Sometimes I Think It's a Shame When I Get Feelin' Better When I'm Feelin' No Pain

Here are some lovely lilies I grew.

So, reading that Louise Erdrich novel is really making me want to write some fiction again. Of course, I have to find the time. It seems like hours and whole days get swallowed up with people and things.

Last night, I thought I might have some time. I was tired and swam in the morning, so I decided not to run or ride my bike after work, and I thought I might be able to write later. Instead, I made Coadster's favorite dinner - cheese tortellini with pesto made with basil from my garden), then my friend G. came over and we had a nice talk on the porch, then I picked Coadster up from class and she was crying from a horrible migraine. I tried all of my tricks to ease her pain, she eventually threw-up and started feeling better, but it took a while. I feel so awful that my messed-up gene pool causes that for her too. Anyway, by that time, it was late and I was fried and had to go to bed. Maybe tonight.

I guess the good and the bad thing about me, is that I love to fill my life up with adventures and projects and passions. Bad - because I can overwhelm myself and create self-imposed pressure when I don't always need another excuse to spaz. Good - because I rarely feel bored or even just ho-hum about my life. I've heard there's this thing out there called balance, but I haven't seen it much with my own eyes....

So Smile for a While and Let's be Jolly.

Today it was ridiculously hot here. The roses didn't seem to mind, but the cats did a lot of lying around.


Tomorrow is my first bike race. I came home from the Monday night ride last night, wired and overwhelmed with crap I either needed to do, or thought I needed to worry about. I didn't get much sleep at all. I woke up about 5:30, feeling like poop. I had a good talk with The Guy about stressing out about stupid shit. He was, of course, wonderful and supportive as ever. I decided I was too tired to be any good at work, so I called in and stayed home.

I went back to bed and woke up again in the afternoon, feeling a ton better. I took some time to myself to play in the dirt and plant some marigolds, snap dragons, gerbera daisies and a black forest calla lily. You would not believe (or maybe you would) how much better you can feel about your world in general after you get your hands dirty and plant pretty flowers. I highly recommend it.

I'm Happy. Hope You're Happy Too

Here is a path to a bridge.

I don't have much to write about today. The weather is warming up finally and that makes me happy. I had a good swim this morning, and that made me happy. Other than a little self-imposed stress, (I know. I'm always my own worst enemy) my world is lovely. I hope yours is too.

Golden Slumbers Fill Your Eyes, Smiles Awake You When You Rise

Here is the guy having a cat.

Soooo. Archie didn't harass me last night when I went to bed. he doesn't always, so I didn't think much of it. Archie also didn't harass me when my alarm went off this morning, and that was very strange. At first I thought that maybe Archie got used to sleeping with Stinky whoile I was gone. I went up to Ask Stinky if he was up there, but she hadn't seen him.

Then, it hit me. Right before I went to bed, I opened the door and checked the mail. I had already turned the lights off. Crap! I ran to the front door and called Archie. Luckily, he came running. He had been nesting the next door neighbor's bushes. Poor guy.

I'm pretty sure he was born in the shelter, so I don't think he had ever been outside before. I can't imagine what the hell he thought when he was suddenly in a new place that was cold and dark and there was no food or attention. I imagine it was his worst nightmare.

When I told the guy about it, he said he thought that Archie may have learned his lesson about trying to run outside any time we opened the door, but this is a cat who thinks he can fit into a cereal box, so I have my doubts....

No, No, No. She Don't Think Straight.

Here are some creepy dolls to help traumatize you to sleep.

Well, kids. This will be short. I had a good night with the guy. We did pack up most of his stuff for the trip and I'll pack most of my stuff tomorrow night. I'm so excited, I can barely stand it, but I still have to wait until Friday. I'm sure I'll be tons of fun to work with the next two days....

Behind the Image Was Ignorance and Fear

My Irises are almost ready to pop.

It's time for another installment of my continuing rough draft writing exercise:

The training academy was located in an old minimum security prison in Angels Camp. There were way more guys than girls, and the extra attention made her uncomfortable. Especially, when she had to walk past a line of men on the way to the cafeteria and try not to hear all the things they said to her. She had often wished she was invisible. She didn't want to look like anything, didn't always want to have to participate, and like Chance in Being There, she liked to watch.

The training academy forced her to be very present. She had spent the last month mostly by herself. It was only a week ago that she was stuck in a motel room, faced with all of her demons and no way to escape. She remembered one particularly bad night where in just a few moments she went from entertaining thoughts of suicide, to freaking out that she might have cancer. Here, in the middle of the day, she could laugh to herself at the ridiculousness of fearing and hoping for the same thing.

