Today is an annoying day, and I am not yet in a good mood. Just FYI.

Also FYI: Dawn is a really good friend (at least for fellow females, who really really care about feelings) because I notice that she always genuinely gives a damn how you feel. This makes her an excellent hostess (want another pillow? is that too loud/hot/weird? here's a snack!), an excellent listener when you need to vent about people you don't necessarily hate but at whom you are blindingly pissed (that must've made you feel unwanted/uncomfortable/unappreciated), and an excellent doctor. In fact, I bet they teach this empathy stuff in med school, but half the students probly don't do as well as her, because she's naturally like this. Easy A for the Dawnster!

I just thought I'd mention this and give kudos, because it's a fine fine FINE quality in a human being, but probably not one that gets noticed and complimented a lot. After all, everyone is all focused on themselves and it seems perfectly right that someone else is, too. But I'm rather used to no one paying attention to how I feel about anything (c.f. my entire family), so it stands out to me. In fact, I realize that I'm often surprised when people care if they make me feel bad, and always think "I should be more like that." I'm not, really. I was raised by wolves. In an alley. Savage, savage wolves.

I will now stop drinking unreasonable amounts of wine at such an early hour, and go get milk for my tea. And maybe a pastry, because I'm feeling sorry for myself.

Huh.

So apparently someone in Poland is trying to buy a car, and they used my debit card to establish their own credit. Not that I begrudge my Polish brothers and sisters a leg up in these tough times, but... um... well. Fuck off, see.

I am blogging this for advice from any of youse who may have gone through this. I canceled the card. The transactions - one from the car place and one from a company in CA that verifies card info - were this morning and will not be posted to my account. (Because it's payday, and I like to go look at my balance first thing in the morning. My bank account obsession pays off at last!) I don't really use the card for any standing purchases/verifications/whatever - it's not like it's on file with any companies, I mean. Except the health club and Netflix, so I'll call them and give them new payment info. But that's all I can think of.

Should I be doing anything else? I mean, I don't think it's full-on identity theft - just someone got my card number. Which is freaky and all, but easy enough to fix.

But I am not well-versed in these things, and many many people are, so please tell me if I should be doing anything else to make sure my life doesn't become one of those horrible nightmares you hear about where your credit is ruined and all that. I was gonna say "email me with tips", but let's share with the class, shall we? Teachable moment, and all that. So comments are open. Comment, please. Thanks.

I'll forget in the morning, so here you go: SBD? Anyone?

Not me - have a stack of books but no reading done. Maybe next week. But do let us know if you've anything to share.

Well.

For whatever reason, I am in a despondent and despairing mood. Plenty of reasons to choose from. My grandmother's not doing so well and I feel utterly helpless - that's what's mostly on my mind. (And it's a soup of emotions: sad, outraged, useless, terrified, frustrated, furious, and so on.) But there are some other things, too. So even when I can take my mind off of her, I still find myself bursting into tears periodically.

To counter this, I call and talk to friends about the good things. Like the trip to the inauguration, my quite painless and positive annual review, and my healthy bank account. I keep looking at news stories like this and feel like "hope" and "change" have a very deep and resonant meaning all of a sudden, like I'm getting some of the best parts of my country back, and it's not just a dream. I met Dawn and her parents today - socializing always having been key to lifting my spirits - and we ate noodles and pastries and talked and laughed and all that lovely stuff. And my hair is certifiably awesome, having received 5 compliments on it in a week (all thanks to my new blow dryer, btw), and great hair always makes me feel 1000% better.

But still, I can't quite be anything but desperately sad, at the end of the day. All weepy and hopeless and sobbing and whatever. Maybe it's just hormones. That actually sounds likely, now that I think of it. That, and my grandmother, of course. Makes sense.

Still sucks to feel it, though. Obviously.

Funny:


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Yeah, well. Here's what I know: never commit the horrible sin of getting old and sick in this country.

Anyway.

Gah. I just spent close to an hour emailing pics to Rita (because they are so large, they took forever to send) so I'm not in a terribly bloggy mood, sorry. I will now give you the story of what happened.

