I've been quite ill the last few days

and I'm not quite up to a full blog post yet but I'd like you all to know I'm not dead. Yet. Actually, I'm sure I won't die because I finally quit puking and having explosive toilet explosions. I'm lots better today and I'm sure I'll be completely cured tomorrow, perfectly capable of being amusing. Thanks for you patience. ;0)

Arrrrrrrrrrr!

Tomorrow be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! I keeps forgettin' an' then I remembers an' I'm happy all over again. I gets a tingly feeling inside like when I tortures someone or plunders somethin'.

Anyway, here's a survey you should go take, thanks to Addie:


You Are A Pirate!


What Type Of Swashbuckler Are You?
brought to you by Maddog Varuka & Dawg Brown

There's girl and boy pictures for each result! Yayyy, boobies. Oh, and go visit my pirate alter-ego on Myspace: The dastardly, deadly, devious (and drop-dead gorgeous--hey, this is a fantasyland pretend identity) Cap'n Musketball Miranda! Scourge of the Sea! Dog of the Deep! Raider of the Fridge!

Anyway, computer and camera are still not getting along and it's all I can do to not bash in the CPU with the camera and hang myself with the USB cord. Mom pointed out that the computer is actually hers, so if I did that she'd be quite upset. That helped.

So I drank a lot of whiskey last night, can you guess what happened this morning? That's right, the munchkin came over for about 30 minutes. April, the teenaged biological mom, was watching her today and got called in to sign some papers for her new job, and by the time she dropped the kid off here she had her throwing a fit. Which I hate. As soon as April left I put her in time out and explained to her that I understood she was unhappy and disappointed, but that if she continued to have a fit we would have NO FUN, while if she would calm down and play nice we would have LOTS of fun and when April came back she'd be jealous and miserable, and also that my poor dad was in the room too and couldn't watch tv until she quit being such a butt. Guess what happened. That's right, we had a blast. She wanted to watch part of a movie so I sent her over to the bookcase to pick one out and she picked Return of the Jedi in deference to my dad (and because she has a major bone for Yoda, who is on the box), and then proceeded to make dad play Barbie Slut Fight (a real game that any child under the age of 9 will spontaneously begin playing the moment you give them a Barbie, even Amish children instinctively know how to do it) until she decided to torment my cat (she's not mean to her, the cat just hates children of any stripe and Sierra looooooves her and follows her around and pets her the wrong way and wants to put her face on her and kiss her). Then April came back and was kind of dissapointed because the kiddo was calm and happy and likely to stay that way all day.

Anyway, go talk like a pirate. The website even has hilarious pirate pick-up lines which I guarantee will work on me.

Babysitting Drama plus Ebay News plus Software Drama =

So, I finished my Shapely Tank, and I managed to catch a photo of the kiddo with pants on her head, and I also got a pic of her (she's two, mind you, and can't read yet) fallen asleep for her nap with a book across her chest, and I can't post any of them here because my computer has decided not to recognize my camera. I've posted many a picture from this same camera before, mind you, but now the computer can't find it (even when I go to "settings" "control panel" "new hardware" and ascertain that the computer can indeed find my camera.)

Never mind, I already cried today over it, there are much better things to cry over, like the various Hurricanes and Tropical Storms that have and are still wreaking havoc across my part of the world. To which I say, come stay at my house, we know when to evacuate and will be going to Austin, not Houston. Really. E-mail me and I'll tell you where to call to get in touch with me. Really.

But my picture thing is still getting me down. I really want to post a picture of Panty-Head with Pants (not panties) on her Head. Just captured today, and totally useless as long as I'm having this problem. She was awesome today, btw. We walked 4 blocks to the hardware store, bought the wrong plunger (how can you buy the wrong plunger? Ask my mom), watched the huge earth-moving equipment building the parking lot for our new grocery store, and walked 4 blocks home, and she was as good as a two-year-old can be. Why would I undertake that kind of walk with a toddler, you ask? Because I asked her if she'd like to go with me or stay home with my mom (my mom is always her preference) and she said go with me, and I asked her if she'd like to walk or go in the car (we walk two blocks to the park every day she's with me because I said so, just like why she does the arm-over-arm monkey bars every day we go to the park--because I'm living my junior-high humiliations through her and obliterating them by the work she does with me to assure she'll never submit to them) and she goes, "I go wi' Ke'ye and WAK, no CAW!"

