Slumber par-tay!
Chickadee is–even as I type this–watching movies and eating popcorn with 7 other 7- and 8-year-old girls. In a little while they will hunker down in their sleeping bags and whisper and giggle for who knows how long.
Thank the lord those girls aren’t HERE. I mean, yes, it sounds wonderful. For THEM. I had to restrain myself from offering the host mom some ativan before I left. In the end, I opted for the more politically correct salute and cheerful, “Good luck… and godspeed!”
The truth of the matter is that this is a rite of passage for her, and I’m happy for her to have it. But this particular girl and this particular party made me wary. Simply put: the birthday girl hasn’t always been kind to my Chickadee, and it gets my hackles up. Right NOW they’re getting along fine. Will it last through the night? I certainly hope so. We bought a gift and wrapped it up and packed two-thirds of Chickadee’s belongings in her pink duffle bag, and brought not only the Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bag BUT ALSO her pillow in the MATCHING Strawberry Shortcake pillowcase!
You can see I have a vested interest, here. All that packing effort.
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Can’t breathe, clown’ll eat me
(You have no idea how tickled I was to discover that there’s actually a Wikipedia entry on this.)
So I had this little cold, and I thought it went away. But apparently it was just resting and rebuilding and luring my asthma over to the dark side with promises of dry clothes and twinkies, or something. As of this morning I’m experiencing the delightful malaise that accompanies the sensation of one’s lungs being delicately swaddled in saran. I’m not dying (I hope), it’s only a cold, but it is unbelievably exhausting to spend an entire day feeling like you can’t get enough air.
I’m cranky. And oxygen-deprived. But I just had some Nyquil, so here’s hoping I’m asleep in about twenty minutes.
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More gooder job ensearchmenting
Things are really rolling along, now, job-wise. There are many stages of successful self-employment, you know. It’s not unlike the stages of grief, really: Some people will progress through the stages in order, but most will have some skipping around as they move through. I myself have already spent a fair amount of time bouncing between the various states.
Stage 1: DENIAL I decided to do WHAT? Oh good lord. Have I been drinking? Was this a BET? Does anyone know the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning…?
Stage 2: ANGER You know, this is all my 10th grade chemistry teacher’s fault. That lab on nucleotides scarred me for life. I’ll never succeed now and HE SHOULD’VE KNOWN this would happen!
Stage 3: BARGAINING I swear to God that I will never complain again if I just land this one itty bitty little contract. Well, maybe that’s hasty. For this LITTLE contract, I’ll stop complaining for the rest of today. But a BIG contract, God, and we can talk serious turkey. Pinky swear!
Stage 4: DEPRESSION Okay, so I worked… this many hours… and I made… wait… oh… my… you know, I do math better with my HEAD IN THE OVEN.
Stage 5: ACCEPTANCE Deep breath. Okay. Time to find more work.
Honestly, I thought I was on the right track. But it turns out? I had the cart before the horse. No. Not even! I didn’t even have a cart, or a horse.
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Strange music
It’s time for a little-known factoid about Mir. Why? Don’t ask why. Hush up. Here, have a cookie. (They are store-brand mint-creme-filled not-Oreos. Gross, but delicious!)
I used to play the cello. I use the term “play” loosely. I loved the cello. I still love the cello; any time Yo-Yo Ma wants to come put on a private concert for me, I’d totally be down for that. Even if he wouldn’t let me lick him. But if he DID let me lick him, that’d be even better. What was I talking about…?
Oh, right. So. I took up the cello when I was 11. Within the first week of my lessons, I set my loaner cello back into the cabinet improperly and it fell out. The bridge shattered. I had to pay for it. Amazingly enough, the music teacher let me continue with lessons.
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And I put the laundry away, too
This day, it ATTACKED me. Yes. Sometimes days are just calm and orderly and boring; and truth be told, I like them that way. Days where I have to GO and DO and BE and people come to my DOOR and MAKE ME TALK TO THEM, well, this is very challenging to my natural inclination to sit in a dark room and periodically shriek, “The LIGHT! IT BURNS!!”
