How high the water, Mama?

I went in to fix some stuff on the amended answers post that used to be HERE, and Blogger ate the whole freaking thing.

*sigh*

This post has been recreated. Just like on Unsolved Mysteries!
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The short, short version is this: I left my beloved Republic after moving to an undisclosed city there to take the bar, in hopes of getting a job in Texas after law school. I didn't get any such job, so I moved to Olympic Village, Red State. Four weeks to the day after I arrived, I was pulling out in my little Mazda, essentially running for my life due to a certain hurricane bearing down rather rapidly upon our general vicinity.

We had originally decided to stay when Katrina wasn't headed for us, but when she shifted after getting into the Gulf, we heard that our shelter was a rather crappy place to be. So we loaded up the car, the cats, and two bags of clothes and hit the road. We drove 10 hours to our safe destination and have been with family ever since. The cats are fine; we are fine (albeit ridiculously clothed, myself particularly, as you'll see).

Of course I'm glad that we weren't hurt and that we have our most important irreplaceable possessions (mainly us and the cats), but I do miss - as horrible as this sounds - really silly stuff like my hairdryer and my new shoes that I never got to wear and my briefcase. I mean, the whole point of a quick evacuation was to take ONLY WHAT I NEED TO SURVIVE. And, apparently for me, my hairdryer should have been one of those things.

It's one of the first items I bought when we went shopping for toiletries and stuff. That and a hairbrush. At least I remembered my toothbrush.

I also was really disappointed with the selection of clothes I brought. I mean, most of the stuff I brought I despise so much, I don't even wear it when I'm at home alone. I don't know what's wrong with me. Well, I think most of my favorite clothes was dirty and I didn't want to pack a bag of dirty clothes. Since we got here, we've pretty much been doing laundry every other day and buying clothes and stuff.

To be semi-serious for a moment or two - we have plenty of insurance and so, even if our house was completely lost, we're way better off than a lot of people there. We're very lucky that way, that we were able to get out, that we had transportation, that we had a little bit of time to gather some things and put them in an upper level office where they hopefully survived. If that stuff survived, then everything else is replaceable. Annoying to do so, but replaceable. We had just gotten our first couch on Thursday. We got our first area rugs on Tuesday. I hadn't even completely unpacked yet. Oh well...it saves me a bit of work, I suppose. Heh...also, my Red State bar application is probably soaked or lost or whatever and it's due this week, so it's HIGHLY unlikely I'll be applying for the bar soon.

Our house was situated right between a bay and the ocean, so there is a good chance that the water got it if the wind or other things crashing into it didn't. We still don't know, though, and so I always hesitate to buy another thing of hair gel or whatever because I keep thinking, I just bought a ton of this and it's at home. Then I have to remember, I may not have a home. It's a really weird thought. I wish I just knew one way or another so I wouldn't be in this limbo stage.

I don't know when we'll return. I don't know HOW we could return, even if we wanted to. Until then, we're lucky to be with family who will let us eat them out of house and home for a while.

Anyway, now to the fun part where you get to see my illogical thought process in selecting items to bring in a crisis.

1. Anti-natals. Just enough to last me until next Saturday....uh-oh.
2. Three, count 'em, three things of floss. I love the floss.
3. Last bit of Flonase, since Dr. Evil never gave me a refill.
4. New toothbrush. I got my Yahoo email reminder saying I was due for my 3-month toothbrush tomorrow.
5. Old toothbrush. I had to get by with something until tomorrow.

1. Dri-Fit running cap. Nice sweat stain pointed out by lower arrow.
2. Memoirs of a Geisha and The Beautiful and the Damned.
3. Cell phone manual. We just got new phones on Friday with local numbers because we wanted local people to be able to call us without it being long-distance. And now that the area is under sand or water, they're mostly unusable. You get a "Due to the hurricane, your call cannot be completed at this time" message whenever you try to call. If we had just held onto our old numbers for one more day, we would be fully operational. Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?
   
4. Stuffed bear who travels everywhere with me. Love me, love my bear.
   
5. Ipod.
6. Ipod accessories. Not pictured is my piggyback battery which provides around 60+ hours of battery. Truly a lifesaver. I highly recommend.
   
7. Headphone splitter, except...see #14.
8. Prilosec. Self-explanatory. Lots of stress = lots of reflux. All night drive + horrific gas station coffee = no esophagus.
9. Sunglasses bag thing-y.
10. Splenda. Too many places don't provide it. I'm down to 2 packets now. I tried to buy more at Target but they didn't have packets, only the giant box of powder.
11. $100 refund check from my school. I was going to be damned if that got washed away. I waited for a month for it to be forwarded. It came on Friday afternoon.
12. Card from Charlotte (best friend in law school) with pictures of us inside. These are the only pictures I brought. All our other photo albums and stuff are in the office. I hope they're okay.
13. Hand lotion. I also brought cuticle cream. This girl values nice cuticles.
14. Headphones. Except I only brought one pair. So the splitter was a bit unnecessary.

1. Ugly shirt that I like. But it has horrible bleach stains on the collar and the bottom seam had been unraveling about, oh, a year now.
2. White t-shirt with bad armpit stains and a small hole in the front. I'm such a moron.
   
3. Fugly pink shirt I bought as part of a Halloween costumer in 2001. I don't even wear it at home, so why I dragged it with me to escape and wear as a refugee is beyond me.
4. Ugly green shorts I only wear to golf in because they have great pockets for extra balls and tees.
5. To match, my favorite ugly golf shirt. Because I plan on playing a lot of refugee golf?
6. Horrible jeans that were too big at the waist and too tight in the thighs. I brought these because???

Luckily, I did bring a few other items and since then, I've bought new t-shirts from Old Navy and some jeans from the Gap. I still wish I had saved at least one suit (already tailored, so no wait) and shoes. Oh well. By the way, Old Navy is having jeans on sale 2/$40, so if you need jeans for some reason (like you only brought ugly pants in your great escape), I'd go there.

I know this post was sort of long and boring, but trust me - the original post was longer and perhaps boring-er.

Thanks again to everyone who has sent emails and offers of help. I'm okay, you're okay, we're all okay. Or something.

--E. L. M.

McPan, Junior

In the meantime, meet the latest addition to the family:



We left behind A's car in the evacuation. We're betting it didn't survive. And if it did (which would truly be miraculous), then it was due for replacement anyway. He's had it since '92 or '93. However, he is sad that it had to go out like this. He had high hopes for driving it until the engine fell out or something. His car took us on our first date and to the airport for the honeymoon, and all over the place. As Johnny Cash would say, "I been everywhere, man." A couple years ago, he cleaned it out and found the receipt to my engagement ring. Yeah. It was due for replacement.

I'm not a witch! I'm your wife!

Hmm...what I've been up to lately...well, I got to do some travel, see some family, and catch a country music concert.

I'll talk about the concert, because it's probably the most exciting thing to write about. We got to the venue pretty early because we're nerds. It was supposed to start at 8, I think. Well, whatever time it was supposed to start at, it didn't. Fifteen minutes went by. There were some half-hearted chants and the occasional clapping, but nothing happened. Twenty minutes went by and a guy came up to the microphone.

"Are y'all ready to see [performer]?!" At this point, the crowd are wild. "Well, we're having a few problems right now, but we're going to start the show just as soon as possible." Now the crowd are going to the bathroom in droves.

About 40 after, the show finally begins. It turned out to be a really good show, and this guy is an incredible musician and performer. Of course, there was the front-row skank who insisted on pole-dancing (except minus the pole) throughout the entire concert. If I had paid the money to be behind her, I would have thrown a beer bottle at her head. Some woman crawled up onstage toward the end. She was politely rebuffed by a very large man in a suit.

Anyway, what made this concert blog-worthy is that I had all these wild thoughts that the performer who came out might not be the real performer. I mean, it happened in this movie, so why couldn't it happen in real life? I didn't dare say any of these thoughts aloud because I didn't want to admit that a) I had seen this movie in the theaters, or b) that I once owned the soundtrack. Because then I would feel that I would have to justify owning the soundtrack (really, not bad) and then it would all go downhill from there.

I also had another thought regarding the movie and the concert. Really, how could I tell if the artist was the same? He's never seen without the hat - and if you know who I'm talking about, trust me, you DON'T want to see him without the hat. I have and it's not pretty. So I got to thinking about other well-known hat-wearers and how some people really are just a heck of a lot better looking with a hat on than without.

Say, Garth Brooks. I mean, he always wore that big dumb hat. But once you saw what he looked like without it, you really wanted him to put it back on. Same thing with Ed Belfour. He's always such a mystery with those cool blue eyes and you wonder what he's thinking. But then he takes off the mask and you think, geez, he's sort of funny looking. There's always Zorro and Batman and Spiderman and other masked dudes, too, and I guess each one deserves case-by-case analysis. But someone who was perhaps better looking without the mask would be Westley from The Princess Bride. I just don't think the mask did much for him. I mean, it didn't hurt, but he was clearly better off without it.

Other than that, I am just hanging out, reading the Sporting News's hockey preview, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Beautiful and the Damned, and thinking that I really love Diet Dr. Pepper.

See...it wasn't worth me making a post. Now you wish I hadn't posted at all.

A Thousand Miles From Nowhere

Expect posting to be light to nonexistent in the next few days.

In the meantime, I leave you with a mishmash of things.

First, a quiz!

You Are 40% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too damn weird to do anything about it!

How Weird Are You?

Second, a stalker story love story thought in general

I don't use anything less than five-pepper pepper at home, unless a recipe specifically calls for something like, say, white pepper. I just love pepper. It's so...tasty! And I have this grinder, which is about the only one I could afford. All the rest that I liked were getting dangerously close to $100 and over. At Williams-Sonoma, they have a whole area where you can test-grind. It's heavenly. I probably test-ground six different grinders, four of which I couldn't possibly afford. For what it's worth, my grinder is not the greatest but is definitely the best out of any other ones I've owned. I really like this one, though. It reminds me of the windmill hole at the miniature golf course, haha.