It took us approximately 1.5 hours to walk 4 blocks, buy the wrong plunger, watch the backhoe and bulldozer and dump truck and flattener and walk back, with all the usual stops at the lawn mower store and the boat store (on the way, we had to walk by them and she fricking loves any kind of specialized equipment) and I loved every minute. Fault me, go ahead. I'm the strictest child-raising-advocate you can find and I fricking LOVED it.

Until I got back and realized we got the wrong plunger. And then there was diarrhea. Yep. And she usually goes home around 4 o'clock, but she didn't go home till 8 tonite. I was ready to fall down. Yet I still knitted her baby doll a hat ("This ma babu, she gost no HAT!") and gave her a bath (After the squirts episode: mom loved spraying her with the movable shower head, I loved getting all the poop off her and we all hated being in proximity to the toilet that hadn't been PROPERLY plunged because I bought the wrong plunger. I wonder what distracted me?) and discussed the movie version of "Horton Hears a Who" with her. Anyway, I'm most proud of finishing my Shapely Tank last night and not putting the munchkin in a dog kennel (I've got one) at 5:30 this evening (shortly after the bath).

Oh, and by the way, my shoes got a bid today and 39 people have looked at them and I really appreciate anything y'all have done to get those stats for me.

New pandering capitalist content!

Hey, this isn't a real entry, I'm just letting everyone know that I've sold my soul to Ebay and am trying to get rid of some shoes, and if that goes well (or frankly, even if it doesn't) I'll be liquidating more stuff that's perfectly good, yet needs to get the hell out of my house so I don't have to move it when I move. And it wouldn't hurt if I made a couple cool bucks on it, either. Luckily everything I own came from a thrift store, swap meet or bulky garbage day (not entirely true, some stuff was given to me as gifts), so I can pretty much put anything on with no reserve and if it sells for any amount of money at all I'm making something off it.

Anyway, I have to go babysit now, the munchkin just got here and there's only so long I feel comfortable letting her eat breakfast in front of The Lion King and still getting paid for it.

New Job Search News; Depressing, Doleful Dreck

So I put in two job applications today, each one at a place where there were two openings I qualified for. And I came within an eyelash of putting in an app for a busboy job. But I haven't sunk quite that low, though. Then I went by my babysittee's mom's work to find out if I was working for her tomorrow and found out her idiot of a 19 year old daughter went in cold to an on-the-spot job fair yesterday and got a job as an assistant manager starting Monday. They called her back today to tell her. I could have died. I still might. Here I am, completely not an imbecilic moron, and she gets a job right out of the bag and I'm wandering around, mumbling and stranded, living in a house made out of copies of my resume begging for busboy jobs. Okay, okay, I've only been looking for two days, but come on, that's a little depressing, isn't it? Plus, she's totally square. I mean, she's shaped like a shoebox. There's her head, then her neck, then a shoebox going down longways with arms and legs at the corners. And these ridiculous blow-up-doll-style tits that an 11 year old would be ashamed of. Plus I might have mentioned that she's dumb enough that drooling retards at the state school pat her on the head and try to give her helpful advice.

Okay, okay, I'm done venting. Please ignore all that bile up there, I only meant it mostly. I'm good, I'm great, I'm getting a job. I feel really positive about three or four of the apps I've put in, I'm sure I'm getting called by Monday. All I have to do is wait it out and try hard. I can do this!

Job Search Sucks, Return to Alcoholic Haze Considered

I went on my first job interview in almost six years yesterday and I nearly crapped my pants. It was so weird. I'm not even used to talking to people who haven't bought me liquor. I'm guessing this means I maybe didn't do as well as I could have, but I've got some experience now, I'm not going in blind anymore. So that's good.