I especially do not appreciate one of these busy days when my head has been stuffed full of ravioli. Monkey was kind enough to share his cold, and after just a couple days of enjoying my new, more aerodynamic head, I am now weighty with pastasinusitis. (Very serious. Stay back. I sneeze clouds of parmesan.) Of course all I wanted to do today was curl up in bed with a bottle of Nyquil. But it was not to be.
Because I am IN DEMAND, I tell you!
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I think it’s the red socks
So, I thought I’d post about something really intellectual to offset that last post. You know, both to reestablish myself as the sort of person who concentrates on the important things in life… and to alleviate the incredibly squicked-out heebie-jeebies I apparently get from being sent anonymous porn in the mail.
But, uh, I worked 15 hours yesterday; and now the season premiere of Desperate Housewives is on. I’ve got nothin’. And I can’t admit how excited I am about DW being back without looking even more pathetic than usual.
Plus, that guy who dances around in that Diet Coke commercial to “I like the way you move” is a gigantic dork. I mean, really, a HUGE NERD. That commercial is just painful and embarrassing.
I may have just a very small crush on him.
Looking a gift horse in the… uhhh….
Hi.
Um. Hmmm. How do I say this?
*ahem*
I am perhaps not quite as careful with my address as I should be, though I think (thought?) I’ve only given it out to a very few people. Sometimes, folks offer to send me stuff! And hey, I like stuff! So if I know the requestor reasonably well–say, well enough to feel comfortable that they will neither ship me bloody body parts nor show up on my doorstep with a chainsaw–I fork over my address. Sometimes, I get something good to eat! Or a nice bottle of port! Or something pretty!
I forgot to grab my mail yesterday, so I walked out and got it a few minutes ago. Let’s just say that I was a little surprised.
So. Uhhhh. First: Thank you…? I… guess?
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Tools of the trade
I’m so glad to have a keyboard with which to communicate. It’s a beautiful thing. And also, I am currently choking on my tongue–which I swallowed a few minutes ago–so talking isn’t really an option right now. No talking. Just breathing. I’m concentrating a lot on the breathing thing. Other people go out on Friday night, or whatever, but NOT ME. I sit at home and transcribe tapes and shop for office supplies and calculate how many months’ worth of groceries I just spent. I’m a rebel that way.
Once I’m all done hyperventilating maybe I will tell you all about the scintillating life of being self-employed. It is JUST as glamorous as I knew it would be! And I took to it like a duck to water. Or, the way a duck would take to water if swimming caused said duck to squeal with glee but occasionally swim back over to the shore to hang out in the reeds and breathe deeply into a paper bag. It’s just like THAT.
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fun sIZe
Do you know what today is? WELL DO YOU??? Today is… ummm… hell, I don’t know what today is. What I DO know is that in Retail Land today is THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR HALLOWEEN! Or something like that. It’s that delightful time of year when you cannot walk into your favorite consumer establishment without being assaulted by row upon row of sacks of delicious lard confections! And they are VALUE PRICED; just a couple of dollars for lots and lots of tiny treats which you can eat by the handful, because each one–on its own–is far too small to have any calories.
I am powerless against the lure of the tiny Butterfingers. They call to me with their siren song and I say to myself, “Self, you do not require any of the adorable little Butterfingers. They should call them Butterbuttcheeks. Resist!” My self is a very good listener on the way INTO the store, and THROUGH the store, and yet, SOMEHOW, a bag of Butterfingers ended up in line with me on my way OUT. Go figure.
And these are not “fun sized” or “FUN SIZED,” either. No. These are VERY SPECIAL Butterfingers which are fun sIZed. I feel that the funky disregard for capitalization conventions is enhancing my overall Butterfinger experience. Also I feel a little sick, because I’ve had a whole bunch of them.
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How am I a moron?
Let me count the ways!
Clarification the first: Petty, yes. Unimportant in the grand scheme–absolutely. I’m back to that whole thing where I feel safer complaining than extolling the virtues of the things which are well. It’s a sickness. I’m aware. Shut up.
Clarification the second: Busy. Busy busy busy. This is all I’ve got for you. What, you’d rather I just skip posting so that you can wonder if I’m curled up in the corner, rocking back and forth while sobbing into my now-detached ponytail? Hush up and be grateful. Plus I am not admitting to anything.
So. As if any (more) proof was needed:
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