And so all of these people and rules and schedules, finally making her so aware of her external world, probably weren't such a bad thing. She just wished she had some kind of cloaking device to get her to the cafeteria for every meal.

Don't Tread on an Ant He's Done Nothing to You

Here is a picture of some daisies I'll be planting in my garden this week. Because I need to see something pretty right now.

Sometimes you have a fine day and the weather is amazing and work isn't all that bad and you spend your 3 o'clock break out on a sunny bench reading your book. Then after work is over, you have a pleasant bike ride home. You run for an hour after taking a couple of days off and you feel amazingly strong on this warm and windy day.

You come in the house and the first thing you hear is, "Mom! I'm gonna puke. LOOK AT THIS!" You are high out of your mind from endorphins, so you try to stay focused. You think your daughter must have the flu and you wonder why she doesn't just get a bowl or go to the bathroom if she feels like she's going to be sick. She points to the kitchen and she says, "Look in there. Gross!"

What you see when you peek into your kitchen is a floor covered in little flying bugs. What the!... You reach under the sink and spray every inch of the floor with Raid. Later, after you check things out on the internets (as suggested by your sister) you realize the bug spray spaz, while quite satisfying, was actually a bad idea. Because the web has instructed you to pick-up one of these creatures, now dripping in poison and look at its wings and its body to see if it is a termite or an ant. They're pretty tough to distinguish. So, you find a few that aren't quite so drenched and put them in a tupperware container. You hope to bring them to a pest control place as early as possible, in order to quell your bad habit of creating bizarre scenarios in your head. If you know the damage of a thing, one way or the other, you are generally much less likely to spaz.

After a Storm, There Must be a Calm

Stinky roasting her marshmallow perfectly...According to her.

So, remember how yesterday I said I was overwhelmed and needed more time and money? Well, there isn't much I can do about the money I don't have, but I did do something about the time issue. That's right. I started asking for my Summer vacation time off of work. I won't be able to take it for a while, but just knowing it's coming helps me.

I'm going to take my last half furlough day off this Friday. Since it's the only time my girls will be going to the same prom...That is unless Coadster comes back from college and starts trolling for high school boys (when I made this funny joke to Coadster, she rolled her eyes so hard she almost had a seizure). Anyway, I figured I'd need an extra half day to calm down while my girls are in school on Friday to make up for whatever it will take to get both my girls to the prom.

I'm also taking 3 half days on the last three Fridays in May. That will be something nice to look forward to. Once I get to June, I should be able to calm down a bit, it's just the next couple of months that have me a little worried. I've been stressing really hard about everything I want to get done before Coadster's graduation party on Memorial Day weekend. I talked to some of my friends about it and they told me to just calm down and chill out. They said my house looks fine the way it is, so I should consider whatever else I get done before the party a bonus and let it go. Nothing like good friends to help put things in perspective. Of course, I'll still try to get as much done as possible, I'll just try to lessen my self-imposed stress and call it "good enough".

Once June comes along, I'll start taking at least a week off a month through August. Have I mentioned how much I love Summer?

For I Toss and Turn, I Can't Sleep at Night

Look! My seeds have germinated. It normally takes about 7 - 10 days but mine are overachievers and made it up in 4. Good, good seeds.

Oh, kids. I've got Spring fever and I got it baaaaad. I can't sleep and my attention span went AWOL again. I have all this crazy false energy that makes it so I get about 4 hours of sleep a night if I'm lucky, but I'm so exhausted that I can't get anything practical done either. Tonight I rode my bike home from work and then went on one of my longer runs. I hadn't tried to run that route since before I moved, so I had to figure out the best way to go. I ended going a little differently than I used to, but it made it more of an 8 mile run than a 10 mile and I didn't think I was quite ready to run that far yet. It felt great.

So, now I'm going to end this post and finally try to get some sleep tonight. I figure I'll give myself time to relax and read and see if that helps. If not, I'm sure tomorrow's blog post will be even more erratic and hard to read. Sorry. Hey, Happy Spring!

It Never Ends (It Never Ends...)

Here is a photo of my freshly painted kitchen walls. The color is called "sparkling Stream". I bought flowers for myself at the Co-op on my way home for work. I'm so glad I had them later on when I needed some cheering up.

