I just want to say thanks to everyone who reacted to my story about the dog, and for offering your own stories and comforting words. That was very cool, and it made me gain a little more faith in humanity as a whole. I love knowing other people are good, decent and caring people and we all feel the same way about things like this. Sometimes I have a problem with hating people, being overly sarcastic and/or pessimistic about how they act (hey, living in Scottsdale for a few years does that to you, ask Trish), so this was also the bright side of what happened. I got to realize people are inherently good on the inside, and most people are not afraid to show it. Thanks for being there for me, and for being the cool people you are.

Anyway, what should I post for my first non-death related blog entry? Hmm. Good question. I would like to write about some hilarious thing I have seen but the past 48 hours just haven't been what I would call hilarious. I have had some very lovely things occurring in my private life, but that just ain't blog territory. Yesterday at the carwash, I noticed that I was literally the only person not talking on a cell phone while waiting. Seriously, every single person there was on a cell phone at one point. Simultaneously. It was remarkable in a way, and very sad, too. What the hell was it like back in say, 1995? Before cell phones were frickin' everywhere, what did people do with themselves? Did they read? Did they talk to strangers? Did they actually function? I wonder. I can't remember what it was like already. It seems like people have always been on cell phones at any obsessive rate. This bugs me a little.

I got tailgated in a parking lot today by a dork in an SUV. So I slowed down to an elderly crawl and bugged the crap out of him. Why does that feel so good sometimes? I just am not going to whip around a parking lot where people could be walking or backing out of spots without looking. Making someone go slow behind me and watching their frustration in the rear view mirror is cheap entertainment, and I like it.

I don't like it when you get a round pizza and they cut it into the little squares. I love the pieces with crust on them, and it is so hard to eat the messy middle squares that are nothing but sauce and cheese. I just don't understand the logic behind the square-cut technique. Perhaps it's designed to make you eat less or something, because of the smaller sizes of the slices--or is it to make you eat more? Maybe it has no purpose other than style. "Hey, I want to go eat at that pizzeria that does that cool thing where they cut the pizza into little squares instead of boring slices. No, I don't remember their name but I do remember those squares, sure as shit! Let's go! Now!"

I'm happy it's almost May. May is a fun month.

I believe in aliens. And they are gonna git us. I don't even have a cellar to hide in when they get here. I am not sure how fast my car will drive, really. Maybe I can hit 120mph but that's it. I bet the aliens will be a hell of a lot faster. They'll catch me, and then just do some weird alien shit and make me freak out. I don't believe they care about abducting us, or sticking probes in our asses, but I do think they would just do a lot of staring, touching and probably shoving if they came here and tried to mingle. An intergalactic shoving match, the likes of which we cannot comprehend, is at hand. Somedays, I really believe that. And other days I just go to work and buy groceries and watch TV. So at least, not everyday is fraught with aliens-are-coming-anxiety. Just some. I thought I would share that. And also to let you aliens know I am getting ready, and just a friendly warning: I am an excellent shover. So watch out! Fyah fyah!*

*That's my 'karate chop' noise. Spelled out, it's kind of bastardish.

This makes me feel better.

A dog died in my car tonight. I am so fucked up right now. I was driving home from a date, I was having a happy day, I bought a cool new shirt and a silver wrist cuff, my writing has been kicking ass lately, I had a beer and a salad and I was well, happy. And then I see a dog in the road ahead. It was a large, yellow dog that looked I swear to GOD like my dog, Sam. The one I had when I was a teenager, and the one I think I will always love and miss, no matter how many other dogs I have in my life--he's the ultimate dog, in my mind. Anyway, I stopped my car and put on the hazards and tried to catch him--put him in my car to try to save him so he wouldn't get hit. Only I was too late. As I tried to get him to follow me into my car, he all the sudden bolted into the other lane of traffic and I saw him get hit. Have you ever seen a dog get hit by a car? He FLEW. It made a thump. The car had tried to stop but it was too late. The dog flew... he skidded, and slid. He was screaming. God help me, right now. He was screaming.