Back to the story. But...this guy. This guy (and apparently, his brothers as well) is stupendously fabulous. Sometimes I have a hard time reading his posts. I'm all about the pictures. It's not even eye candy for me. It's eye food. Much more substantial than candy, I tell you.

If I hadn't already eaten breakfast weren't already married didn't live probably a very long ways away weren't afraid of being put in jail, I would totally hide behind a bush under his kitchen window and break in every time he's finished cooking. Sure this would probably scare him. But hopefully I could get away with it at least once and manage to steal away some of that food before he realizes this is my M.O. and gets a restraining order on me.

Third, I received a letter already from a judge I applied to for a clerkship. She said thanks for the letter and that was about it. Hmm.

Finally, a factoid.

I'm fast approaching my 700th post. I feel like I should get some kind of plaque or at least a certificate. I mean, I remember the anticipation when we went to the New Year's game where Brett Hull had the chance to make his 600th goal. But 700 goals? Wow! Gretzky, Howe, Marcel Dionne, Phil Esposito, Mike Gartner, Brett Hull. Obviously, 700 posts is not the same as 700 goals. But I have always enjoyed the number 700, so I've been looking forward to reaching that point.

Also, it was the easiest way for me to segue into hockey. I'm so glad hockey is coming back. If a network doesn't pick it up soon, I'll probably buy one of those cable packages where you get a lot of the games.

See y'all on the flip side.

Comedy of Errors, Act V: Man and wife! Say man and wife!

Prequel
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV

We eventually get to the wedding town, with approximately an hour to go before liftoff. Special K (my little sister and maid of honor) and I take off for the salon. Now it was a race against time. We get to the salon, and luckily, because it's a small town, they aren't going to be mean and deny us the appointment or anything. They sit me down and I have no idea of what I want, except "Up....They said it's going to be 100 today."

She did a good job with my vague direction, but got flustered by the time pressures and my uncooperative mega-straight hair. She ended up calling the salon owner at home and soon I had the entire salon working on my hair. I felt like a diva.

Time was running out and I was getting hysterical. "Whatever pieces are sticking out, cut them off! Just cut them off so no one can see them! I'll cut off all my hair after the honeymoon, so it doesn't matter!" They ended up trimming around my hair sculpture like I was a topiary.*

Special K and I hustled out the door and into the grocery store a block away for bags of ice. Here we are, arms full of ice, wearing shorts and button shirts (so we can take them off to get into the dresses without pulling a t-shirt over our heads and messing it up), hot, frantic, and definitely had that crazed look in our eyes. The kind where, if you see it, you don't want to mess with it. Me especially.

The cashier, whose nametag I believe read Hello My Name Is Obvious, sort of chuckles and drawls, "You girls look like you're going to a wedding."

"Yeah, MINE. And I'm late, so can you hurry, please?" It was like a movie. A really, bad movie. Cheesy lines, dirty looks, perfect timing, everything.

We pull up to the site, probably tires screeching and all. I am a total bitch to everyone I see (I know, surprising!) and I begin unloading the car myself before having my singular moment of clarity that day. Wait a minute. I'm the damn bride here - get someone else to unload all this crap! I have better things to do! Like run upstairs, lock myself in the bathroom and begin crying. It wasn't supposed to be this way! I was supposed to have a good breakfast with delicious cinnamon rolls and show up here with an hour to spare, relax, take some pre-wedding pictures, and then go waltz out and accept my MRS like I just won an Oscar. It should have been easy. I didn't have any lines to memorize, just the occasional "yes" and maybe even "I do" if I could swing it. Hell, as long as I didn't have a repeat of the engagement night and say No, we'd be fine.

After ruminating on all this, I realized that I was only wasting valuable time and hogging the bathroom to boot. So I came out. After the obligatory picture with Mom, picture with Dad, picture with bridesmaids, and every other conceivable combo, I peek out the window. Wait a minute...where is everybody? There's nobody on the bride's side! I feel the boo-hoos starting to come back.

I inquire into this, and am told that, due to the heat (and the fact that I was late...I think we started the ceremony only 10 or 15 minutes late), everyone was standing under a tree on the groom's side. Forget the boo-hoos; the bitch is back. "Tell those ushers to usher some butts into seats because I'm ready to come out!"

The ceremony was less eventful than all other events preceding it. Except it was extremely hot. I looked up the temperature earlier to see just how hot it had been and the official temp was 101. We got married a little after 1:00, outdoors on the prairie, so I imagine it was definitely around 100 by then.

There were a couple of times during the ceremony when I could see the minister spitting when he talked and I almost lost it, laughing.

I suppose it all came together in the end since I've got the paperwork to prove it. As a bit of Random McPan Trivia, Bryan Garner's (editor of Black's...I'm sure we've all used it to look up nudum pactum and then felt disappointed by the definition) dad was in attendance. Long story.

After all that, what did we do? Something relaxing? Something romantic? Something involving champagne and hot tubs or even...spaghetti in an alley?



No.

We drove to a MAIL BOX.

You heard me. A mail box. We had to drop off my FAFSA before the honeymoon so it would hopefully be processed before I started school. GOD FORBID that we drop it off a day early showing my new marital status and then like, we don't get married. I think it's safe to conclude that we are overly cautious NERDS.

And if that's not bad enough, we went to Wal-Mart after that because A forgot to pack his watch and wanted to buy one for the honeymoon. And since we met at a Wal-Mart and apparently went there after getting married (I say apparently because I was so frazzled by then that I have absolutely no recollection of it), I believe that completes the circle.

So, umm. The End.

* See here for some particularly funny topiaries if they had been on my head.

Friday Cat Blogging

Susan: I want to spend the night with you.
Josh: Do you mean sleep over?
Susan: Well... yeah.
Josh Misha: Well, okay... but I get to be on top.

Drugs?

Thank you, no. I'm straight.
I meant, are you in here for drugs?
Why are you here?
Drugs.

WHY. DOES. EVERYTHING. HAVE. TO. BE. SO. *******. COMPLICATED?!?!??!??!

Really. If I'm bald by say, next week, it's because I've torn all my hair out.

All I wanted was a refill on Flonase!!! Sure, I could probably get another 6 days or so out of it, and I might could even skip a day or something. My health plan gives me the choice of a $x co-pay if I use an outside pharmacy like Walgreens or something or less $x if I use the "preferred" pharmacy. Obviously, I'm cheap, so I stand the inconvenience and use the preferred pharmacy. Today, I called to transfer my prescription to the Olympic Village pharmacy.

We can't fill that because your prescription is originally out of Law School City.
But you're the same organization.
Yes, but especially for chronic conditions like that, you need to see your primary provider.
It's an existing prescription for nasal allergies.
Exactly.
No, I mean, it's not like I'm asking you to give me, say Vicoden. It's Flonase. I've already been diagnosed, and it's a prescription with 6 months worth of refills on it. I'm asking for one refill until I can get in to see my provider.
You shouldn't have left LSC without a month's supply of pharmaceuticals.
[At this point, I wished I could go through the phone and strangle him. I don't really need some pharmacy-bot telling me what I should have been thinking about a month prior. I turned on the bitch-tastic charm.] Oh, but see, I didn't. I'm not stupid, you see. But I will run out at this rate because this obviously isn't going anywhere. Look. I just want ONE Flonase. Please?
I'm sorry, but you're going to have to make an appointment with your provider.

-----I call the provider's office-----

I'm sorry, but Dr. Evil doesn't have a schedule.
Pardon?
Dr. Evil doesn't have a schedule.
Uhhhh....What?
DR. EVIL. DOESN'T. HAVE. A. SCHEDULE.
I heard you fine...I just don't understand what that means.
It means she doesn't have a schedule.
Let me just ask you this: how can I get a refill of Flonase? (thinking to self, gosh, getting a refill for CRACK is probably easier...less bureaucracy...but almost certainly some co-pay)
Try calling back tomorrow.
Will Dr. Evil have a "schedule" then?
I don't know, but she doesn't have one today.
When you say "doesn't have a schedule" do you mean "doesn't have any appointments?"
No. I mean, she's not scheduled to work yet. So I don't know when she will have a schedule that I can make you an appointment on.
So, I may never get a refill?
Call again tomorrow.
Can I just see a group nurse who will authorize me one refill?
No. You have to see your provider, Dr. Evil.
You just said you don't know if and when Dr. Evil will have a "schedule."
I'm sorry, but you'll have to call again tomorrow. Thank you.

I know I just said this a few weeks ago, but honestly....'Cuz **** 'em, that's why! I had no idea Pop Copy was "managing" my health care.

She said don't gimme no lines

This post reminded me of a song I really liked when I was in late junior high or whenever it was popular. I haven't found many other people who remember it, but I remember thinking it was totally awesome that they used PUNCTUATION in the song. I know, dorky, but it's a catchy song. Really. It was called "I Love You Period," by Dan Baird, formerly a member of the Georgia Satellites. Perhaps you recall "Keep Your Hands To Yourself"? Or maybe I do because I had a boyfriend in a band who covered that song once and I thought he was really hot (the boyfriend, not Dan Baird). At any rate, in the punctuation song, I especially enjoyed the "I want to hold you in parentheses" line. Maybe because I am fond of the use of parentheticals? (Why do I insist on embarrassing myself like this?!)

Comedy of Errors, Act IV: The Runaway Bride

Prequel
Act I
Act II
Act III

For breakfast, my family and I went to one of my favorite local restaurants. I was starving and really wanted to eat because I was afraid I wouldn't get a chance to if I didn't do it now. People were dragging their feet. I'm sure you can imagine it takes a lot of coordination to get that many girls out the door at once. I began to get impatient halfway through breakfast.

