of facts in my brain devoted to that subject.

I'm having trouble sleeping tonight, for perhaps the first time since I went on the antidepressants. It's weird, always gauging how well you've been doing this or that since you've been on something. I guess I have practice, though.

Anyway, I think it's because I went to bed earlier than usual, though now that I look at the clock it's a little past when I usually do, so maybe I should try again.

I gave myself a minor freak out, I was listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers to help me go to bed, and there's this one song, Slow Cheetah that reminds me of this song by 22-Pistepirkko. As you can tell, I eventually recalled the band name, but for awhile I thought it'd never come, and upset me. You see, I actually dislike 22-Pistepirkko. But Rebecca & Charlie from Borders loved them and played the song with the song like Slow Cheetah on the overhead constantly. I used to complain about it (good naturedly, not the way I complain about other coworkers who would bring in Linkin Park). Then like a year later Stadium Arcadium comes out, and RHCP has a song that's a rip off of 22-Pistepirkko, and I actually like it (the prob I had with 22-Pistepirkko is the dude's annoying voice, not the quality of their songs). I could've kept it to myself, but I did tell Rebecca about it, who did get amusement (Charlie had been fired by that time for the unforgivable crime of having diabetes, but that's another story).

I guess this is a long boring way of saying that it freaks me out when I forget certain things, or even almost forget certain things. It's been worse this last year... I think I'm afraid if I forget the name 22-Pistepirkko, I'll forget the incident related to it, and if I forget that incident and a few others, I will have forgotten Rebecca. If she forgets them too, it's like they never happened. Thinking about it makes me sad. I think about this in relation to even people I still talk to, but it's even more worrisome to me when it's someone I haven't seen in a long time and probably won't again. Have people forgot about me? I think of so many people, and I wonder if they ever think about me. Probably not, or they would've kept in better touch.

I of course also think about my mom. She obviously can't think of me anymore, unless there actually is an afterlife. What if I forget things about her? What about when I die? Then it's like they never happened....

I don't know. Maybe this stupid blog will out live me and some anthropologist a million years from now will read it. Here's something I thought of the other day that I hadn't thought about for years:

I had an even worse time sleeping as a kid than as an adult. I don't know why, but I felt lonely all alone in my room, though during the day I could play alone for hours and be happy as a clam. On top of that, I had an overactive imagination and every shadow was a monster. Sometimes, I would fake having stomach problems just so I could come out to the family room and be with my mom. I guess I got colitis cause I cried wolf too much. Anyway, those were probably some of our best times. She sang me weird little songs she made up on the spot. One of them involved Scooby Doo, and I liked it so much I would try to make her do it all the time. After that for awhile, I called her Scooby and she called me Scrappy. It's weird what nicknames come and go, a few years after that we didn't really call each other that anymore. I stopped faking stomach problems, and started reading at night instead (which also included a certain amount of deception, and is what ruined my eyesight). Then, when I got older and went to college and got cable, I saw Scooby Doo for the first time since I was really, really little, and realized what an awful show it is. True story.

So I've d/led google chrome. I trust the google name enough that I am usually pretty sure whatever their newest thing is, it'll probably be awesome.

Anyway, I've only used it tonight, and it seems alright. I plan to use it more to see if I like it > or = IE, supposedly, like most non IE browsers, it's supposed to have better security. This will actually be the 4th browser I now have on my computer. IE, of course. Opera, because I like one of its "widgets" a game where you raise fish (yes, I'm a nerd), but which I never use for browsing. Firefox, which I hate the shit out of and plan to delete, which I d/led during my recent virus attack to see if I could use it to get around some of the virus effects.

This comes to you in the middle of a large block of no work. I always get Weds & Sat off, I got Thurs off because of New Year, I decided to take Fri & Sun off to make it a larger block of free time, and then I took Mon off because I screwed up and made plans with someone Monday night because I got Monday and Sunday confused. One goal of this time has been cleaning, though I'm sadly behind. Anyone who reads this sees my house will go, "It took you six days to do that? WTF, man?" But I never have time when I work, cause I'm sleeping all the time, and I guess it started when I was depressed, but I got into a horrible habit of not picking things up, doing my dishes, or my laundry. In the last couple days I've done countless loads of laundry, dishes, and taken out a LOT of garbage. But yeah, I have not really been using my time effectively, I've sort of loafed as well. But that feels good too.

Anyway, Of my 5 rooms, I have two pretty much set. My bathroom, which wasn't really dirty anyway, and my bedroom. Now I just have to do the kitchen, living room, and I dunno what I call the other room, all while not re-messing up the stuff I've already done. How did I let it get this bad?