I don't know. I just panicked. I ran across the road and other cars had stopped, including the guy who had hit him. It was so terrible... the dog actually got up and ran into an alley. i thought that was a good sign. If he could move he wasn't hurt too bad, maybe. Me and some other people followed him and someone had a blanket. Me, the guy and this other girl loaded him into the back of my car. He wasn't bleeding or anything. The girl knew where an emergency vet clinic was, but it was about 15-20 minutes away. We headed off, and the poor dog lay in the back of my car, not moving a lot, but still breathing and we figured, probably in shock. Gosh, I kept petting him over the seat and telling him he was a good boy. I prayed and wondered why this had to happen, you know? Like, this dog was just fine one minute, and then fucking flying through the air and screaming a second later. And now we were trying to race him to the vet to save his life. He had no tags on and we couldn't call an owner, obviously.

We got to the vet, and I knew he wasn't alive anymore. He wasn't responding to my touch at all, and when I ran around and opened the car door his eyes were open and blood was everywhere on his face. I guess he had internal bleeding. I shook him and yelled at him, still calling him a good boy... FUCK! It was terrible. We carried him into the vet, blood was everywhere at that point, and the vet said there was no heartbeat. Too fucking late.

Honestly, this is a nightmare of mine. I have actually had this nightmare. I have always prayed I wouldn't see an animal get killed like that. I didnt think I had the balls to take it, you know? I am such a huge animal lover, as anyone who fucking reads this blog knows. I can't believe this, and I feel so helpless. I tried so, so hard to save this poor dog, who was probably a good dog because he was a collie mixed with a golden retriever-- just like Sam. I mean seriously, that's the other part I can't get over in the slightest. He looked fucking exactly like my dog. And the last time I saw my dog was when he died on the vet's table when we put him to sleep. I still have these horrible thoughts of how he sighed, and his eyes stayed looking at me right until he died. This, what happened tonight, is too much of a reminder of the suckiest thing I ever had to do. It is too much. I seriously can't believe this shit.

You know, you just drive around and you don't look. Who looks around, really? You don't react fast enough, and things like this happen. It could have been me. I could have hit him and made him fly through the air and scream. How clueless are we, 99% of the time, really? We just go about our day, not really realizing how close we come to being killed or killing. It blows my mind. This is not cool. At least this poor dog died in a quiet car, on a blanket, and not in the road, and he didn't get hit twice or something. But what if someone is looking for that dog right now? What was his name? Are they going to put up lost dog signs; and if I see one I know I will have to call and tell them what happened because I sure as hell would want to know what happened to my dog. Still. This was an ordinary night. Totally fun and happy day. And just like that I am all fucked up now. Isn't that just the fucking bitch of it all? Don't you hate that? Don't you want to punch a hole through a wall over the insane randomness of it all? Ah, fuck.

Normally I wouldn't post this stuff here, but this blog has sort of taken on its own form and I feel like sharing this with you all who read this. I write funny and I love this blog for its outlet-giving powers, you know? And I need it tonight. I need to grieve for a dog I didn't know, but died quietly in my backseat only three or four minutes before we pulled up to the vet hospital. He was a good dog, and he is gone and I couldn't save him. I would have done anything in those minutes from the moment I tried to coax him into my car until we pulled up to get him to safety and patch him up and save his life. I save things. I do that. I have taken in strays, and gotten dogs back into their yards safely. And this is the first one I couldn't. It sucks so fucking much. Any advice you have to try to get bad images out of your head so you can sleep and drive down the road where you saw something that sucked like this, send it, I fucking need it.

Your Birthdate: June 3

Being born on the 3rd day of the month is likely to add a good bit of vitality to your life. The energy of 3 allows you bounce back rapidly from setbacks, physical or mental. There is a restlessness in your nature, but you seem to be able to portray an easygoing, "couldn't care less" attitude. You have a natural ability to express yourself in public, and you always make a very good impression. Good with words, you excel in writing, speaking, and possibly singing. You are energetic and always a good conversationalist. You have a keen imagination, but you tend to scatter your energies and become involved with too may superficial matters. You are affectionate and loving, but sometimes too sensitive. You are subject to rapid ups and downs.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

The best part of this is it describes my imagination as KEEN, and then says I am too superficial. The rapid ups and downs can go away, though; if I run out of pills.