Sister P was piloting the bride's car. Now, I don't want to hurt her feelings or make her feel bad, but it is a fact that, about 10 years earlier, she got sort of lost going to my brother's wedding. I was in the car then, too. The morning of the wedding I didn't even remember that mishap or think about karma or anything. I was in a hurry. We had to get to the wedding site, a town away. I had to get my hair done. I had to load up the car with the wedding supplies. I had to buy ice for the beer. Suffice it to say, I had a lot on my mind.

We take off, and I'm drying my hair in the car. The trip should take about 20 minutes, tops. About 30 minutes goes by and I realize that something is horribly wrong. I look at the highway signs. Wait...isn't that city in...the next state?! Oh ****!!! ****! **********!!! We never exited to get onto the highway to get to the right city. ****! ARRRRRRGHHHHH!!!! There is NO place to turn around out there. We finally saw a turnaround, but there was a state trooper in it and an "Emergency Vehicles Only" sign, so we pressed on.

My hair appointment was for 11:30. It was 11:30 now. We were, at best, 30 minutes away from the wedding site.

I was rapidly becoming an inadvertent runaway bride.

Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues

Finally.

I have sent my first batch of clerkship applications out. I've been working half-heartedly on it for about a week, gathering info, asking for letters and transcripts, working on my resume, etc. I set a deadline of um, yesterday. Obviously, I missed it. But I met it today!

Here's just a sampling of things that went screwy:

• I ran out of resume paper.
  
• I ran out and bought more, taking care to get the same brand, weight and color. Naturally, they're two different shades of white. So half of my resumes and 1/4 of my letters are in varying shades of "pure white."
• The slogan on the resume paper box says "Because it's important." You're damn right. That's why I bought paper with more cotton in it than, say, my underwear. Hmm, too personal. You're right. Than my socks, then.
• The envelopes wouldn't seal.
  
• After I had done all the labels and assembling, I realized that these envelopes were craptastically defective in that they didn't seal. I probably used up all the glue if there was any to begin with by overwetting. I tried using less. No, still didn't stick. I didn't trust the metal brads so I ended up using scotch tape, which didn't look very nice or even very secure. But I only had 15 minutes until the post office closed and I needed them weighed due to varying pages and such. So, scotch tape it was. At least it'll be a memorable resume.
• The labels I bought for the addresses used a template that I didn't have.
  
• It also didn't exist on the web, including Avery's website. I was in a very angry mood by then and so I called them. Condescendingly: "You can download that template from our website." "Really?! Because when I put the number into search, it claims it doesn't exist." She had to walk me through the stupidest, most absurdly hidden process to find the damn template.
• I kept printing out letters because of mistakes.
• Sometimes I would say things like, "I really want to come to your town! I hear the red light district is fantastic!" or something like that but then I would remember that that was for X Town and not Z Town. Things like that require a reprint. I would also say things like, "Enclosed are my transcripts from junior high and a letter of recommendation from my tennis coach" but it would turn out that only Judge A wanted junior high transcripts, and I had written that on all the other letters as well.
• A postal worker snickered when I said I was an attorney.
• Okay, so this isn't anything that technically went wrong. But it added to my annoyance.
  
• Postal worker A asked what it was I was doing and I said I was looking for a job.
• Oh? What do you do?
• [Uncomfortably] Uh...I'm an attorney.
• See, I hate saying that because A) nobody ever believes me and B) the people who actually know me also probably have a hard time believing it's true as well.
• She looked at me strangely, perhaps because I look like I'm about 20. This is when I heard Postal Worker B snicker when I said "I'm an attorney." I didn't laugh at him when he was amazed by the fact that he discovered his camera phone could take pictures, so I felt that wasn't very nice.
  

If I get a job out of this -- heck, if I get an interview (plural would be hoping for too much) out of this -- I will be surprised. Happy, but surprised.

Game on!

Haha...I might do this tomorrow night. If only CLE were as much fun. Or even BarBri, for that matter.

The Spin-Free Zone

Dear Fellow Spinners from Monday night,

I really liked your class. Honestly, I did. But I sort of woke up sore on Tuesday. My belly button told me that my lower half was thinking about filing for divorce from my upper half. I managed to put all that behind me and go to kickboxing. After that, my leg really began to hurt.

I really wanted to come back to y'all, so I tried to self-medicate with ice cream. Lots of it. It didn't work. And since Monday night, I've been maxing out on my recommended daily allowance of Advil. So, when I don't come to class tonight, it's not you...It's me. Really.

I know you'll probably talk about me, about how I must not have liked it, and how I probably couldn't take the pressure of the neverending uphill climb, and how you're better off without out-of-shape wimps like myself. I understand that you're hurt. And I know why you're saying these things. But I promise to come back to the next class!

I hope we can still be friends. If not, I hope we can remain professional, as I am really wanting to spin with y'all more in order to get in shape for the bike patrol job.

Sincerely,
E. Laramie McPan

Comedy of Errors, Act III: Getting to Yes

Prequel
Act I
Act II

No?! [Shock, awe, crestfallen-ness (?), disbelief perhaps more than anything]

Um...yes? [Tenatively. Definitely in question form.]

Well, don't say yes if you don't mean it!

Okay. Um...Yes. [This time with more firmness.]

I don't really remember what happened next, but I imagine that he quickly finished off the martini.

The next day, he dropped me off at the dorm (we used to call it "my office") and I called my parents and he called his.

I have no idea what his parents said or thought about the engagement, but I do know that he hadn't discussed this with them beforehand. And it goes to show that the man is clearly not a lawyer. I mean, would you ask a question you don't already know the answer to? At the very least, A should have prepared me better.

Hey, I gave him a chance to back out by saying No. So...don't look at me.

Fast forward to the picking of the best man, his friend from high school, B.

We're at a Dairy Queen in the middle of nowhere (No, not my hometown. Even more nowhere than that, so, hard core nowhere). I lean across the table and say to B in a low voice, "You know...if A doesn't show up, I'm holding you responsible for that." He looks moderately concerned. I smile. Now I'm talking through my teeth. "If he doesn't show up, I'm going to make you marry me whether you like it or not. So...You. Guys. Better. All. Be. There. ON TIME and in ONE PIECE." Very big smile now. My jaw is starting to hurt. I'm glad I didn't pursue a career in ventriloquism. Now B is clearly uncomfortable and looks rather queasy. I sit back in my chair and continue eating my Blizzard.

Fast forward to the "big week."

The rehearsal dinner consisted of about 10 large pizzas and 2 six-foot subs from Subway, two kegs of beer, lots of brownies and ice cream. Okay, sort of unusual, I know. But it was fun, cheap (two students getting married necessarily entails cheap), and I can guarantee that the 700 Club (what we called our place) had never been so clean. We borrowed a steam cleaner to vacuum and it took several tries before we could even see through the water. Ugh!

After 12 feet of sandwiches (which, by the way, you actually have to put a deposit down on the boards they make the sandwiches on...in case you too wanted Subway at your rehearsal dinner), we played croquet. Now, it's not that my family normally plays croquet; it just sort of happened that we had a croquet set laying around at the 700 Club. Okay, fine, you got me. We used to play croquet...for fun. Are you happy now?! Oh, and I learned that my dad is very good at croquet. Interesting.

I left the boys at the 700 Club to bachelorize A (I had my fears, but as long as no one died, I was okay) and went to the hotel with my family, spending my last night as a single woman sneaking gin and tonics in my room and wondering how I would enforce my threat to make B marry me if it came down to it.

The story you are about to see is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Are these the breasts of a forty year old?

No ma'am. They're very impressive... bordering on spectacular.

--------------------------------------------------

YESSSSSS! There is a police officer job available in Red City. And for once in my life, I meet ALL the job requirements (I know what you're thinking, and apparently there is no minimum height for this job):

Must be a high school graduate or GED equivalent, registered voter, 21 years or older, and have a valid driver's license. Must successfully complete a physical agility test, written exam, polygraph/voice stress analysis, extensive background investigation, psychological evaluation and oral interview.

Of course, it doesn't say I have to be a registered voter here or have a license in Red State. Hmm. I could probably pass a physical agility test with a little effort, and would really hope I could pass the written exam. I'm a bit concerned about the polygraph, but as long as I don't mention the fact I like to put children in headlocks in libraries, I feel confident I will do fine.

Also, with my latest mad skill of riding a stationary bike, maybe I will even get bike patrol! And trust me, the first skill I will learn is taking sweet jumps, while wearing my butt-padded police officer spandex shorts and POLICE-reflector helmet. That's hot. I bet that I'll be clearing, at a MINIMUM, 3 feet inches. Keep in mind, I'm only a beginner.

Truly, this is about the most awesome thing I have heard all week! I can't believe it! I always thought I looked good in a uniform. Okay, so actually, the only uniform I have ever worn is a band uniform,* but even so. I made all that polyester look good.

*I also wore a Star Trek uniform an entire weekend, but I'm assuming that pretend-uniforms don't count.

--------------------------------------------------

Kids, it'll grow back!

Comedy of Errors, Act II: A Very Long Short but Painful Engagement Story

I'll just admit it, the day of the engagement had to have been a terrible day for A.

We had our regular routine on the weekend, get up late (To parents: I mean, we got up late separately, of course!), eat a late breakfast, and then hang out, rinse, repeat.

The day of the engagement, we had a tiff. He wanted to take me back to the dorm (if you're my parents, that doesn't make any logical sense, since we weren't say, cohabiting or anything...never mind that, just disregard it and pretend you didn't just see that), and I didn't want to go.