Okay. I have good news and bad news, but I always say the bad news first to get it out of the way. My car battery was dead again when I went to drive Stinky and her friend to a basketball game. I haven't driven my car for a couple of days, but I used to go days without driving it before my battery was drained and never had a problem. Plus, it's not really even that cold anymore. So, I did a lot of spazzing in my head, and since I don't really have an adult to talk to, I posted a FB status update just to whine into the void we call the internets. Then, since I'm a fix-it girl, I sat down and figured out what to do. I called Sears to find out about how it worked to get a new battery. The guy said they're open at 8. I can't make an appointment, but they'll take care of it on a first come, first served basis. Then I called my mechanic neighbor. After he called me a pain in the butt and kept laughing at American Idol while I detailed the problem, (which made me smile) he agreed to give my car a jump in the morning. He said I should get a new battery and if it loses its charge, I might want to get the alternator checked out. Which was exactly what I was thinking. Anyway, at least I have a plan now and I'll call work in the morning to let them know I'll be a little late...Again.

The good news, is that I got my kitchen painted. Hurray! With all the drama, I didn't get it put back together yet, but I figure I'll do that tomorrow night. My girls gave me crap about how much blue there is in our house, but I don't care. Like I always say, I'm a water girl. The blue in my kitchen is much more muted than my bathroom and my bedroom is actually green. Although it's still a color based on water. I think it's called sea surf or something. Anyway, I find water or sea colors relaxing and the blue/gray in my kitchen is very clean looking. After how dirty it was when we moved in, (I'm still trying to clean off the dirtcicles hanging off the ceiling) I wanted something really clean.

This week I'm going to work very hard at putting everything back together and cleaning and FINALLY unpacking the last couple of bags and boxes in the kitchen before I start my next project - priming, sanding and painting the cupboards. I really can't wait until the bulk of my projects are done, so I can just sit around and read a book or something crazy like that.

It's Time For a Few Small Repairs, She Said

Here is a fairly unflattering photo of A. and myself at my college graduation party in December of 1990.

So, kids. I got over my whateverthehellitwas from last night. I think it was a weird combination of the end of the year approaching, Winter, a full moon, and me suddenly not working towards anything major. You know? I was thinking about what the hell my problem was and why I seemed so weird and lonely and fatalistic last night. And I think some of it was that I was done working toward my house. I'd been doing that since the end of September and every week there was another hurdle to jump and I was so distracted with all of it, that when it was done and I had the house and Christmas was over, I experienced a little let-down. I was done working on the acquisition, it was mine and I was in it. I suppose there was a lot of internal stuff I ignored by being so caught up in my external nesting struggle. For me, I feel so much better knowing why I'm spazzing, because then I can work on fixing it. Whew! Now, I guess that means I have to take a little time to examine my head and make sure things get balanced up there. I could be busy with that for a long, long time...

My friend A. was up from Texas tonight. It was so great to see her. She lived with me when I was pregnant with Coadster and then lived in an apartment right across from us, the first year of Coadster's life. Now her boys are in kindergarten and 3rd grade. it's amazing how fast time flies. We had a great visit, and watched the boys play with Legos and ask them questions about their lives. They are such great, fun kids. I'm so sad that I don't get to see them very often. A.'s husband might do RAGBRAI in the Summer with his brothers, so I'm hoping they come back up again for that.

Okay. it's late and I better try to get some shut-eye. I hope you all have a wonderful New Year's Eve. Feel free to tell me how you plan to spend it in the comments.

Bitter Melodies Turning Your Orbit Around

I was going to actually try to do some real writing, but things were kind of weird tonight, (or maybe I was the only thing that was weird. Damn, I hate it when I'm all moody) and I realized that I was too tired and burnt-out to be all that very creative. Some friends asked me to meet them out, but I had the girls, so I couldn't. One of them was nice enough to message me for a bit, so I could get a little vent out. Which was very cool of them, but I've done the same for them before, so I'm sure it all evens-out in the end. So, I'm going to lame-out and try to go to bed early and maybe do some cleaning, since my good friend from Texas is coming to visit me tomorrow night.

But before I go, I'll leave you with this photo of what I wish I could do today - ride my bike for miles and miles out in the warm, Summery, Iowa countryside:

And I Can't Think of Right Words to Say

G. came over to help us decorate our tree and set Ironman straight about a few things.

My mantra lately is "I'm tired". I say it over and over again in my head. I'm sure I've even accidentally said it aloud a few times when I was really feeling it. (yes, I've become THAT crazy lady who walks around muttering to herself). I have no one to blame but myself. I want to be superhuman and be able to do 50 hours worth of work and fun and running in 24. It's ridiculous.