I need to read more comic books (again). There's a lot I need to catch up on, like the whole backstory of Bruce Wayne. Luckily there are movies to do the hard work for me. I don't have to brave the geekier-than-thou comic store clerks; nor do I need to track down hard to find issues. Just sit back, eat popcorn, and watch. So simple. So easy. Yet, comic books are just the shit. I was talking to a friend last night at length about the artform that is telling a story in comic form. It's really admirable to be able to create a story that is both literal and visual, simultaneously. Anyway, I love this Batman poster-- and I am very excited to see this. Maybe a Batman-type figure can go to town on the landscapers here. Seriously; they started using leaf blowers and weedwhackers at some crazy time this morning-- around 6:30. And they never rake up. They just blow crap around and into corners of the parking lot. They are the suckiest landscapers, and they are risking my fury. If they know what's good for them, those dirty fools will get the rake out and bag it up, and fast. I look sweet and demure, but let's just say: Friends in low places, ready and able to kill a man. Look lightly, Landscapy Larry.

I just happened to see the word “canoe” at random today, and now I can't stop thinking about canoeing. It had been so long since I have been in a canoe, and that blows. I like canoeing. In fact, I am pretty damn good at it, too. I have never once tipped over in a canoe.

I used to go canoeing in south Jersey back in the high school years. Most of the time, it was with the church youth group. We would drive down to some river in the Pine Barrens and spend the day canoeing, eating picnic lunches and, in my case anyway, trying to make feeble attempts to flirt with the guy I liked while simultaneously deflecting the flirtations from the guy I could only think of as a friend.

The river we canoed on was narrow for the most part, but it was creepy. The water was stained a dark brownish-red shade because the roots of the cedar and pine trees had colored the water. It was fragrant, and if you were splashed with that water it would leave little tan spots on your clothes. Tree branches would sometimes hang way down into the water so we had to maneuver around them, and that’s how I found out I was good at canoeing—I could steer a canoe like a fuckin’ champ. Like I said, I never toppled over. We wobbled, sure, but there was no falling into that dark, scary water.

I know I’ve mentioned my sick imagination before, and how I sometimes make up pretty gross things. Well, on one trip I was riding in a canoe with one of my good friends and I started talking out loud as we quietly moved over the dark water and ducked our heads under tree branches. I started to make up a story, about a woman who was drowned in the river by a crazy guy. But she didn’t stay dead, because it turned out she was crazy, too. So she lived under the water, swimming along and looking up at people on the river with her whitish-brown, water-soaked empty eyesockets. It got a lot more gross, but I won’t get into it here, since this is supposed to be the “funny” blog, and not the Fangoria blog.

Either way, I really scared this girl. She seriously got mad at me for saying that stuff, and I remember being a little hurt she didn’t join in and make up scary stuff, too. I misjudged this girl, and thought she’d be into scaring ourselves a little. Nope. We had to paddle a lot faster, so we could reach the more open parts of the river and the sunlight, and of course, to stay close to the rest of the group. She said that I was mean to make that shit up. After lunch, I got a new canoeing partner for the rest of the trip, and it ended up being very fun after all, with no more bony hands, empty eyes or ropy intestines.

Um. Other things about canoeing that rocked? The time me and my boyfriend at the time, Steve, went canoeing on a lake up near Lake Placid. My parents and sister were also canoeing and hanging out at the lakeside, and Steve and I started taking the canoeing very seriously. We went as fast as we possibly could go, and we tried to do fast turns and basically just push the limits of XTreme Canoeing. However, overall I remember it being very peaceful out on that little lake in the mountains. It was fun canoeing with someone who I just had a nice rapport with; we could just shut the hell up and canoe. At one point, he did something so weird: he asked me to sing. We were far enough away from my family that I decided it would be OK (I have this thing where I don’t want to sing in front of people I know). I sang some opera-type stuff, if I recall, and probably not that well. Later, he wrote a little essay about that day and how my voice sounded out on the water, with the sound of the oars pushing against the water. It was very cool.