You have to go back to the dorm. I'm going to [nearby city].
Why can't I come? [whine, whine]
I'm going to the mall. I have some errands to run.
I want to go to the mall too! [more whining]
You can't.
You could drop me off. You wouldn't even have to come to the stores with me.
No. I'll call you later and we'll go out to eat or something.

[whine, whine, whine. I lost the fight. He drove me to the dorm, where I proceeded to watch television until my brain turned to mush.]

As you can clearly see, this wasn't shaping up to be the "perfect proposal" by any means.

Later that day, he presented me with a Speak 'n Say. You know, the one with farm animals. It was supposed to be a decoy gift, but I didn't understand yet. Heck, I still don't understand. I think we threw it away this last move. I remained in a huffy mood over being left behind for the whole rest of the afternoon, especially when he insisted on going to dinner at 5:00.

I'm not hungry.
Well, I am. Let's go. Let's go to [nice place to eat].
I don't feel like it. I'd rather have [I'm sure I said something classy like Waffle House or IHOP].
Well, I want to go to [nice place]. Come on.
No!

[Wow. Could I make things any more difficult for him to propose nicely to me? Hmm. Probably so. Let's keep going.]

We went and I was already in a bad mood in general. We got to the restaurant and it was closed. It didn't open until, say, 6:00 or whenever.

See! Let's just go to IHOP.
No, I want to wait.
Well, I don't want to wait.

Eventually it opened and we were the only people there. He got a martini, which I despised because they're stinky. I had just started eating. I'm sure I was glowering as well.

[Yada yada yada...I don't remember what all was said here]...and...will you marry me?

I look up.

No.

Stick a fork in me. I'm ******* done.

Okay. When I decided to go to a salsa class at 5:30, it's because everybody likes to say salsa, right? I mean, as a condiment, it's #1 in America.

I show up and it's cancelled. There's a power step class and a spin class at the same time. This was a hard decision because I'm not coordinated but I also can't ride a bike. The lady at the front desk said I couldn't possibly fall off the bike and advised me to do the spin class. So I did.

The instructor was nice and helped me adjust my bike to "dwarf" settings (yes, I was surprised it came in dwarf). I know it was unnecessary to keep moving around to the side so I wouldn't stand directly behind the bike but I couldn't help myself. She looked at me strangely and I explained I hadn't ridden a bike since college and that was a disaster (someone let their big-ass dog out and it chased me. Rather than using the bike to pedal fast and escape, duh, I crashed the bike and began to run. Yes, I'm a lawyer. I didn't go into that much detail, though, with the instructor. I just said I really didn't ride a bike very well). I got on the bike like I was mounting a horse. She also instructed me to strap my feet in the cages and under no circumstances let them out. Scary. So I saddled up, put my feet in the stirrups and began to pedal.

One girl left about 40 minutes in. I thought she was coming back, but perhaps my imminent death was too much for her to take.

By the time I got off the bike, my legs felt like jelly. Not even nice jelly like mint jelly. Plain old nasty Grape Bama jelly. Ew. Afterward, the instructor asked me how I liked it, and I said I liked it fine (which was true...I can see how it is addictive). I think she was just being nice, because she said, "Well, for your first time, you did really good. You're a natural!" Which, if this was, say, skeet shooting or something that involved skill, I might agree. But being strapped to a bike and pedaling nonstop for 75 minutes...really, how hard can it be to mess that up? I also didn't mention that once, I almost fell off. It would have ruined the moment.

Anyhoo, me and my Grape Bama jelly legs are back home again, thinking we're never going to make it to kickboxing tomorrow or maybe even to the kitchen to eat.

Um, help.

Comedy of Errors, Act I: My trip down the snack food aisle

As promised, E. McPan: The Mini-Series


Rated PG-13 for sexual content and language.

Well, not really. I don't go into detail or anything. But I have to have this warning for my parents. They're the ones being strongly cautioned against reading it. Because, uhhhhh, there might be some reference to me spending the night at his place at one point. So, Mom and Dad, cover your ears at that part, haha.

-----

A was the first person I met at college.

We met at Wal-Mart.

My parents had driven me to College Town and, after unloading the van, realized that I was woefully unprepared for life on my own. I didn't have "basics" such as laundry detergent. Or even toothpaste. I forgot it. Since I didn't have a car or much spare cash at the time, they took me to the Wal-Mart. I say "the" Wal-Mart because there was only one. And it closed at like, 6 on Sundays.

I was standing in the snack food aisle pondering whether Zebra Cakes or Honey Buns were a better purchase when I "met" A. At least, that's where he spoke to me first: "Excuse me, are you a horn player?" Really, that's what he said. I felt freaked out by that odd query. Come on, if a stranger had said that to you in Wal-Mart, you'd feel violated too.

I gave him my best drop-dead look and said, Yes, very begrudgingly. I think he introduced himself. I tried to avoid further eye contact. Eventually he left because this "conversation" was going nowhere. My parents came down the aisle, having witnessed the entire exchange. "Who was that?"

"I have no idea. Some weirdo."

I met two girls in the downstairs wing later that evening and told them about the weirdo. "Ohhhhh," said one. They exchanged glances. "I see you've met A."

In the ensuing weeks, I never really warmed up to him. To be honest, I was rather standoffish a complete bitch to him. Um, for those writing a paper on this, bitchiness is a recurring theme, so you might want to note it.

He asked me out a few times, just for casual stuff, like going to lunch at Sonic, so maybe he wasn't even asking me out. At any rate, I always refused. Finally, one day in the auditorium, I said Yes, but with a strategy. I was determined to make it a horrible experience so he would be sorry he ever asked me out and would stop asking me out in the future.

He randomly selected the last place in the world I would want to eat at - the restaurant where my roommate Malibu Barbie was a waitress. She spied on us the whole time and would mouth things like, "Who is this guy?" and "Is this a date?" to me behind his back. I recall it being extremely strained (me pushing food around my plate, trying to avoid eye contact with both him and Malibu Barbie, while seeming sufficiently bitchy at the same time), but he doesn't recall it that way at all. Afterward, he dropped me off like The Worst Dinner In Mankind hadn't just happened and said, "See you tomorrow."

Obviously, this guy was a tough nut to crack. Or just a nut.

Eventually, he just cracked me. My personal kryptonite, is, sadly, band humor. I made some lame band-related joke and he laughed at it, so I thought he might not be 200% crazy, just maybe 80% or so. Also, he was kind to animals. Once, he rescued a fuzzy orange caterpillar off of the marching field and put it back in the grass. I think that was the real breaking point for me.

Fast forward a few weeks. I call home.

How's college?
Fine. Um, you remember that guy from Wal-Mart?
The one who was talking to you? The weird one?
Right. Well, we're, uh, sort of seeing each other now.

Fast forward approximately a year. I call home.

Dad: How's college?
Oh, you know. Same old, same old. I got engaged last night.
I think I better get your mother on the line.

Why didn't I think of this?

Dude. If I had known I could like, get paid to write about my obsession with earplugs, I would so have been there.

It's so not fair!!!

In other news, I have way too much free time if I'm reading articles like this and feeling jealous that it wasn't me testing them out getting paid to write about things only a fraction of the entire universe cares about.

I think it moved.

Jerry: Moved?

George: It may have moved, I don't know.

Jerry: I'm sure it didn't move.

George: It moved! It was imperceptible but I felt it.

Jerry: Maybe it just wanted to change positions? You know, shift to the other side.

George: No, no. It wasn't a shift, I've shifted, this was a move.

I got my first massage today.

Wait, let me back up.

I don't like to be touched.

Someone once described hugging me as like hugging a cat. I have cats. They generally don't like to be hugged. They're little and scrawny and they start clawing furiously at you if you squeeze too tight. So I'm not sure what that meant. I think maybe I just act like I don't want to be touched.

But I'm a giant (well...I mean...relatively speaking) 4'10 ball of stress. I don't relax well and for the most part, am not even interested in relaxing. Things that are "relaxing" don't make me relaxed. They make me tense. Like massages. Hot tubs. Pedicures. Laying on a beach. Sleeping.

But since I've been here in Red State, I've taken up three hobbies: unpacking, kickboxing, and (don't be jealous) chatting online with babes all day.

All three of those hobbies have given me some intense muscle soreness in my upper half. So I went in for an upper half massage. I had to ask how much clothes to take off. Pants were optional, so I kept them on. That was a mistake. It was hot underneath the blanket. Also, probably wearing jeans in the middle of the day in a really hot and muggy climate wasn't a good idea in general, but I prefer pants to shorts.

The lady was pretty nice and worked on my knots, I guess. All I heard was crunching in my back. I'm assuming that's good. She did the equivalent of a salon wash on my hair, except without shampoo or water. It sort of left my hair greasy from the lotion, so now I feel like it does need a wash.

I had to listen to more Yanni than I had listened to since I quit lyric ballet, but I guess Yanni is better than Enya, which is better than Kenny G, which is better than Zamfir. So, out of those choices, Yanni is ideal.

I tipped her $5 for a $30 massage. I hope that's standard. I never know these things. She gave me a bottle of water to "flush" my toxins. Since I haven't um, gone to the bathroom or anything, I think they haven't technically been "flushed" yet. Well, I'll have to go sooner or later, so I guess that solves that.

Eventually, I might be able to get into this "relaxation" thing.

Prequel

Since I'm unemployed I have lots of leisure time, I can watch a lot of daytime tv. Something I've noticed is that there are a lot of "stories" shows. Like, wedding stories, baby stories, building a house, or giving some sort of ultimatum on television (hello, awkward!), etc., ad nauseum.

Which got me thinking about my own "story" regarding how I met and married Mr. McP. It's an odd little story, and a bit funny if you've got a schadenfreude sense of humor, which I do. I got self-schadenfreude. I know, amazing.