In other news, we're about to be creamed by a hurricane in about 12 hours and there isn't a weatherman in the world who will admit it. They're all, "It's going to come in between New Orleans and Jacksonville. (Hurricane Ivan moves westward at approximately 300 mph on the radar map behind him) This hurricane will definitely not go any more west at all, ever. (Hurrican Ivan zeroes in on Houston) It will especially not go anywhere near Texas, or Kellye Fry or her stuff. (Hurricane Ivan makes an obscene gesture directly into the camera)" Liars. Dirty liars. Ivan's coming to dinner, for sure. We haven't had one hit us in a while, it's totally time.

We went to get batteries and bottled water and candy and beer yesterday, and bread. For some reason whenever we have heavy weather around here the first thing everyone thinks of is buying bread. I'm not joking. If there's a severe thunderstorm warning on the 5 o'clock news, the bread isle at the supermarket will be completely denuded by 6:15. I know, I've been trying to figure it out since I was five. "So when Hurricane Ivan gets here, we'll just make him a sandwich and he'll spare our house."

And I was bad and didn't go get a job today, but it rained cats and dogs all morning and afternoon, and I woke up with a crick in my back from sleeping on my tummy in the bowl of my mattress. Plus I was a little hungover and I wanted to sit on the couch all day in my jammies and color. Shut up. You have a job. Anyway, it was a pretty good day. I made potato soup for dinner and it was really good. Plus if our house gets blown off this weekend I might not have to get a job at all! I can just live off Red Cross or something. Go live with Jimmy Carter. Yay! I love peanuts!

Oh, yeah

My free webstat thingie, their servers crashed and ate dirt and killed everything, so I have no more webstats. If they end up finding the data and reinstating their service, I might go back with them, but I'm too disheartened to try to start over with someone new. That was part of why I wasn't posting for a while, because when the site crashed the code in my template that let them read my visitor info went hooonutty and my blog could only publish from the top down to where the code was, and it reads down the template like: background, title, headline, sidebar top to bottom, posts top to bottom. And the webstat code was right below the "e-mail me!" part of the sidebar, so I had no blog for like two days and I knew what the general problem was but not which tags were actually causing it, and I didn't have the energy to find it, but then I tried to check my stats and got a huge "you've been buttfucked" error message and ran over to the template and fixed it. The other part of the problem was that Blogger wasn't always publishing my posts when I clicked "Publish Post," it was sometimes deleting them because of some problem, probably with my crappy internet provider.

In other news, I still need a job even though I applied for two jobs in two days. < sigh > This is so hard. But I really do have to get focused and do it. I have to cut the lawn tomorrow and do some sorting of boxes of crap, then Monday I'm applying for out of town jobs in the morning and driving around and applying for any job I see a sign for here in town. Send me good thoughts. You know, or a check. I'm not particular.

Readership!

I was going crazy with pride and joy when regualar and not-so-regular readers started commenting on my posts, and now it's only going to get worse.
I've had two (2) e-mails in the last week from people who read my blog and want me to post more. How fucking cool is that? I mean, I'm no Wil Wheaton, but actual people (one of which I don't know at all, one of which is my best friend) are actually reading and want to hear more! Next, I take over the WORLD!!! Mwwwwwaaahhhaaaaahhaaaa*choke*cough*hack

Anyhow, Hooray! for everyone who reads my demented ramblings and double Hooray! Hooray! for everyone who gives me feedback of any kind. (Comments still rock my world, and I actually do check for them pretty often and always respond with gratitude to the poster if they leave any way for me to.) Maybe once I get a job there can even be contests and prizes and fun things like that! Thanks a million to anyone and everyone who drops in and reads me, I appreciate it like crazy.

Oh. My. God.

I. Must. Knit. This.


Actually, many, many, many of them. You just wait, sister. Heee hee hee.

Panty-Head Saves the Day!

So, my mom just found out that the pain in her low back isn't a kidney infection, it's a herniated disk. So the doctor gave her 10 days of muscle relaxers to try to get it out of spasm so they can take some films for comparison to her other films from when the bones in her neck went all hooey. No, this story doesn't end with me taking several of them and feeling terrific.