Either way, I need to go canoeing again. I don’t care if I am alone, because really what I want to do is just glide along quietly and think; and also feel that awesome burn in your arms and upper back from the rowing. If you want to come with me, you have to be ready to let me be the boss, though. If I want to go this way on the river, you’ve got to back me up; if I want to tell horror stories, just let me finish it out. And finally, if you want me to sing, don’t ask for opera, please. Let me sing Creedence Clearwater Revival, because Fogerty is more in line with where my vocal range is nowadays. Scary.

So this is odd: I was driving back to the office from lunch, and I had my windows down because it's a nice day out. All of the sudden, I smelled chocolate. Specifically, dark chocolate. I thought it was my imagination, or perhaps even a "phantom smell" that happens right before your brain explodes or something. But then I realized I was driving past a horse property, and the smell was actually manure.

What makes manure smell like chocolate? I hope I don't have a secret desire to binge on manure or something. Because that would just suck, big time. Hopefully, there is some basic component to the smell, if one were to break the smell down into its various smellements (ha), there'd be some chemical that is the same in both chocolate and manure.

I don't know what else to write at the moment, but I did want to give a shout-out to the person that my sister and I have discussed at length, and have deemed our new Favorite Blogger. This person is Lengli. If you have never clicked on her blog, I recommend it. No one can quote the Cyberkinetic Ghost of Christmas Past like Lengli.

If anyone can send me links for strange and unusual chimeras, that would be cool too. This has nothing to do with chocolate, manure or Lengli. It's just that I love chimeras. Like the wholphin. Or the liger. Shit like that. I can actually use this information for a real purpose though, as I am writing about a certain chimera right now. Thank you for helping, and also, for giving me the best day of my life. I mean, my tea's gone cold and I'm wonderin' why I got outta bed at all.

Trish just wrote about the time she had her Halloween dress stuck in the attic fan in our old house. It inspired me to reminisce about that attic.

The house was built around 1880 or so, and it had some cool things for us to find when we moved in. For instance, when my Dad was working on a remodel upstairs, in the walls of the closet in Trish’s room, we found old newspaper clippings and photographs of people we didn’t know. It was kind of creepy, but pretty fun to think about why this stuff was in the wall itself and who these people were.

The attic itself was all dark, musty wood and sharp angles. Like a lot of old houses, the ceiling of the attic was gabled in the shape of the roof above. So you could only stand up in the middle of the attic, as the ceiling sloped down to into tight angled corners. And those corners were dark. Horror movie-dark. We had one light bulb in the center of the attic, which you turned on with a long string that hung down this very narrow wooden staircase. The light didn’t travel well around all that dark wood up there, and if you had an overactive imagination like we did, there were all sorts of creatures and ghosts hiding in those dark corners in the back we couldn’t see.

To make the attic even creepier were the nails. Exposed nail tips protruded from the ceiling from the last roofing job. So you had to be extra careful up there not to bang your head into a nail. I think everyone in our family must have scratched their head on a nail at least once up there.

However! The best part of the attic was the big old antique chest that was up there when we moved in. The people who we bought the house from just left it there. Of course, within a couple of days’ time, I had figured out how to open the chest and discover what was inside.

Old porn. That’s what was in there. Men’s magazines from the 1940s and 1950s. Very tame, but still way more interesting than the 10-year-old me could have hoped for. I was like a little pervert lesbian up there, sifting through all the ancient porn and giggling about it. I showed it to Tracy, and we had a ball just laughing at headlines and big old vaginas. However, I don’t recall when or how, at some point my parents found out about the old porn stash, and one day it was all gone from the chest.

Another thing about the attic was my Oma apparently considered it to be a perfect hiding place for a killer. Now, my bedroom was right outside the attic door. And Oma made sure to remind me of it. Only she did it in a way that scarred me for years. Upon visiting our new house for the first time, and standing in the doorway to my bedroom, she told my father: “Now make sure you put a lock on that attic door. If someone gets into your house, they could hide up there all day until you all go to bed, and then come out and kill you.”

And this is why I am this way, today. I had a lot of help getting here.