The point: if you think it's funny, I won't be offended. In fact, I hope you can see and laugh at the absurdity of it. Also, there is some reenactment for dramatic effect (think Unsolved Mysteries...they always make it creepier than it probably was). But no animals were harmed in the making of this post. It's PETA-approved.

The truth: I figured that I could probably stretch this story into several posts. It's not mega-dramatic like E. Spat's incredible divorce story, and there's no way I'm as good of a writer (exhibit one: this sentence) but I'm going to steal her idea and break my story up into segments. Okay, so it's really a ploy to get my reader(s) to come back and check on me. Fine, you got me.

It's sort of like Titanic in that you know how it ends (I get married one way or another) but you still want to see the 500 car pile-up that led to it. Hmmm...maybe that's not the best analogy. Well, whatever. Expect E. McPan: The Mini-Series to begin on Monday.



P.S. - The other half of the story has been previewing my work and has decided that it DOES NOT reflect his side of the story. After every two sentences I hear, "That's not how it happened." So, consider this his Official Disclaimer as to his version.

I, however, endorse my version, and if the opposition doesn't like it, well, he can get his own blog. I checked earlier and "rebuttalblog.blogspot.com" is still available.

Friday Cat Blogging

Is it bad that Misha is nearly as long as the rug, which is nearly as long as the bed is wide? What can I say? He's a tall cat, I guess.

"I'm not fat! I'm big boned!"

I'm a-goin' down to Florida and get some sand in my shoes

Or maybe California and get some sand in my shoes
I'd ride that Orange Blossom Special and lose these New York blues.

I carefully unplugged my car from the charger, hoping I wouldn't do something horrible and uncontrollable like sneeze and touch the two points together while standing on a metal sheet or anything like that. Obviously...it didn't happen.

Right when I got to the railroad tracks, I saw the barriers come down and the lights began flashing and I'll be damned if it wasn't the orange blossom special. Really! A whole Tropicana train. Very long, too. I don't even like orange juice, but since I was in the middle of hoping my car wouldn't give out right then and being really hot because I wasn't running the a/c and very bored because I wasn't running the ipod...I wanted some o.j. really bad.

I got to Sears. They put in a new battery for free! Yay warranties!

Idiosyncratic savant

Okay...I was trying to trackback, but Haloscan tells me that, whoa, (yes, it said whoa) I need to slow down on the trackbacks. Ummm, what? I've been trying to trackback for 20 minutes. How much slower do they want?! Read the title - idiosyncratic savant. Not a true idiot savant. I even PAY for Haloscan!

What was my point? Oh yeah. I tried to trackback. It was out of my hands.

Never mind.

As seen at View Lulu's but driven to post by CBK. Who loves the Bruins. I can appreciate that. I even have the mug to prove it.

(Side note about the mug: For some reason, the handle is such that when right-handers use it, the B faces you. Which is okay. But then to everyone else, it just looks like a plain mug. When left-handers use it, it might provoke a fight in some places. I sometimes wonder about the placement of that logo.)

Well, enough rumination for the morning. My car battery is dead and I have to wait until Sears opens. Still under warranty - hooray!

Oh, back to the meme-thing. I'm supposed to list five idiosyncracies about me. We all know I can't count, but I figure that one shouldn't count. Plus, it can't be too hard, just looking around at any given post of mine. But I'll try to think of five NEW! ones just for y'all.

1. I have a bad habit of "checking" things to make sure they're off. I used to be really bad about it, returning home at least once a week just to "make sure" something was off. Eventually I set limits, like, if I got more than a mile away, I wouldn't go home and recheck the appliances. It pretty much works. And, strangely, since I've moved to Red State, I haven't returned home once to check on anything. Also, we got an auto-off coffeemaker, which soothed my troubled mind, like 45%. Well, and I stopped using heated styling products except a hair dryer, and even then only if I'm in a hurry. I always end it with a blast of cool air, just like the beauty magazines say to. Of course, I do that as a fire preventive measure, but no one at Allure has to know.
   
1. I would never leave something on when I left the house, like, the dishwasher, or God forbid, a DRYER.
   
2. And especially not a crock pot. I mean, come on!
   
2. Like CBK (well, sort of), I don't like eating meat off of a bone. First of all, it is messy. Second, it seems like a lot more work than it's worth. For every tiny hot wing, I have to expend a lot of energy to get the meat off. Same thing with crab legs. Plus, it's sadistic to sit there with those cracker-doohickeys and gnaw away at the crab legs.
3. I do a great imitation of the several instruments in the original Law & Order theme song. Great clarinet part, great guitar part. I really like singing instrument parts to songs. Like, perhaps, like it too much.
4. You know how some people crack/pop/whatever you call it their knuckles or their spine? Well, I crack my hips. Because it feels good (well, why do you crack your knuckles? See, your reason is stupid too.) But I do it in private because it tends to freak people out. It's the cost of being ridiculously limber.
5. I don't eat and drink together. Meaning, I save all of my beverage until I'm done eating. I hardly ever break this rule. It takes me a long time to eat and then an even longer time because I have to sit there and drink my drink. In college, at the caf, I would have at breakfast a glass of cranberry juice, a glass of milk, and a tall styrofoam cup of coffee. Eating with me was an all-morning event.
   

Well, there you have it. Five more reasons to commit me. Unless you're a really generous individual and tend to think of those things as "quirks," complete with "finger quotes."

Mem'ries...light the corner of my mind

I can't think that without thinking of either Big or The Naked Gun. Both good movies.

Anyway, I'm unpacking and reorganizing and throwing away some of my 8,000 cubic feet of crap I've been hauling around with me for years. I ran across a box of "really old" stuff, including my old postcard collection. Yes, I wasn't dorky enough to collect stamps themselves, but definitely dorky enough to collect postcards.

I think at the time, I thought it was cool. Since I didn't go to too many places, it was sort of neat to get post cards from places I had never been to. And when I was looking at them today, some of them really are pretty neat. I'll have to describe the really cool ones later.

But one in particular caught my eye tonight, because it had been torn up into little pieces and then taped back together. Hmm. I looked at the sender. Me. Okay...I sent myself a post card, tore it up, and taped it back together? Mind you, I was am was a mite odd, so I wouldn't put it past me.

I read the text. It was a postcard from me, written to my first boyfriend, about a year after we broke up (so...what, like, the sixth grade?). Apparently, my chatter about my messy hotel room was just too much for him to take. Or something. 'Cuz it was torn up and stuff.

Anyway, the best part of it is this, close to the end: Well, since I'm running out of room, I'll stop. [Then, in a very small box in the lower left hand corner, just to make sure he didn't miss it] P.S. - M. and I broke up.

Lovely! I was thoughtful, even then, I guess. But what is so puzzling is that next to it was a postcard from HIM in which he is professing his sixth grade love for me, even though we are clearly broken up. I remember; I dumped him for his best friend. And then when I dumped the best friend for the aforementioned M that I was now broken up with, according to the torn up missive, the best friend was really, really sad. I guess First Boyfriend was happy? sad? that I was broken up with M?

What especially intrigues me is, how did this postcard come into my possession? Maybe he tore it up and mailed it back to me. Maybe I actually asked for it back (I'm weird, I know). Maybe he tore it up and dropped it one piece per day into my locker to spite me. I have no idea.

I'm gonna buy me a pistol, just as long as I'm tall

Remember how I said I abhorred the pointy-toe look? And how I wished it would die?

Riiiiight.

Well. I figured since it was on the way out, I had to get in on it. So...for the first time ever, I wore pointy-toed heels with jeans. *gasp*

In my defense, they weren't black. And they weren't extra-extra pointy. And they weren't hooker height, either. I know. I'm a hypocrite. :(

So, um, if I were you, I'd make any amends you want to make and tell that person sitting next to you on a plane that you love them, because I feel that the world is surely going to come to an end soon.

Excuse me, I'm looking for the nuclear wessels

Damn it.

My car won't start. And my car is behind A's car. And he's on the bike, so it's not like having him come to jump me is feasible. And, like I just said...his car is in front of mine anyway.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I'm not in a good mood.

Bridezillas speak out on gifts

This article on horrible wedding presents bought my eye. Sure, some of them were bad, but I'm not sure that brides (or grooms, but I figure brides are the ones who "care") should really complain about gifts. After all, isn't a wedding supposed to be about something other than how many toasters you got? (Speaking of, we got the most awesome $50 toaster, which I told A no one would get us because, after all, it's a fifty dollar toaster. Naturally, his friend got it for us. Admittedly, it is a very good toaster.)

While I didn't have much sympathy for the earlier-listed crappy gifts, I did laugh at some of the gifts labeled "utterly useless" (scroll to very bottom), including a framed invitation to someone else's wedding, a Jesus night light, and "dueling harmonicas."

What makes them dueling? Like, are they "player" harmonicas that actually play against each other? Are they attached so that two people are supposed to play them, like how a tandem bike is attached? Really, I do want to know what dueling harmonicas are. We certainly didn't get any. Not that we registered for any.

As an aside, I'm sort of running out post topics other than the usual mundaneness of my life, so feel free to suggest post topics or questions you'd like smart-ass answers and/or made-up answers to and I'll do my best to address them.

Stud Muffin

[The people have spoken and more want a long post than not. But I inserted some graphics because everyone likes pictures.]

The other day, I had my first adventure in "real live" poker. The kind where you go to a counter, buy chips, sit at a table not full of family members, and proceed to lose all sorts of money to them.

A and I went to go play at a casino. Supposedly for fun, although I was internally sweating bullets after coughing up a lung from the smoke. Even though the mean age was probably 62, these people could play cards ALL DAY. In fact, many of them do. They literally have hundreds of aggregate years of experience over me. Anyhoo, we got waitlisted for a stud table (the lowest hold'em game was 1-4-8-8, which means one lousily-played hand or one good hand that just got beat = a lot of money I didn't want to lose, at least not in hold'em) and waited and waited and waited.