So, the Dodge place in Wharton called to say a part she had ordered was in, and I had the munchkin for the day, so mom was going to drive over and pick it up herself. She's on day 6 of muscle relaxers, so I was "helping" her find her keys. Okay, she was pacing back and forth and getting in my way while I looked for her keys, then she'd bump into me and go, "What was I doing?" with this look on her face like she was trying to remember who I was. Then she found her keys, picked them up, dropped them and paced off to the other end of the house. Two seconds after the keys left her hand we had this conversation:

Me: "Mom, what are you doing now?!" (frustrated and shrill)

Her: "I'm LOOKING for my KEYS!!!" (more frustrated and more shrill)

Me: "THESE fucking keys that you just had in your FUCKING hand before you went to fucking PSYCHO PILL LAND!?!"

Her: "I guess so?"

So I put the bambino in the car seat and drove her, obviously. And she's halving the dosage because I told her if she loses her glasses one more time I'm putting her in the home with the lowest rating I can find, wherever will take her for only her SSI check.

Shut up, you didn't have to help her "find" her glasses 25 times yesterday. That's right, I fucking counted.

Anyway, that's not even what this story is about. That's just why I was driving 15 minutes down the highway with a highly irritable 2 year old and a cranky, drugged older person. And the kiddo was starting to have a serious fit strapped in back there and I was doing the quasar-fast eye back-and-forth thing you do with a kid throwing a fit when you're about to crash the godddam car because your mom won't STOP FUCKING SINGING.

And here is the point of my story: I threw the kid's daypack in the backseat and had her pull out her just-in-case pair of emergency panties and put them on her head like a hat, and we started calling her Panty-Head and telling stories (and yes, even singing songs) about Panty-Head and she was laughing and I was laughing and mom was laughing and no one had to die in a firey car crash of death.

The End! Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about how this evening a Pineapple saved the lives of several young women who angered me...

Am I Political or Not?

The folks at hotornot.com have come up with a novel idea: to take their power over their particular demographic and use it for good, instead of evil. Specifically, they're encouraging people to vote by asking them to pledge to do it, then entering them in a sweepstakes for $100,000. Once you enter there's even a link to Rock the Vote where you can fill out and print a voter registration form if you need to register to vote or change any information. I changed my address, since I've moved since the last time I voted and would like to not drive to Austin on election day, and I added a political party affiliation. I wasn't going to because I've already missed the opportunity to participate in any primaries and stuff, but I decided to go ahead and do it in case it makes them "really" count your vote or something. If you want to choose a party but, like me are too lazy to figure out which one is appropriate, you can use this questionnaire to figure it out. Oh, c'mon. You're reading a blog, you obviously love questionnaires and surveys. Just do it!

I'm a bad girl...

I was supposed to put in three applications for work today and I only did one. Online. So even though I put on my interview clothes and sweated all over them, I might as well have filled it out in my undies. Which maybe wouldn't have gone over as well when I went to the grocery store later, but whatever.
And tomorrow, I'll be driving to Wharton (15 minutes away) to put in four more apps, so that might be cool. They are for mostly menial positions, a housekeeper at a motel and a receptionist at an old folk's home and such (today's was at a new truck stop here in town) but I'm hoping for some good solid work/pay for a few months.

I've been knitting a lot lately, too. I finished one armhole trim on the Shapely Tank and the one strip of my afgan. Whooot! Only nine more to go! I cast on two that are alike to knit at the same time. And I learned to cable! Yayyy! I knit this hat for my mom months ago:



But as you can see it makes a better yamulka than a hat, so I'm going to take the cable strip I've been knitting and make it long enough to attach on to the lower edge and maybe cast back on and do some ribbing and it will be a good winter hat, cover her ears and stay on and whatnot. I swear I'm going to post pictures of all this knitting stuff, tomorrow. Jeez I hope no prospective employers read this, I'm beginning to realize that the blog is many things, and among them a comprehensive record of my inability to follow through on a deadline. Every post is all, "I swear I'm going to post pictures soon," or a description or whatever, then I don't do it for two weeks. Anyway, I might soon work at Buc-ee's (yes, that is a beaver) or maybe HEB (they just built a new store in town and are having a job fair Friday at a church. Makes me kind of uneasy. But they have great benefits?) or one of my other prospects, so I'm happy.
Course, I'm drinkin' whiskey, so maybe that's why I'm happy. You can never tell with me. Hee!

And another thing...