At one point, a few years later, something did get into the attic and camp out there. It was a raccoon or a squirrel. It would scratch at the ceiling of my bedroom. Always at night, when I was trying to sleep and NOT think about the murderer that was surely in the attic, biding his time to come and get us all. My parents set a trap up there and some wildlife-rescue person came and took the ceiling-scratcher away. It definitely was spooky.

Our attic wasn’t the only scary place in the house. In fact, the basement terrified me so much that in the 10 years we lived in that house, I only had the courage to go down there about 5 times. And I am generally a person who loves scary stuff, thrives on the weird, and makes up gory and terrible things on a regular basis—and I couldn’t handle it. The basement had a low ceiling, with rickety wooden steps leading down to a dirt floor. The walls were old, red brick and an old wood-burning stove sat in the corner. I remember thinking about Nazis when I was down there; torture and burning of bodies. Not the sort of fun, concrete basement like Tracy had, where we roller skated, played Barbies, and for some reason, two games we called “Trailer Park” and “Russia.” The only two things I recall about our basement was the time our cat Benji just woke up, walked over to the closet door (the entrance to the basement was inside our living room closet), and hissed and yowled as his tail got fat and his back arched at nothing at all. You know what they say about cats, sensing ghosts and other things like that…

The second thing is an image of my Dad cursing as he tried to carry the big, stupid, faded plastic Santa Claus that we always put on our lawn at Christmas back down there. We stored it there in all the non-Christmas months. The electric cord dangled out of the bottom of Santa, and it got wrapped on one of the stairs. My Dad didn’t get angry a lot, and I remember giggling at the top of the stairs as he fumbled with the plastic Santa. I wouldn’t dare go down there and help him, though. I wasn’t gonna have the ghosts take both my Dad and me. I was still young and had a lot of living to do—but Dad? He was old enough. We could risk Dad.

Somehow, we all made it out of the house alive and unscathed, but for a few nail-marks on our scalps. Trish’s dress was the only casualty I am aware of. And the thing is, if I ever made a thousand-million dollars, I would try to buy that house back. Definitely the coolest house we ever lived in. I’d even let Trish live there, too, with Kane. In the basement.

I've got that sad feeling today that one gets when one finishes a particularly enjoyable book. I really loved reading Black House for so many reasons-- not the least of which was its restorative power over my own writing-- and I guess I didn't really want to finish it. But last night, I just couldn't help it. I told myself I would be allowed to finish reading it once I got all the painting done in the green room (ALL of it, too). So I did that, actually envisioning the book as I worked and cleaned all the brushes for the final time. It made things go faster, and the next thing I knew I was walking the dogs and getting ready for bed early so I could sit comfortably and finish the book uninterrupted.

It took me until 12:30, but I did it. I even got a little teared up. And then had problems falling asleep, because I just kept running over my favorite parts. In my opinion, fiction is the best ever. The fact that it can do that to you, about totally imaginary people and places, is so frickin' cool. Even better-- the fact that it somehow jumpstarted my brain and made me pull out my book and get back into working on it after about a year of no activity... shit! I don't have an adjective for that.

I can't help it, but I am so jazzed about having my fiction-writing pants back on again that I could do a happy jig (if I knew how to dance a proper jig without hurting myself by falling, that is). See, the backstory is, the first book is the Talisman: that was the book that I believe made me start writing in an almost obsessive manner when I was a teenager. I fell off the wagon after college and especially once I sold out and did cheap writing for a living, and the books suffered. But there is something so fun and wildly imaginative about the books that those two guys (Stephen King and Peter Straub) write when they get together-- must be the combination of two very good authors working on one story, simultaneously that super charges the books or something-- that just gets to me on some level that screams at me to write. So in the last few days, I've been noticing my hyper-aware circuitry(tm) has been turned back on, too. It means I get very observant and find myself keeping the little notebook handy at all times in case a good thought bumps out of my head. The other day in traffic it hit me big time, and I was writing like crazy at the red lights, trying to get my thoughts out before the lights changed and I was forced to put the pen down. I would have pulled over if I didn't have somewhere to be at a specific time.