Finally, two spots opened up at the same table. The youngest person besides A was probably in their mid-60s. To my right was the dealer. To the left were two ladies, then A, three guys, and another lady. I made the unfortunate announcement of, "This is my first time playing stud," which wasn't completely unfortunate because they were mostly nice, chatty people. Besides that, it would have been obvious by the third hand when I tried to bet out of turn, not understanding that the "highest card bets and then we go left" rule didn't apply until the second round of betting. They tried to give me helpful pointers and the dealer would look at my cards and tell me whether I should fold or not (not that I need to be told when to fold). I generally folded because I had some really crappy hands. I mean, REALLY CRAPPY HANDS that even a blind person would recognize as completely crappy. I got more 2-Js and 3-8 combos than is reasonable. And of course, it would all be off-suit, and I would have something equally silly showing on the table.

I did go to a showdown at one point, which is where I think I lost the most money. I ultimately had nothing, but if I had gotten the last card, I would have had an ace high straight flush. YES, A ROYAL FLUSH. I had the ace, queen, jack, and ten of spades. Sure, it was a long shot, but I was hoping for a bluff. In the end, I was beaten by two other flushes. I would have won a windbreaker if I had gotten the royal flush. I hope they come in XS.



The thing is...I realized, about 30 minutes in, that I had the power to bluff my way into a pot. With the appearance that I was a bimbo playing for the first time, I noticed that if I bet after fourth street, the two ladies to my left always folded, saying, "If she bet, she's got something." I realized that I could probably get A to fold (depending on what he had) because he would know that I wouldn't play it and especially not raise if I didn't have something spectacular (You're talking to someone who has checked while sitting on a full house...against her mother who also had a full house...now you see where I get my ultra-conservative [heh...I'm a neo-con at cards] play from). Then I realized (and this was the best part), that if A folded, the guy to his left would also fold, because I noticed he tended to fold when A folded against me. I think he thought A would know something he didn't and would therefore follow his lead. That only left the people at the far end of the table, one of which I really think would not have folded against me. And because he was a pretty good player with a large amount of chips, he would most likely almost always a) raise me and b) win. So I decided not to play that strategy. But it was nice to know that I could have bluffed my way into maybe one pot.

We didn't have anyone too obnoxious at our table (except Don Johnson, the guy I didn't want to bluff, but he was sort of quietly obnoxious). The old ladies were cheesy but funny. After like, my fifth consecutive fold, I expressed my dissatisfaction with my cards. The one directly to my left said, "Well...you know, you got to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em." I responded, "Well, I know when to fold, I just haven't had anything yet to hold." The dealer (a cheesy-funny Asian guy who actually asked me if I was Vietnamese [???????? That's never happened before...weird]) piped up, "You can hold me anytime." A little while later, after I folded something he thought I should have played, he asked where my man was, and I pointed across the table to A. He couldn't believe it. He said to A, "Where do you get this Asian woman who doesn't like to spend money? You say Korea? I got to go to Korea to get me one of those. All other Asian women spend too much money!"



I walked away a loser, which is all right. I've never been to a poker room before, and only learned 7 card stud a couple of nights ago at home. It's hard to learn how to play well against the only other person you routinely play with. (Although I did pretty good the other night; he couldn't believe I had been sitting on trip kings, slow-betting him but then getting greedy and going all in after 5th street. In retrospect, I should have slow-betted him to the river and then taken him for all he had.)

In sum, an odd time, but not in a bad way. Stud is pretty fun, partly, I think, because the stakes aren't as high, and you can play and fold more without having to pay blinds and then getting blinded out. However, it's rather difficult to keep your eye on every single card on the table and basically count cards to tell if you should bet. I mean, if I understand the definition of counting cards right, that's essentially what stud is. You judge what everyone else has and realize that the chances are slim or fairly good that you're going to land another heart or an ace or whatever. Again, MATH. I never should have cheated on that test in the third grade!!!!!!!!! When will karma ever end?!?!?!?! Arrrrrrrrgggghhhh!!!!!

For Charlotte

Heh.

A poll. No tax, of course.

Please note that I have no idea how to fix that giant space at the top. So live with it.

Just kidding. Apparently, I DO know how to fix it. Just tell Blogger I don't care whether my javascript doesn't work.

New Bruce will be teaching political science, Machiavelli, Bentham, Locke, Hobbes, Sutcliffe, Bradman, Lindwall, Miller, Hassett, and Benaud.

As a quick aside, good luck to all those starting law school or orientation. I've been "oriental" (or, as I prefer, "ornamental") all my life. You're getting a crash course in it, so I can see how it would be overwhelming.

Seriously, though. Good luck. Don't feel overwhelmed, even though you'll feel overwhelmed. You guys and gals are smart people even if you do read my blog, and remember...if I could do it (and you've seen my many, many foibles caputred for all of cache history to read), so can you. With that inspiration, let's return to the regularly scheduled flailing around.

Chest?

I said, "Yes!"

You suggest what? I'm sorry, I have no time for piddling suggestions from mumbling job applicants. Besides, Dr. Lester will see you now.
-------------------------------------------
The other night at dinner, we had an Australian waiter, who I thought might sympathize with the fact that I have a different accent than the locals. I was very wrong.

More water, miss?

No, I'm good.

I'm...sorry...did you say you wanted...green tea?

No, I said water was fine.

[He looks at Mr. McP, who sort of just shakes his head]

Louder: I'M GOOD.

So...no more water then, eh?

Right.

What?

Never mind!!!

Apparently, these people speak a different type of English than I do (Texan, I suppose). Every time I say something, I end up repeating myself. Sadly, I also don't understand what a lot of people here are saying, but I swear that THEY are mumbling. Honestly. I'm not mumbling. I may talk fast sometimes, but I don't mumble.


-------------------------------------------
My name is Craig Schwartz and I have an interview with Dr. Lester.

Please have a seat, Mr. Juarez.

My name is Schwartz.

"My name is Wartz"?

I'm having daydreams about night things in the middle of the afternoon

I spent the morning in two different garages. The first one was very nice. It had coffee, Headline News, and comfy chairs (Not the comfy chair!). There was also a man who insisted on talking to me. Normally, I'd just mace him and run out, but a) it was hot out and b) people around here can be like that. Even when I have a newspaper jacked way up in an obvious sign of "Don't talk to me," people are oblivious. So I learned all about his neighbor when he was in high school who gave birth after the hurricane in 19whenever, his recent knee replacement, his son's "ladyfriend" (hee hee, lady friend!) who is going to work for BIGLAW in Houston next year, and whatever else he managed to tell me in-between updates of his car and my car. He was nice enough, but rather something of a pest.

After 45 minutes the shop diagnosed the problem as being, "Our computer doesn't recognize the '95 Mazda. Only '94, '96 and all the other years. Try our garage across town." (This is something I actually run into a lot.) I asked, "Where is it?" They responded, "It's before the bridge. So if you cross the water, you've gone too far." A lot of directions around here end with, "and if you hit the water, you've gone too far."

Naturally, I went too far. No, not hit the water, but I did cross the water. Then re-crossed it to get back to where I should have turned.

The second garage took me for $350 to turn off the dang Check Engine light and then told me the multitude of things I also needed done. Yeah, I know. I'm just waiting for a natural disaster to sweep my car away, never to be seen again. This garage wasn't nearly so nice or comfy. They were selling raffle tickets for 50 pounds of peeled shrimp. FIFTY POUNDS?! What would one possibly do with that? I was baffled but not so piqued as to buy a ticket for a dollar. I'd rather spend that dollar on a candy bar, which would probably add fifty pounds to my left thigh.

So. That's what I've done today.

What about you?

Compare and contrast

In honor of those beginning law school, a throwback to the LSAT. Or at least the SAT, because I can't really remember the LSAT. You know...those "this is to X as that is to Y." Whatever they're called.

Category: Accents

:: McPan is to J-A

Except we're girls, not politicians, and um, are way cooler than those guys. Just think...if I had been adopted by a British family, I might sound more like J-A and not like, well, me. Odd.

Many, many thanks to J-A for being such a good sport and indulging my silly questions.

I do believe that J-A's accent only makes mine look more pronounced in comparison but I did try to downplay it. Can you tell? I could have gone on all day, especially listening about her foreign travels and residences, but alas, audioblogger only gives us five minutes. I guess I got more than my money's worth, though.

Post-audioblog thought: Damn. I didn't ask about Frito Pie. I meant to, really.

Maybe it's safe to assume that Frito Pie isn't mainstream in Korea, Hong Kong, or London. I mean, if you can't even get it at Beanie's place or F&D's place, which are both in the US, can I really expect the billion-plus people of the Asian countries to like, nay, LOVE the Frito? Much less the Frito Pie? I didn't think so.

Dot dot dot

After hearing a friend talk about these mysterious "elliptical machines" at the gym, I tried one out today.* The verdict? I &hearts the elliptical machine.

I can ellip (?) for much longer and faster than I could run on a treadmill. I don't know if that's due to not being literally beat down by the thud-thud of my feet for half an hour or if maybe an elliptical machine doesn't work you as hard. But I don't think it's the latter, because I ellip-ted at a rate faster than I can sustain while running, and for longer.

Well, and there was only one treadmill available and it was being treaded on by a very large (I mean muscle-giant, not fat) man, so I decided to pretend that I didn't notice he had been on there for way more than 30 minutes.

There was one guy who &hearts s the elliptical machine more than me. I was there for almost an hour and he was still going. Wow. He has great elliptical stamina. I'm still working up to that point.