Oh, and here's the photo of the bathroom floor about near done:



And here's a photo of the bathroom floor about near done with the toilet re-seated--I didn't do that part, the plumbers did, but I was kind of waiting on them before I did any more. Yayy! Near bathroom finishment! Hoorah!



And here's a photo of a silly little dog who doesn't like me to take her picture:

Blogging Bore Bears Brunt of Bestial Bonks

Sorry, I just wanted an alliterative headline. So, I took off another weekend to go loaf around Austin, but I swear it's the last time. This month. By which I mean August, because Ozzmodiar rocked the pants off Houston. Everything was exactly right, the sound was perfect and they were so on it hurt, such a good show I was mesmerized, but there was almost no one there. Including you, Matthew. You're in serious trouble, bro. Run. Hide. Weep.

And they're playing the Rhythm Room again September 30th, opening for Hairy Apes BMX, who are so well known around Austin that I've actually heard of them, and I'm really excited to see Ozzmodiar that good again with a decent crowd.

Ozzmodiar weekend!

Ozzmodiar is playing Houston tomorrow and I'm going to see them, which is extra-awesome because my friend Matthew from there is going to go too and see them for the first time, and he knows Jess and they haven't seen each other in forever. Yayyy! Plus around 5 or 6 pm they're going to be on KTRU and do two songs. Listen!! Listen!! Or I'll kick you in the nads. Then sometime after ten they'll be at Rhythm Room. You better show. I won't buy you a beer, but I will drink yours while you're in the can. And I'll be nice to you until I get drunk.

So, I've been disgusting lately and I pledge to stop

Because, frankly, a normal period after 4 months of irregularity of the worst kind, kind of heals you, man. So I'm totally happy, completely sloshed, and about to go chase raccoons off of my carport. Hey, fuck you, it isn't your carport.

I've finished a huge amount of the bathroom, but he picture I have to give you is a week old. My favorite thing about pictures of the floor is that there's always a huge jumbled mishmash of tools somewhere in each one. Yes, I really am that messy and disjointed, and yes, I do still have all of my fingers, but that amazes me every time I unplug the saw. So here it is, the floor and the new parts of the tub surround frame:

Ta daaaaaahhh! Tomorrow I'll post a picture of the floor done within an inch of the doorjamb and the tubsurround done. So there!

So I'm having my first normal period in 4 months,

and that should be enough to chase you all away. But I actually am, and I'm really happy about it, although physically I've seldom been more miserable. Avid readers will remember that I've been having some "lady trouble" consisting of (upsetting phrase warning) weird bleeding patterns that led me to rashly state I was having my uterus removed at the earliest convienence, as I had forgotten that this neccesitated surgery, which I won't undergo for freaky reasons of my own. Or for that matter, going to see the "lady" doctor, which I'm almost as averse to as I am to sharks. So I'm (upsetting phrase warning) totally stoked that I'm having a normal (for me) period this time. Well, slightly on the "uncomfortable" end of normal-for-me, anyway. Usually when I have cramps, they make my....my female area?...my...aw, hell, my vulva hurt like the dickens, and I had two days of the near-worst cramps I've ever had (which pale in comparison to some my friends have told me about) before I ever started, followed by two more days of cramps while the whole process took effect. For my sensitive readers, let's just say that a whole box of "Wounded Knee" size tampons have gone to meet their maker. And it's given no sign of stopping yet. But I will put up with anything to not have to consider getting fixed. So I'm happy. Plus the cramping stopped, so I no longer feel like my vulva is about to fall off. Yaaayyyy!

Spanking hot new floor photo

Yayyy! I can't wait until it's done! I've got everything I need to finish it, I just have to get in there and do it. I'm making templates to cut the rest of the Pergo floor planks tonite, until I get too drunk, and then tomorrow I'm putting them all in (everything that's down now is glued in place), gluing them together, putting down the quarter-round trim, facing the tub surround and trimming that up, and TA-DA! I'm done. Mom called the plumber and asked him to come re-seat the toilet Friday or Monday, so I've got to at least have the trim down on the window wall by then. I'm so excited I could spit! Yayy!

Uhhhhhhhhhgggg, the Olympics.