But the fact that this is happening is huge for me. This is, actually, way bigger than getting a promotion or raise at work, or dating a cool new person, or probably even getting married or having a kid. I wouldn't know since I have never done those two things, but still-- getting your personality spit-shined and boosted full of steroids is very awesome, and I can't imagine that standing next to a doofy guy with bad hair and saying vows or shooting a gooey kid across the room from my vagina would be better than this. Sure, I could do those things, and probably will sometime... but having me back in writing form again? That's super. Yay, happy!

Benevolent. Patient. Watchful. They are our leaders, the gargoyles; the keepers of the flame and the eaters of the gefilte fish.

I figured it out. I know what this town needs more of. Gargoyles. That's what!

I've said it before, and tons of other people say it all the time, too: Phoenix is a new city without a lot of character. Where are the crumbly old brick buildings? The wooden porches left over from the Days of Yore, when people had time to wait for the ice truck to deliver a fucking gigantic block of ice so they could have Country-Tyme Lemonade? Did Teddy Roosevelt do anything here-- did he ever even bother to stop by "Ole' Phoenix Way" back in his time? Where are the Civil War battlesites here? No where. I looked. Turns out there was no Civil War here. Stonewall Jackson didn't even care to try to head out this far with his little brigade or whatever. And there are absolutely zero places where the pirates could have stored the booty as they headed up the coast. If there was pirate booty, some corporate building company would have found it by now and sold it on eBay. I check that, too, to be sure no Arizona Pirate Booty is making its way up there. That would be an insult and a slap in the infected eye-socket to my piratic ancestors.

So what I think we need to do is install gargoyles. Like, everywhere. No building should be without one. It's bad luck, all around here in this city of dirt and scrubby bushes. Bad mojo, even. I think gargoyles could help us out. Come to our aid when we are not looking. Sure, they look frightening and sometimes even "ghastly" but they are our faithful guardians. The watchful eyes of the gargoyle can save us all. They know shit. They are tapped into the universe on a level we mortals cannot understand. The gargoyles are our friends.

I'm not writing this from inside a gargoyle's cave or anything. I'm not bound at the feet with the entrails of a dead guy or something like that. Hell, no! Ha! Why would you even think that? I am not being held prisoner. In fact, I tend to enjoy the company of gargoyles very much. I was even invited to the bris for a gargoyle's baby once. (Yes, little known fact-- all gargoyles are practicing jews.) It's not like some wayward gargoyle kidnapped me because I have this blog, and it makes a decent forum for getting gargoyles into the city. No, that's crazy talk right there. What you need to do is go outside and get a breath of fresh spring air and walk in the soft, caressing sunshine for a bit to get that out of your head. ohhh... the sunshine... But seriously now, GARGOYLES are OUR FRIENDS. RESPECT THEM.

Ouch. They do have teeth, so make a habit of wearing work gloves when near windows or overhangs, and make sure you leave out sweet cream for them when they arrive so they will pass over your house for the Rising Moon Feedings. Kosher sweet cream, for the love of all things holy. That's all for now. How do I know this? Oh yeah, right, I forgot to tell you! It's from a book I read, yeah, a book I read. In the library, duh.

One more thing: this is the shirt I am wearing today. The guy who worked the register at Nothing But Noodles today asked me, "What book is that from?" And seriously, he wasn't being ironic, sarcastic or any other "ic." My answer was true without being condescending: "It's one of Maurice Sendak's greatest hits." Where do they get these people nowadays?

Unsightly black cables notwithstanding, I am so happy with my new desk. I had to build this thing in a hurry because I snapped the leg of my old desk off while moving it across the carpet in the midst of painting. It was an ugly old desk, anyway. And I wanted some white furniture against the green walls. This is my set-up when I work from home-- one computer is tuned into work; the other is tuned in to Blog. Blogging feels hard today. Days like this where there seems to be nothing 'funny' 'witty' or 'of interest' in my head are always the days where I somehow feel like logging on and putting something up here, anyway. If I have wasted your time, I apologize. But the capuchins made me do it. They live above the refrigerator, and regularly smack me with their tiny monkey-hands. I get confused.