On Sunday afternoon, I finally had a mini-meltdown. I was trying to clean and cook and get things ready for the tree to make the holidays special for the girls. Of course, all of that self-imposed stress, just made me cranky and I could see I was going to make the holidays "special" in all the wrong ways for my daughters. Dumb ass.

Stinky and G. showcasing our little tree. It smells incredible.

So, since I can't turn around however many years of fuckedupedness in my overachieving, too hard on myself personality and just slow down, I decided to give myself a gift instead. I'm going to use one of my mandatory unpaid furlough days this Wednesday. I plan on using it to sleep in a little, paint my room, go for a nice long run outside, and do the Christmas shopping we didn't get done this Saturday. I'm already feeling a million times better just knowing it's coming up. So, tomorrow is a mini-Friday. Merry Christmas to me!

Don't Let It Bring You Down, It's Only Castles Burning

This is what Stinky looked like a lot when she was little and how I feel right now...Just kidding...Mostly.

Okay. So, the girl backed out. She seemed super into the apartment, until I told her what references the landlord needed. Then she told me that the place "wasn't really right" for her. Whatever. I have no more leads and I'm not sure what to do next. I'll have to think on it some, and see if I can come up with some other options. Most of the people who have looked at it came from Craigslist. The fliers didn't get me jack and so I stopped putting them up. I might try the hospital and see if there are billboards or rental lists for med students or something. Wouldn't it be great if I could find someone to rent my place, so I could finally shut the hell up about it already?

Okay. I want to get away from the bad stuff and move onto talking more about my new place. It still doesn't seem real sometimes. It should be great, but also a lot of work. I'm lucky because I have a lot of people who have offered to help me. Of course, as I've written on here before, I'm not always the best about either asking for or accepting help. I'm sure it has something to do with both my Irish Catholic upbringing and my orphan issues that make me worry about being a "bother" to other people. Which I know is stupid. I personally don't say things I don't mean, so if I offer help to someone, I really want to help them, and am a little sad if they don't accept. So, why would it be any different for anyone else?

I'm constantly working to get better at changing the things that bug me about myself, and that whole "not letting people help me" issue I have is one of the things I'm trying to work on. Logically I know that not asking for or accepting help when I really want/need it can make me seem passive/aggressive and confusing. I strive not to be either of those two things. So, when my friend Libby asked me if I needed help moving, I said, "Yes, please" (even though it made me VERY uncomfortable) and when my friend J. offered to help me do my hardwood floors, I first said, "oh, I'm sure I can figure it out..." then caught myself, and tried to graciously accept her offer. And you want to know what? It didn't kill me. Weird. So, I guess what I'm saying is, be very careful what you offer me. I just might take you up on it.

Then Again the Same Old Story

Here is a picture of a crazy person doing exercises downtown.

I'm trying to stay positive, but it's getting tougher and tougher. I put up well over 30 fliers around town the last few days and all it got me was one phone call. ONE. The girl came and looked at it today. She had a story...Because everyone has a story, don't they? She was trying to break her lease, since she didn't get along with her roommate, but she wasn't sure how that was going to go down. She was going to try to resolve it by the end of the week and let me know one way or the other then. We'll see. So, now I'm going to be forced to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a classified ad in our college paper. Whatever. If it worked, it would be so much cheaper than paying the $5,000 of rent I'm responsible for from now until the end of July. Man, I hope it works.

Sooooo, yeah. Obviously I'm a little stressed about all of this and I still have to work all day and come home and be a mom and go to all the girls' stuff and not get to run because I'm busy hanging fliers and waiting around for people to look at my apartment. It all makes for one, big cranky mom cocktail. I did warn the girls last night that I have a bad combination of factors going on and not to take my attitude personally until I can find a renter. Then right after that, I was dropping Coadster off at the high school and this kid was driving the wrong way and almost hit my car. It's possible that I may have called him a dumb ass outloud, in front of Stinky, but who can remember now. Stinky started laughing and before I could say anything in my own defense, she covered for me by saying, "I know - that bad combination". Exactly.

And we all know that life is never all bad or all good. It's a confusing mixture of everything... Sometimes all at once. So, tonight when I went to Coadster's show choir concert, I sat next to the cutest couple. They had been married forever and were still sweet and funny and flirty with each other. They introduced themselves to me and it turned out that their daughter was in Stinky's grade and we had a great talk before the show, and it was such a nice way to take my mind off of my stupid, dumb subletter trials.