I'm so tired of it. I was so tired of it before it even started. I hate all people in multicolored, flag-themed spandex. I wish they only staged them every 40 years. Except then there'd be even more hype. I mean, I know a lot of people love it, and I know they must have a good reason, but I can't fathom it. I don't hate people who like the Olympics, I just can't stand the thing itself.

Earlier I was situationally forced to watch Synchronized Diving. Synchronized. Diving. Did you know that a mistake made in a Synchronized Diving event doesn't count against the team if they both make the same error at the same time? Cause I do, now. I can never un-know it and that spot in my brain is forever used up.

Even the events I don't find completely unsufferable make me insane. I hate all swimming events. They drive me up the wall. I get so tired watching them. And the way the fans yell encouragement just when the contestant's head is above water. That is so cute I just want to disembowel myself.

I can't stand field and track. I think I could get behind the foot races if something was chasing them. "The Gold, Silver and Tinfoil medals go to Ghana, Zimbabwe and U.S.A., unfortunately the French contestant was devoured by the cougar." So even if you don't win a medal, you can say, "Hey, I was faster than that guy. Hey, can I have his shoes? Oh, excuse me, shoe."

Here's the other thing I can't stand: In gymnastics, everybody loves the floor excersizes. To the point that I heard my godmother the other day talking about how the uneven bars were soooo boring. Because she wanted to see all of the fucking-cunt-waving-a-streamer-on-a-stick game. As if the streamer bitch could ever even think about doing the uneven bars.

I think they should be restricted to the original games played in ancient Greece. The only thing I do like about the Olympics is the whole sentiment of "let us put aside our differences and come together as people to compete athletically, leaving our national quarrels and differences outside the arena. I like the idea of ancient peoples leaving their grudges outside and then coming in and throwing javelins around. You know, just like we do today.

I mean, please. I think I'll come up with my own Olympics Drinking Game, tho. Something along the lines of, Every time someone says, "He(she) stuck the landing!" you lock yourself in your bathroom with a twelve pack and a cube of hash.

meat cushion

As if anyone bothered to read this blog (I know some people do, thanks for your imput, sorry) much less read my Myspace blog, they might be a little concerned that I've been duplicating entries for the both of them lately. But if you read both you'll know that I've: A) been ill recently and B) gone back to the second-oldest profession, babysitting. Both of which cut down on my middle-of-the-day-between-naps blogging time. So you're lucky I have the time to think of one, much less copy-paste it to both.

So, yesterday I babysat. Which is something I do sometimes to support my crack-cocaine-and-snuff-films habit. The kid is two, she is recently potty-trained and pre-verbal, and she's a fucking annoy-o-matic machine that does not require coins to dispense. Aw, shut up, you know I feel all the mushy hormonal feelings for her. Whatever, I like to smell her hair, I feel all swoopy when she hugs me, just in a detached, cynical way. My ovaries never throb when I'm near her because (and this is key) I have to take care of her. And take responsibility for her actions when she's with me and when she's not, because I take a hand in raising her and I want her to be a good person. Or at least better than me.

Additionally, I was seriously hungover when she arrived. Usually when she shows up, I have been awake for about an hour, have spent some quality time with my cat, have gotten dressed and have brushed the applicable parts of my anatomy, have had some coffee and have gone to the can. So yesterday morning, when she arrived, I was hungover, sick and still asleep. So I wake up snorting snot, with my head pounding, naked sprawled on the bed in my room (which NO ONE is allowed to enter, ever, without my permission because right now I live with my folks) to see my mom and the sit-ee standing over me wanting to know where I keep my copy of the Lion King. And I managed not to say a bad word. I said, "I'm getting up right now. I'm finding Lion King as we speak." And I sat up and wound the sheet around me as they left, and I sat on my cat. Who is 11 and not that good-natured. Then I got dressed, and (head still pounding, snot still snorting) staggered from my room with my hair in a tornado and my teeth pretending they had just been unearthed from the ruins of the Titanic, to find the Lion King. And get a cup of fucking coffee. And take a shit. Which I did not ever manage to do in the 7 hours she was there. Other things I didn't manage to do which would have been advisable after drinking 2 24-oz beers and several shots: drink a gallon of water; eat food; go to rehab. We watched Brother Bear 4 times and Babe once. I cried every time Kenai chose to (spoiler alert!) remain a bear and when the Boss said, "That'll do, pig, that'll do" and when the piglets were nursing and their mom got taken away, and when the sheep told Rex the password. I cried every time the music swelled meaningfully or a significant look was passed in the commmercials we watched while Brother Bear was rewinding. I was a horrible babysitter for once, and we barely went to the park for only an hour, and I sweated pure alcohol the whole time. Then, instead of playing in the yard with the ball or the sprinkler or the bubble machine, or going to the miniature donkey and goats farm or the library or the indoor mini-golf-course-and-soda-fountain, we watched Brother Bear one more time while I slept fitfully on the couch. With the screendoor locked. The only alternative was to chase her out into the street.