I've been saying two phrases a lot lately. One is, "Honestly...!" when something is kind of ridiculous, stupid or I can't believe that Katie needs to jump up on me and scratch the hell out of my arm when she gets excited when I come home. It's part of my effort to clean up my mouth. I used to say, "Fuck!" or "Oh, come on, what's THIS shit?"

The second phrase is "8 years." I use it when things are taking an inordinate amount of time to complete. Such as, "It's taking me 8 years to hear back on approval for that article" or "Malcolm, this is taking 8 years" (whenever Malcolm does anything--he is the slowest dog I have ever seen). I just started using the number 8 for some reason one day, and I recently noticed I am consistent with it. Not sure why 8 years became the benchmark for anything, but it seems to have happened, so I am accepting this development in my subconscious and moving on.

So I have to take down my windchime. I got a letter from the HOA that they have changed their rules, and now windchimes are not allowed on anyone's porches or property. I want to know why. It's not like you hear a din of windchimes when you walk through this place; what's wrong with a small, tinkling little chime in the breeze? I don't get it. I have until May 12 to fall into compliance with the new rule, and I'm waiting until the morning of the 12th to take my shit down. I happen to enjoy my windchime alot. And we have had a lot of windy and breezy weather lately, and it has been a nice sound to hear outside my window. My windchime is small, unobtrusive and very pleasant, overall. Who are these nasty, mean, horrible people without souls who have a problem with little chimes? Did they all suffer unspeakable tragedies and/or acts of depravity conducted by a windchime at some point in their life? Was a current windchime somewhere in this complex doing something terrible in its off-hours... was a chime peeking in at some lady as she got dressed, or was it dripping acidic poison down onto some passing-by children or something? Are they evil incarnate? Do their bells herald in creatures from the deepest levels of Hell? Are they disasters lying in wait? What the fuck is the problem with chimes? It's just something I want to know. I mean, honestly.

"CANYOU PLEASE JUST GET ME A CIGARETTEANDSOME COFFEE, I'M A LITTLE STRESSEDOUTATTHE MOMENT!" This is an aye-aye. Very rare, found in Madagascar. I think this is a relative of Malcolm's. But truthfully when I saw this picture, the eyes kind of scared me. This seems like a Henson creation.

Q: What do you call it when two transvestite prisoners have sex?
A: Gender Con-Fusion.

(This joke brought to you by me.)

"Oh, shit on a pancake!" That is a phrase a member of my family said one time in lieu of "shit on a shingle." Why we needed to replace "shingle" in that particular phrase is a mystery that haunts me to this day.

I just realized that my last two posts have revolved around things that happened to me in the bathroom. Someone just tuning in to this blog would think I have some sort of problem that keeps me in safe distance of a toilet at all times. Just for the record, these were coincidences. Although most of my best thinking happens in the bathroom. It's just a fact. Creative release, they call it.

I'm really torn about wanting to write about two things that I think are better left off the blog. One is a very funny "The Office"-type thing that is going on with my job tonight (OK! I can't help it! It involves a hayride! But that's all I can say in safety!); and the other is a developing something-or-other that I am having fun with at the moment. The first one I censor myself from writing about since I don't want someone to read it and fire me; and the second is something I just don't want to jinx, and that I would rather keep kind of quiet. But that thing will involve FAKE BATS, tonight. Not like baseball bats, like the flying rodent things. Faux bats.

I just realized I left my paycheck stub on my desk while I was out to lunch. Now anyone who happened to come by and snoop knows what I make. This thought only alarmed me for about 12 seconds, and then it passed. Since I used the word "snoop" as a verb, now I am thinking of someone coming by my desk with little braids in their hair, smoking a fatty wit da bitches and saying "fo-shizzle" a lot.

This was a line in Black House that made me laugh really hard for some reason. It was a very cute turn of phrase. It was used in the following context: A cop is displeased to see a mob of people coming towards the station, where a suspect who is NOT the killer is being held. The cop sighs, and says, "Well, fuck me till I cry." There have some great "fuck me blank blank blank" phrases over the years, including that gem about a chainsaw in "Heathers," but this one was so simple, so eloquent and carried such a perfect resonance of desperation, anger and sadness.