Because Time Won't Give Me Time

Here is a photo of a guy putting up fliers that I took last Fall. Now I'm that girl putting up fliers.

I know I've yacked on here about what a small town this is, and how everyone pretty much knows everyone else's business in whatever circles they're in. It doesn't bother me, because I'm an open person and try not to do anything that I'd be ashamed for people to know. Plus, my life is so damn mundane that if people talked too much about it, they'd all pass-out and go into boredom comas. So, now that I'm trying to get someone to rent my apartment, I thought I'd let this whole small town yacking work in my favor. I started telling everyone I knew that I needed a subletter and hoped that it would spread like wildfire. I suppose that it would work better if I could make it more salacious. In keeping with the whole "trying to buy a house is like trying to find a relationship" analogy; it does kind of feel like I'm trying to move onto a better domestic situation and my apartment just won't get over me and let me go. If only my apartment could meet a new tenant that it liked even better than me, we could both get some kind of closure. There. That had a little more drama to it. Now it might be more fun for people to tell their friends about, who tell their friends and so on and so on and so on...

So, I've spent much of my breaks and lunches and after work time, putting up fliers around town. The drag is that it hasn't yielded even one phone call so far. The upside is that I've been running into people I haven't seen in forever. I guess there's always good and bad in everything.

Anyway, I guess I'll just keep putting up fliers everyday in hopes that my apartment and I can resolve our differences, get over each other, find ourselves in better situations and move on.

At Times You Have a Very Unladylike Way of Running Out

Here is another costume from Halloween: Pac Man with Inky and Blinky and Ms. Pac Man.

Sooooo, I have good news and bad news. I think I'll give you the bad news first. The guy who looked at my place, said he'd get back to me in a week or two. In rental terms, that's like him flipping my place the bird. Everyone in this town knows that if you want a place, you have to claim it before you leave, or it could be gone.

It sucks for me. That was the last lead I had. I'm stepping up my efforts now. I just put a sign up in the front yard, I made fliers to tack up all over campus and downtown and any place I can find with a bulletin board. I've never been one of those people who have lived a charmed life. I didn't have rich parents, I paid for college myself by taking out loans and working two jobs over full time and financially raised two girls by myself. I know how to work my ass off. If there's something I want that I can get by working hard, I will have it. Sadly, I've never been particularly lucky (see the lack of a charmed life comment above). So, I can do the work to put fliers up and Craigslist it and get the word out, but I can't make luck happen. If any of you people who have lived charmed lives have luck to spare, I would really appreciate some right about now. Thanks. Love, Churly.

Now, finally for the good news....Coadster was named student of the week at her high school. Basically, she was nominated because she is in three sports, five choirs and three community service organizations and has a positive attitude and is very supportive of her teammates. Apparently, the people in her school have never been around her when she just wakes up...Just kidding. I'm as proud as hell of her and wish I had even half of her energy and compassion. She's pretty damn cool.

I Stretched Back and I Hicupped and Looked Back on My Busy Day

Here is another bucolic Iowa shot.

Oh, kids. I'll apologize in advance. This will be one of those, "I'm so busy posts". As if I'm the only person who has ever tried to buy a house as a single parent and still had to work all day and go to all their kids' functions. The whole process is dizzyingly overwhelming, and I have even less time than before, but duh, how great is it that I might actually get a house out of all of this? Pretty fucking great. So, please pardon my spazziness about stupid details, and know that I feel very lucky to be able to have this kind of stress in my life.

Soooo, blah, blah, blah. I did some house hunting related stuff tonight. Whatever it was went pretty well. I promise to give you details once things are solidified one way or the other.

Tomorrow night is senior night for cross-country. It is the first thing where we publicly recognize the fact that our kids won't be here next time this year bugging us for rides home from cross-country practice and to buy them desserts for team dinners. I'm supposed to go at 5:30 and decorate Coadster's locker. I'm making Stinky go with me, so she can show me how all the cool kids' parents do it. I don't want her to be the only kid with horribly embarrassing baby pics plastered all over her door, while all the other runners have signs of encouragement. (Although, I do think it would be funny to put some of those photos up along with the encouraging posters) Then we'll eat and I'll very uncomfortably walk up to the front of the room with Coadster when she gets her letter and probably some kind of certificate. Then I'll finally get to go home and go running. Ahhhh.

I Have to Learn How to Live or I'll Die

Here is some graffiti.