*Technically, I've ellipsed before. But I didn't like it then because, for one thing, they're designed for much taller people. The feet are sort of unnaturally wide for my stance and the handlebars annoy me because I can't comfortably reach them AND the feet at the same time. Sort of like a too-big bike. Today I did try to use the handle things to find out my heart rate (not that I really cared, but since I was going to be there for an hour, I might as well do something constructive), but I must not be able to wrap my hands around the metal things because it indicated "No Heartrate Detected." Sweet. It's been confirmed that I am dead or heartless. Take your pick. Anyway, I managed to overcome my elliptical problems and now I pretty much &hearts them.

Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?

I was driving to a neighboring city yesterday afternoon to visit the mall. I had taken great pains to plan the trip well, writing out all the directions both map-wise and hand-wise (go west/left on X street, etc.) because I know that I'm a bad driver. I had a map in my car of the entire state. With sub-maps of the major cities. I pre-planned online. I was ready.

I got about 5 or 6 miles out and noticed my Check Engine light was on. Crap. I turned around.

Later, when I told A, I said, "I only got as far as Grand! I didn't even make it out of town!"

You got to Grand? That's out of town.

No, Grand. Past the downtown sign.

Wait...you mean Grand Grand? In our town? That Grand?

[Exasperated] Yes! That's what I've been trying to tell you.

[Laughter]

That's not funny. [Mixture of pouting and anger] I could have gotten stuck!

Elaine...you weren't even going in the right direction. You were going to Y Town, not X Town. Don't you remember how I took you yesterday? We went west. You were going east.

[Dejected] Oh. Well...I still could have gotten stuck. So I guess it's better that the light came on and I had to come home. Otherwise I would have told you I was stranded in X Town and you never would have found me.

The sad thing is, I probably wouldn't have figured it out until I hit the water, still wondering, Hey, where's the mall?

Washin' and Wonderin'

This evening I knocked a bag of cat food into the open washing machine that I had just turned on and poured a bunch of soap into.

Cat food + soapy water = small disaster

Small arms + tall washing machine = especially frustrating

Curious cat + washing machine full of wet kibble = hilarious

I scooped out all the visible pieces and ran the thing empty after shaking out all the kitty crunchies from the clothes that were in there. About 8 pieces were in the bottom after that cycle. I took my chances and washed some clothes. Only one errant crunchy had survived. I hope our clothes don't smell like cat food.

But...speaking of cats and stuff, Batman Returns was on tv earlier tonight.

Five for fighting

*sigh*

I &hearts kickboxing.

Somehow related in my mind...There's a building around here that I keep calling the Savvis Center. I don't even know what the real name is...except it's NOT the Savvis Center...but it sounds really close to Savvis Center.

Ha. It's about damn time for there to be some hockey again.

Friday Cat Blogging: Oh poop

After 7 years of cat-ownership, we invested in a Litter Maid. The Deluxe Litter Maid. So far, it's pretty deluxe, except when the cats make a deluxe deposit...then sometimes, it's too much for the "automatic raking action." EWWWWWWWWW.

But it sure beats the hell out of scooping.

Surprisingly, the cats have adjusted well. Thomas, the fraidy-cat uses it. He's still perplexed, a little, I think, by the privacy tent and "on ramp."

Misha is curious about the machine's magic ability to scoop itself.

We left Petsmart with all sorts of cat-related items. Last night, A looked at the receipt. "Four hundred fifty-three dollars and fifty-nine cents?! !@#$%^&*()_+!!!"

"Yeah. I told you we didn't want to buy a second cage." I'm so smug.

Naturally, the next day I ordered a second cage. For another $100.

Pictures soon.

Beans, beans, good for your...ears!!!

More proof that I haven't met a bean I don't like - I received a call from one Beanie of Screamin' Bean fame, and it turns out that I definitely do like screaming beans as well.

Please excuse the rather Bubba-like string of beans I listed in the post...I could have gone on, but as we all know, I'm limited (thankfully) to five minutes.

Some wrap-up thoughts:

I should go to golf camp.
I should have asked whether a 7 bean salad was just too beany, even for her family.
I wonder what a grandbaby bean would be called. Babier bean? Babiest bean? "Nobody puts Baby Bean in a corner"???
Will there ever be a day when I'm not surprised that people haven't had Frito Pie? So far...no. I'm still surprised. I don't know why. I guess I thought it was universal, like peanut butter and jelly. Maybe only in the Republic...

THIS is more like it...I &hearts pizza

Meatball Pizza

Unusual and uncompromising. You're usually the first to discover a new trend. You appreciate a good meal and good company. You're an interesting blend of traditional and modern.

What's Your Pizza Personality?

As seen at Brian's!

How can 25% = a wannabe?

I am 25% Hippie.

I need to step away from the tie-dye. I smell too good to be a hippie and my dad is probably a cop. Being a hippie is not a fashion craze, man. It was a way of life, in the 60’s, man.

Take the
Hippie Test
@ FualiDotCom

Yikes. Thanks, Wayne...for nothing!

Picture this

If you had no language but had to decribe yourself to someone in pictures without actually showing a picture of yourself, how would you do it? Using images found on the web, this is what I came up with:













Shamlessly Taken from The Bawdy Cloister.

Okay, so probably not very informative if someone was trying to imagine what I looked like or what I was like in person. They'd probably envision some weird neurotic person with enough psychoses to fill a page. Oh, wait. That's me. Right. Hmm. Moving on....

This makes me sad

A was up early (around 3 a.m.) to watch the space shuttle that didn't land, but the tv was on and I heard a voice on the tv say, "Again, Peter Jennings died last night of cancer."

Peter Jennings was my favorite newscaster. Even when he was still a Canadian.

I'm sad that he died. I can't believe he died so soon.

Finally! I understand respondeat superior!

Thanks to F&D for suffering through another edition of McPansterpiece Theater. Not only that, but she did an encore audiopost!

Frolics!

Detours!

Some wrap-up thoughts:

• F&D is up early on the weekends. Wow.
• F&D is super-mega easy to talk to. We did both of these in one take (unlike, ahem, my previous interviewees)!
  
• I forsee F&D taking whatever the equivalent of Hollywood is for podcasting by storm. Awesome!

Stay tuned...I have some other bloggers who are interested in podcasting. Hopefully still interested after hearing this, I mean....

Ready? Okay!

Hopefully changing the margins will help with viewing the new template. It's not a real fix, it just helps. I don't know how to make it resize automatically when you change your screen size. Look, I only know how to add numbers to margins. I'm a blonde at heart. Um, what other good excuses are there?

• I ran out of gas.
• I had a flat tire.
• I didn't have enough money for cab fare.
• My tux didn't come back from the cleaners.
• An old friend came in from out of town.
• Someone stole my car.
• There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts.
• It wasn't my fault, I swear to God.

Okay. At this point, I have no more excuses and no more bright ideas of how to fix the page. I mean, I barely just built my etagere in the bathroom (good to know I didn't miss my calling as an assembly-line worker), and it's sort of half-cocked because there weren't any instructions with words; all they gave me were pictures. I'm waiting for it to fall on me someday when I'm using the toilet. So NO MORE COMPLAINING about the template. Unless it's legitimate.

Look for more changes here next week, same time, same Bat channel.

I got 85,000+ problems, but a new template ain't one of 'em

Take that, Sallie Mae!

I can redo a template for FREE. Sure, I can't afford to pay you anything right now, but at least I'm not expending MORE money.

Ahem. Stating the obvious, I put on a new blog-outfit, the one I've been working on since mid-July. You know, when I was studying hard for the bar and stuff.

Friday Spies ©: The Who Moved My Queso Edition

1. What's your favorite cheese?
Wow, that's hard. I love cheese, perhaps on even par with gravy. And since I have no children, it's like asking me to pick my favorite child. I meant, if children tasted like cheese and if I could eat one without going to jail and all. Um, this isn't how I intended the answer to come out.

I'm not a fan of runny and/or particularly smelly cheeses (Camembert or Limburger). For sandwiches, I tend to buy Pepper Jack because it adds a little spice to my turkey or ham. It's not exciting but I do like Gorgonzola.

And I've had 13 of these cheeses.

2. Cheesy movie: If you were in Top Gun, what would your call sign be?

Hmm. Underdog? McPanwich? Don't Touch That Button? "Eh" Librarian? Striker? There's just so many possibilities...but I guess I'll settle for Tex. Short. Simple. There's an "x" in it. What better name?

3. Big cheese: Tell us a boss story -- best boss, worst boss, a time when you were the boss, etc.
My best boss ever was my brother, the one who owned the now much-hyped adult materials store. In fairness, it sold much more. It was B&N before B&N was B&N, at least in west Texas. We had all the magazines no one reads, all the newspapers 1 person in 1,000 read, some hobby stuff, lots of comics, and snacks. My brother was a cool boss because well, he's cool. He trusted me enough to open up and close by myself when I was 18. He paid me above minimum wage and I could call him at home if I needed him. I didn't have to wear a uniform or funny hat.

4. Say cheese: Are you a photobug? Are you photogenic? Or, in 1000 words or less, tell us about your best picture.
I'm a moron when it comes to point and shoot (perhaps another reason I haven't received a gun as a present yet). I'm not particularly photogenic, but only one of us can be handling the camera at once, and since the pictures I take are so horrible, I have to be the one who is in them. I'm like the traveling gnome in the commercial, because all the pictures are of me in front of things. Only very rarely are they of A, and even more rarely, of the two of us together.

A thousand words is all?! I can't do that. Heck, this post alone is getting to be rather long. So...I'll just upload a pic instead.