I feel pretty great today. It's in the 80s outside, and it's breezy and sunny. I am working from home, so I got to take a longer time outside with the dogs this morning. I took them to the park behind my house and let them both off leash and they ran around like two little nuts. Then I went to my doctor and to my relief, I am very healthy at the moment with no sign of relapse. Great stuff.

While I was at the doctor, I had to smile like a goof because when I used the restroom while I was waiting, I noticed the "Urine Collection Cups." They are implements by which you can give a urine sample. Not very exciting on the surface, and kind of repulsive, really. But something about the way it was labeled as such cracked me up. I pictured if you went to someone's house for dinner, and you are helping them set the table, and you saw cups labeled "Urine Collection Cups" in the cabinet-- that would be strange. Hell, even if they were in the bathroom. What would be this person's deal where they have a urine collection? Would it be all one individual's personal urine, or would it be the kind of collection where you tried to get the urine of famous people? Would you keep a urine collection refrigerated, or in a handsome oak curio cabinet? I guess that would be a matter of preference.

I have to admit I thought about taking a urine collection cup with me. Just think of the hilarity of going to Trish's house, and pouring myself a drink and drinking out of the urine collection cup in a conspicuous manner. I have a huge messenger-bag purse... it would have fit in there. They were brand-new and sterile, as they had plastic over them that had a "sterile" label on them-- which while psychologically troubling, would be safe to drink from otherwise. But then it would have been kind of strange if as I was checking out, and I reached in to get my checkbook and the urine collection cup rolled out onto the floor or something. I would have to say, "Oh, how did that get in there?" and then give it up to the lady behind the counter. And then switch doctors because I don't want to be "the urine hoarder lady."

I just think there are so many, many ways to have fun with a plastic cup labeled with big clear block letters: "Urine Collection Cup." It's sort of a got-to-have item if you are weird and slightly needy. But I think with a little craftsmanship, I could make my own. But what kind of person stays at home, carefully painting those words on a plastic cup? What does that say about my chances for normalcy and/or ever having children with someone? I don't know. Hell. That's what I have to deal with. This is my hell.

I was in the bathroom stall and I made up a jingle today! It goes like this:
"If you're looking for something 'sweet'
Try some poultry!
It's better than meat!"

I have this little desire stashed away inside me to be an advertising hotshot. I would drive a really fancy car (it would be black and never have smushed bugs on the windshield or dog hair on the seats, for they would be engineered by NASA to resist such things), wear "power suits" and carry a "briefcase" (for my brief things) and a "more involvedcase" (for my more involved documents); I would order high-priced male prostitutes on my cell phone while on a "power lunch." I would tell Marky Mark he can't call anymore. Everytime I looked up at the sky in The City, where I would have to work, I would see one of those spiralling shots of the Big Buildings Towering Above Me (I'd have a famous film director put an implant in my brain so I would see these sort of shots all the time). And finally, I would make a gajillion dollars and fire his ass, fire her ass, and him, and him, and then promote the mailboy with the great ideas.

Well, between the jingle creation today and some actual work, I decided I have a deep loathing for someone I know. Kind of like "hate", really, but it's not that intense, it is simply an intense desire never to really hang out with this person and his dumb girlfriend. I don't loathe a lot of people, so this is a little strange. But oh well! The best part of loathing someone is it can sound like "loafing someone" and that means baking, and baking means kneading some dough. Dough is soft and squishy, and squishy reminds me of Play-Doh and Play-Doh reminds me of kindygarten, and that was a pretty decent year! I was on the top of my game AND I drank more milk than soda back then.

I forget what my point was in coming here to blog today. Anyone have a good loathing story? Or jingle about loathing? I'd probably appreciate it and laugh like a moron.

I figured out a sly new way to post a picture of Katie. I wanted to show how green the walls are in the office-room, and I needed a subject to be in the foreground so you have a point of reference. Well, anyway... oh man, I don't know. There's nothing. Nothing at all left to write. I don't have a thought in my head, not even a little one featuring David Hasselhoff in a speedo or anything. Wow. This is it. I can't believe it happened, but this is the end of the blog. Bye, and godspeed, all ya little sailors. Hic.