I think I'm going to do a weird, morbid writing exercise tonight. It's what I can remember, with a little artistic license thrown in - you know how I usually do it. Enjoy:

I had never been to a Mormon wake before. I don't think I'd actually been to any kind of wake before. I remember going to a priest's funeral once, but it seemed big and impersonal. This Mormon wake was small and contained and there was a dead body right there in the room with us.

I met him before and talked to him when he came to our house to pick my brother up. In fact, I had just seen him a few days ago. My brother was in the Big Brother/Big Sister program and they gave him this guy. He was a bishop or a deacon or whatever Mormon's call their higher up guys. He seemed nice, but I never had time to get to know him. I don't even remember his name. I wonder if my brother does?

He picked my brother up to go to a Big Brother/Big Sister picnic at Lake Pleasant. I don't know what else happened, but I know that a bunch of them decided to swim out to an island. When Bill got there, he couldn't find his big brother. No one else could either. His big brother never made it. He drowned on the way there, after swimming right next to my brother.

So, we were at his wake and it was very small and his dead body was right there. His mother came up to us. She wore one of those big, several layered buns on the top of her head. She asked, "Did you say goodbye to him?" I assumed she was talking to my brother and I stepped behind him, just in case she meant me. My brother mumbled something, like he always did. We could never understand him and I think he wanted it that way. "You should touch him," his mother told us.

She took both of our hands and walked us to the body. I was afraid of him. He was so pale. He didn't even look real. "come on," she insisted. I looked at my brother and he kept his eyes to the floor, but he put his hand on the dead man's wrist. I didn't think I could do it, but I looked at the woman and knew there was no getting out of it. I touched his finger. I took my hand away so fast, I'm not even sure what it felt like. The woman hugged my brother and when she released him, we took off to find my mom and beg her to let us leave.

I Think I Thought I Saw You Try

Here is some graffiti of a boy.

I think tonight I'll just talk about a few of our obsessions. The first one is Stinky's cell phone. She is so obsessed with texting, that she made a fatal error last night. I've told her a million times NOT to bring her phone into the bathroom. There's no need for it there and there are too many things it could drown itself in. Of course, since she's 15, she didn't listen to me and it fell into the bathtub as it was draining. Oops!

Then I told her to take the battery out and put both the phone and the battery in front of a fan to dry out over night. Her sister suggested putting it in the toaster oven to dry out. She said it was faster. I told her that didn't sound like a very good idea. Guess which one of us she listened to? That's right. Stinky put her phone into the toaster oven until both the battery and the phone were starting to melt and turn into Shrinky Dinks. Um, duh. Of course, Stinky was horrified and started trying to shame and blame her sister. I told her to knock it off. She had made two bad decisions in a row. She was allowed to be upset about it, but not to direct that anger at anyone else who was mistaken, but still just trying to be helpful. Stinky told me she couldn't see anything positive in the situation.

After she went in her room and calmed down, we were able to come up with a solution. We do have insurance on our phones (I know how we all are). It still costs $50, which I refuse to pay, since I wasn't the one who made the wrong choices (that time, anyway). Stinky had $25 that she was going to bring with her to her church group's trip to Adventureland to pay for her food there. I told her I would spot her the rest until she could pay me back and we bought a bunch of healthier snacks for her to sneak into the park when she goes. I also refused to deal with the cell phone insurance company, since I hate doing that kind of practical stuff, and again, I didn't kill my favorite obsession (that time, anyway). So, Stinky had to go on the website and figure out how it all worked. She did a great job and her phone should be delivered to my place of business tomorrow.

Here is some graffiti of a girl.

LauraB. from What Fresh Hell is This blog, turned me on to the show Nurse Jackie on Showtime. It stars Edie Falco, who I've always loved and it is awesome. I watched the first 5 episodes in one sitting and am jonesing for more. It's about a woman who is really great at taking care of everyone else's needs and fucked-up situations, but not her own. It looked a little familiar. Hmmmm...

I've also started watching the first episode of the first season of Dexter and it looks really great too. It's a damn good thing I don't have anything else to do, or I would be in big, big trouble. Ahem.

Oh, and one last obsession. FMDM has been bugging me for a while to try a game on XBox called Peggle. It's kind of like pinball, but so much better and bigger and gayer. When you finish a level, there are fake fireworks noises, and giant rainbows and they play the Hallelujah Chorus and I get to celebrate my wonderfulness at video games again and again and again.

Okay, those are enough obsessions for now. Laura B. tagged me to do a meme about obsessions, but I'm not very good with the structure right now, since I've apparently been piddling all my time away staring at glowing boxes. I still may try to do that meme, but if I don't get around to it, this is my lame-ass attempt.