This is in front of Westminster Abbey, obviously back in the heavier days of McPan. I'd chalk it up to a little too much Duff beer or something. I don't know why, but whenever people see that picture, they have to ask if it's me. Is that a bad thing or a good thing? I stopped displaying it after Male Mentor seemed...shocked or something that that was me. If anyone could explain why people have to ask if it's me, I'd buy them a cookie or something. Really.

McPan Trivia: I'm wearing the lucky hoodie in that picture. I bought it for the London trip. I wore it to the LSAT. I wore it to the majority of my law school finals. I should have worn it in France instead of the uglier blue coat I brought. I wore it to Hawaii. I wore it to the bar. That poor hoodie. It's in horrible condition and I just can't bear to part with it.

5. Just cheesy: What's the worst pick-up line you've ever used, or had used on you? Did it work?
"Your name is John?" (used ON me, not BY me)

Did it work? Sadly, yes. Although eventually I had to tell him that my name wasn't John. I should have known he was a complete and utter moron at that point, but hey...I thought he was cute. Obviously I was a moron as well, or I would have known better. Ever since, I refuse to date guys who think my name is a boy's name, no matter how cute.

Friday Cat Blogging - My first Friday back with my kitties

The cats are still in shock and awe from the move.

Never mind

I made it. With only minimal soreness. I guess I can't park in handicapped parking today. : (

I'm assuming a spin class today would be pushing my luck.

Ever seen a grown man naked?

Ever wanted to hear the sounds of absolute agony and out-of-shape wimpery?

Go no further, you are here.

(alt. titled: Another reason why I don't work out in a gym)

I went to my first kickboxing class. I figured that all my St. Crispin's girlfriends did it, so it couldn't be too bad. Right?

Wrong.

Think Radio City Rockettes + 59 tons of crystal meth + ballet on speed + hand to hand combat readiness class (or if you've seen Batman Begins, the part where Bruce Wayne gets his training) + demented yoga + a whole can of Lysol and a whole bottle of Febreeze + Asian techno-pop music = I'm going to be lucky if I wake up not a quadraplegic tomorrow.

First of all, my instructor was at least 50 years old. And I think she was Vietnamese (not that it really matters) and had a prominent English-as-a-second-language accent. I couldn't understand most of what she said, but part of that was due to the music.

Second, she kicked my butt up one side of the street and down the other. I was okay with all the pre-hopping around and the warmup kicks and even into the second half. But then she started in with the abs. I have abs. They're just not, um, obvious or used. They're very shy and like to hide under a layer of fat. They protested. Loudly.

Crunches are one thing. Even a lot of them. But when she started getting fancy with the laying-on-your-back-and-scissoring-your-legs and the whole raising the legs and not your body, my abs and then my mouth began to complain. When we got to leg throws (person stands behind you while you're laying down and pushes your legs back to the floor when you bring them back up), I thought I would cry. It was absolutely humiliating.

The girl I did the leg throws to did her set with hardly any problem. Me...you would have thought they told me they were going to stop manufacturing Diet Dr. Pepper and Goldfish. I felt crushed and defeated and like life wasn't worth living for anymore. The first three were okay. Five started to get tiresome. Nine was pushing it. Thirteen was where I stopped blinking. Fourteen is when I stopped breathing, I think. Sixteen was the first time I said, "I can't do it anymore. I'm done!" and with every one I did after that, I would increase the number of times I would say how much I couldn't do it. By twenty, I think I said it 5 times in that one lift. Of course, the lift also took 5 times as long, so I had plenty of time to moan about it. Ouch. I definitely wasn't the student doing extra credit ones by lifting to the side.

The instructor, from what I understood, would show us moves and explain at the same time what they were used for. She was, um, very graphic. "In this set, we're going to slam their face down on your knee, then kick in the groin, and uppercut and break their nose." Wow. Scary. Definitely not someone I want to meet in a dark alley. Or maybe even next Tuesday.

On the way out, she asked me how I liked it. I gave her the two thumbs-up, which in itself felt like a massive effort. I was too afraid to open my mouth. She laughed and said, "You will be fine after the first few times."

Me: I feel fine now (only a half-lie). It's waking up tomorrow that I'm worried about!
Her: Well, I'll see you next Tuesday.
Me: Not if I drop dead first.

Out of all this, a few observations: I have good balance. I can kick...very high and on demand. But I already knew that. Those girls can beat me at pushups any day. Wow. But I had the best form. No slumpy back or anything. I tend to get dizzy after the 5th kick, spin, and punch combo. When you tell me to reverse it back the other way, I get stupid and confused.

If this doesn't work out, there's always spin class, regular, power, and water aerobics, salsa dancing, and a few other classes I could take. And if all else fails, I've been cleared to start taking golf lessons again.

Okay...

I know these are dumb questions, but I really need answers.

You want answers?

I think I'm entitled.

You want answers?!

I want the truth.

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Sorry...got a little sidetracked there.

When I'm applying for a federal clerkship and they want transcripts, do they have to be "official" (i.e., with the little seal and everything)? Because a) those take longer b) they're expensive. Yes, I'm applying for anything I can reasonably FLY to within 2 hours. Look, I'm desperate. Really. A is trying to sell me into indentured servitude at the Korean restaurant (where they have a 5 year old [literally] working the place who is so freaking annoying that I swore never to go back there...that and they already asked THE QUESTION ["Are you Korean?"]), so I have to get serious very, very soon and find a job. For next year. I think the restaurant will let me go after 10 months of dish-washing.

Also...I went to two undergrads. I really need two un/official transcripts?!

Has anyone used OSCAR, the on-line application program? How do I send letters of recommendation through it?

Finally, do the letters of recommendation have to be originals (I need to ask them to write me 1,000 letters apiece) or can I make copies?

If I get a job, I will be really happy. Not only do I imagine that a clerk would make more than a lowly not-hot librarian, but also, no more dishpan hands!

P.S. - I went to the library today to pick up an application. They handed it over with great reluctance.

'Cause **** 'em, that's why!

I went today to look for a job. The sign said, "If you need help, go to the offices at the back." I'm good at taking orders, so I went to the offices at the back. The woman looked me up and down, made a face, and continued talking to Unseen Man In Office.

This continued for three minutes.

I shifted around. I sighed loudly. I looked at my watch.

Seven minutes.

I walked towards the front to see if anyone "helpful" was there. No. I walked back to the back. The woman was still complaining about being assigned for X and they were making her do Y.

NINE minutes.

I finally butted in, "Excuse me. I'm here about a job. I wasn't sure if I was in the right place or not, so I thought I would ask. Before I stood here all day." So maybe the last part was a wee bit bitchy but I said it in a nice voice and with a smile. Okay, so a bitchy smile. But I could have been a lot meaner.

She made another face at me and said, "You need to go to the front for that."

Me: But it said, "if you need help, go to the back." I'm at the back.

Her: You have a seat and someone will help you.

I ended up taking matters into my own hands and knocking on office doors until someone promised to see me within 15 minutes.

Eight minutes into the 15 minutes, the woman from the back came by and patted my shoulder. "She's busy right now, but she'll be with you in a minute or two." Yeah, thanks for nothing! Why don't you stop touching me before I throw you to the ground so fast you won't realize you're not even competent enough to do X job, much less Y?!?!

The lady I talked to ended up being very nice. Not very helpful, but very nice. She said I had a positive attitude and that someone would surely snap me up. Well, positive attitude or mad skillz, whichever lands me a job is fine with me.

I want to speak to a manager!

Yo, I AM the manager!

You're the manager?

That's right!

Finally

I found a store that sells decent needlenose tweezers. I dropped my Tweezerman pair at the Motel Sucks and the sucky floor bent the tip.

I know. You didn't realize that this entire time you've been reading me, I've been woefully undertweezed. It's embarassing for me to admit even now. I had about 3 other pairs but slant tip and square tip just don't do it for me. I enjoy precision tweezing.

But rest assured that there are NO stray eyebrow hairs now.

Since I'm in no position to dispute the title of "Hot Librarian," I choose "The 'Eh' Librarian"

I think I will apply for a job working at our local library. It's really the only thing hiring that doesn't require "heavy lifting (50 lbs. or more)," a willingness to go for 5 a.m. runs in Alabama, the desire to live upon a boat (I can't swim, remember), a Ph. D in agribusiness or anything else obscure like that. There's not a lot around here to do and even less I would feel safe doing.

Well, there is a comic book store, and I have some experience there, but as I recollect, most of those customers were pretty weird, so I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to that.

I don't see much point in driving to neighboring cities for the same low-paying, low-skilled jobs (not a reference to my lovely cousin's job...she works at a REAL library, and probably not in charge of the "Your book is due on August 10th" department, which is what this job I'm looking at is for). So I might as well apply to be a low-level librarian in Red City for $6/hr, 40 hrs/wk. "Some nights and weekends required."

You know, it's going to be really freaking lame if I can't even get that job.

Hmm. I hope they don't ask about some of the things I've done in a library (see #5). I'll deny everything. But if these librarians are anything like the ones in Tomcats, I'm in trouble. I break under pressure.

ARRRGH!

My first natural disaster in Red State - I found a silver hair just now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's not my first. But it's the first in a long time. I once found one in high school. That was mortifying. It was in French class, and I was talking to this one girl who later moved to L.A. to be in some mini-movie or something like that. She moved back a couple of years later. And I think she later ended up marrying my very first boyfriend. Of course, since we broke up in like, the fifth grade or something, there weren't any hard feelings or anything.

I need a hobby

I wish I knew how to surf.

Hmm

I had a new template ready to go. Unfortunately, I left it on the laptop, which is internet(s)-less. And the Mac doesn't have a disk drive and I'm too lazy to find the CDs so I can burn ONE thing just to copy over. *sigh* You'll have to console yourself with this month's reincarnation of the blogroll.

A question

Are you right-handed or left-handed? I know of at least one lefty out there.