Although I must say, she went to the bathroom twice all by herself without prompting, and she ate without my help, beyond actually preparing the food, and she was very chill about my need to lie down no matter what activity we were attempting. She did only a very short stint of jumping-up-and-down-while-screaming, and she was respectful of my boundaries after I farted on her for sitting on me and put her in a 5 minute time out for yelling in my face. Possibly the fact that I kind of fainted after putting her in time out helped.

So, today was better. Exept I'm getting drunk again, but there is no chance I'll have to babysit tomorrow, only a pretty certain chance I'll be working with power tools all day. Yessss!

Watch out...

Here's a creepy poem/prose item I found packed away with some art supplies from the last time I moved (a year and a half or so ago):

Momma always said, "It's no extra trouble" to indicate that you should stay for whatever was happening when you dropped by, or "Since I've already gone to the trouble..." when things didn't turn out as planned but one might as well take advantage of the preparations.

As though things inherently hold a particular amount of trouble, which begets a finite amount of benefit, which must be used up.

But make no mistake, I will put you to extra trouble, from which you'll find no way of making the best of things.

The way of your voice, and the way of my listening to it, set off loud and insistent songs of words in my head to which you'll never listen.

No amount of trouble will translate my intentions, my thoughts, my understanding to your crowded brain. Oh, but there will be trouble.

I've crawled through snakes and stones to find you, but you are not the snakes, or the stones, nor are you at their center.

You are no nearer, though I can still hear your voice through the clanging response of my mind, of my heart, of my body.

Here I sit. Snake, stone, me, snake, stone, wondering if it was you I craved, or the answering echo of my incommunicable thoughts that sounds every time you open your mouth.

Perhaps I never even wanted you, but since I've gone to the trouble already...it's no extra trouble to plague you, anyway.

I'm sick

No, not like that, I mean I'm physically ill. Okay, you're right, I'm sick in the head also. But that's not what this post is about. Since about Sunday I've been sort of run down and sniffly and my throat is a little swollen and tender. It doesn't hurt to swallow, at least not yet. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I think it's not serious like strep or anything. The shittiest part is that when I get up in the morning, I feel just bad enough to lay in bed all day, but no worse. Not bad enough to sleep all day, not bad enough to baby myself and demand to be waited upon, not bad enough to guzzle sprite and sherbet and nyquil. Then I take a theraflu and I feel good enough to be up, but no better. Not good enough to work or have fun or interact with anyone not sick. Just good enough to sit on the couch all day and drink warm things and lots of water. I can't fucking stand it. Although I've been reading a lot and I'm within 6 inches of finishing my Shapely Tank. Yayyyy! I nearly cried with relief when I got to the underarm bindoffs. I'm not having a hard time with the pattern like lots of people on the Shapely-along, I'm just fucking tired of this damn shirt. I should have taken it with me on my many vacations this summer and it would be done by now. I could have been wearing it all this time! Dammit. But, I'm really excited about finishing it and hitting Knitty's Techniques with Theresa to use her instructions on mattress stitch finishing. I know, it's pathetic to be excited about sewing something up. And that's really the part I'm excited about, I mean, I'm excited about wearing it and putting up pictures of it done and everything, but mostly I can't wait to do the mattress stitch perfectly and watch the seams vanish and...oh, hell. If you are a dork like me, you already understand, and if you aren't you never will. Anyway, that's my post for today. Sorry I've been so lax in posting, I swear I'll do better. Kisses!