I had a crazy dream last night. I used to not dream that often, but since the antidepressants I have. Usually I forget to record them, but I remembered this time considering how funny part of it is, I guess.

So my mom, dad, sister, grandparents, 'Phew two (though he was younger than he is now in the dream), this one random guy from work I don't even know that well, and I were hanging out at my parents house on the porch. Oh, also my dad has a mustache in this dream, which he never has had in real life. Then we all decided to pile into my Dad's Honda Civic to go shopping, except for my grandpa who stayed with 'Phew two to watch him, and because grandpa has breathing problems. So my mom, sister, and the guy from work are in my dad's car, and I ask them the question that's been bothering me this entire dream.

"I know this seems like an insensitive question," I say, "But isn't grandma dead? Like... hasn't she been dead for years now? Am I crazy? Is that really her with us today?"

"Dude, what's your problem?" my sister asks, "That's his girlfriend up there."*

My mom, who is also dead in the real world, does not look amused. Then I wake up.

The other odd thing about these dreams is how a lot of times they involve the death of my mom, grandma, or both. Like, I get why I'm dreaming about my mom, but grandma's been dead for years and even though this makes me a douchebag, I admit that I didn't care that much because she was old, mean, and actually wanted to die at that point. I don't really recall dreaming about her since it happened until after my mom died too.
___
* In real life I can tell my grandpa's girlfriend from my grandma

My new years was pretty tame, I was up at midnight but not particularly paying attention to the time. I had dinner and a rented movie with the fam. I called the 'Phew a liar in front of god and everyone for the second time at a family gathering I can remember. I actually don't think he's a liar so much as he has the compulsive need to disagree with me. I don't know if he's sensed I dislike him more than I used to, or that I just don't hang around him enough for him to like me, but I'm beginning to get the idea he dislikes me. But he's fickle... sometimes he seems to like me. I don't know. It's pointless to examine the brains of small children, they don't have the same thought processes as grown ups.

Phew two seemed to take a shine to me, he's always been fairly shy but actually high fived me a couple of times and the like.

Today my dad and I hung out again, we saw Tom Cruise in the smash hit, "Tom Cruise wears an eyepatch." Valkyrie was fairly predictable, the sort of movie that's not bad enough to be bad but not good enough to be memorable. I dunno why, but I don't really hate Tom Cruise like normal people, and a lot of the other cast are people I love: Terrance Stamp, Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard (sort of weird to see him in a totally serious role but he did well), and Kenneth Branaugh (I don't actually like him but everyone else seems to think he's awesome). And I did like the eyepatch, I dunno. Eyepatches are just cool. The last downfall is probably the fact that you know how it ends before you even get in there, and you really wish it didn't, because even if you hate Tom Cruise you generally want him to win vs Der Fuhrer.

Oh, the other movie I saw was Eagle Eye, which again fits into the not particularly memorable category, but it was okay. One, every movie with Shia Lebeouf in, I think "the beef the beef the beef" over and over, cause that's what his name is in french. Two, I had fun thinking of which stories I thought it plagiarized from. Like... technically, I don't blame Eagle Eye, because at least it stole from several different places and sort of mixed them into something new, as opposed to just stealing wholesale like most movies nowadays. But anyway, as everyone realizes, it's one part enemy of the state, one part I robot, and then like one part new stuff. But the really intriguing thing is it reminded me of this hitchcock movie, The Man Who Knew Too Much. Which, maybe I just want things to be Hitchcockesque, I was comparing The Happening to The Birds not that long ago, but anyway, several parallels: 1) normal people being coerced to help terrorists 2) the woman has to decide whether or not to save her child by helping the terrorists vs letting other innocent people die 3) the assasination being planned to happen exactly when one part of a piece of music is played, 4) the sort of ending where the person basically stops the assasination by yelling and making everyone stop what they're doing instead of actually really jumping in front of a bullet or engaging in any physical heroics (at least at the end).

So I guess the new bits were okay, and sort of jamming the three other things together is creative, but it seemed like parts taken from Enemy of the State and The Man Who Knew Too Much were done a lot more elegantly, believably and suspensefully in the orig. movies. It's not bad, but I would tell people to go see those other two movies first, and if they were still really bored watch this and skip I robot (which also has a small part with the Beef in it).

Oh, also today I read some short stories by Neil Gaiman. I actually bought the book back in my Borders days, and never read it until now, but I stumbled upon a hilarious note from Todd who worked there inside, which was totally awesome. As for the stories themselves--they're all pretty good but he ends every damned one of them on a mysterious note, nothing ever gets resolved. Plus he has some poems in there and I don't really care for that sort of thing.