First, we drove like 9 hours from Indianapolis to Maryland on Sunday - which actually went really fast, proving that all road trips are a zillion times easier and funner and faster when you have a good conversational partner trapped in the car with you. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by my friend Paul's lethally cute 6-year-old daughter who explained that she'd be showing us where we'd sleep. This as she stood in the open door and we hadn't even advanced up the driveway, causing me to immediately and privately dub her The Eager Hostess (and then I imagined a whole series of Wodehouse-like novellas chronicling the adventures of The Eager Hostess, which shows what 9 ours on a highway will do to an addled brain such as mine). So yay rah, safely arrived, lovely hot dinner and sweet wine and visiting and then sleep.

Then in the morning (that's Monday morning, MLK Day), we headed into D.C. to go pick up our coveted tickets. Pretty much everyone who was awarded a ticket had to go to some congressional office buildings to pick them up on that day, from 9am-noon. Which meant that there were just throngs of people lined up around all these various buildings. We passed a very long line on our way to our own building, and a couple of people were walking out with tickets in hand - the first ones to emerge triumphant - and the rest of the line erupted in cheers and clapping and general joyfulness.

That pretty much decribes the attitudes of the crowds the whole time. Everyone was so freaking happy. Even when we were pissed beyond belief (that part later), we were all pleasant and supportive and kind to each other. If I hadn't been there and heard it described to me, I'd think "Dude - that's sick. Fucking happy nice people all la-la-la and solicitous of each other and shit. That's fucked up." But since I was there, let me tell you something: it's pretty goddamn great and it's the way the world should be. Like when people talk about Christmas Spirit and how it should last the whole year? Yeah well - the real Christmas spirit actually sucks, with everyone fixated on greed and grievances and horrifying stress and whatnot. This is what over-earnest Christmas-spiriters are talking about, and I never find it in such massive quantities in December, that's for sure. Fuck the Christmas spirit, man. After this weekend, I can easily say: I wish the Inaugural Spirit would last all year long.

But ANYWAY.

The line for tickets snaked around the building and the block, doubling over itself, so we prepared ourselves for a long wait. Then a woman in a parallel line (that faced the other way and I'd assumed it was a line for the building next door) gestured at us and all the people in line near us and indicated we should totally come get in her line. It was a different entrance to the same building, and her line was way shorter. God bless her, as this saved us probably at least an hour or two. So we went through security, were let loose in this building to find our assigned room, and voila we were there to pick up our tix.

There was quite the panic when my name wasn't on the list. They had someone with my last name, but the first name was Alexandra and not Elizabeth. After a little research and a lot of frenzied sweating and a print-out of the email exchange between Rita and the ticket-people from a week ago (such luck that she'd brought it with her!), they said "oops typo!" and crossed off Alexandra and wrote Elizabeth and handed the packet to me. Rita continues to call me Alexandra, though, because why not?

So then we went and walked like 4 or 5 miles around the mall and played tourist, which is always fun. We checked out the Museum of American History (which was packed, but terrific) and various other buildings and monuments - most of which were closed. I got pissed off at the Lincoln Memorial because hello? Taxpayer! That's my monument! I want to see it, curse you all! But whatever, they were still tearing down the stage from the concert the night before. But it was actually a pretty great day, walking around with Rita. We of course scoped out where our section was, where we'd have to go the next day, and took pictures of the empty stage and the banner-draped Capitol. And we gawked at the godawful ugly tee-shirts the street vendors were selling and listened to a man hawking Obama Air Freshener. (Yes we CAN get that smell out of your old smokey car seats!)

Then I started limping after weirdly pulling a muscle in my thigh, due to my ridiculously heavy (but warm and comfy) snow boots. Honest, they're like 5 pounds each, I swear, and alla sudden I was like "Ow wtf ow." So we hobbled back to Maryland and ate good pizza and slept.

We decided that, in terms of the actual inauguration crowds, getting in line by 7am was about the same as any other time after 4am. And we just weren't die-hard enough to do 4am. We had tickets to the silver section (it was all color coded) which was far enough back that even if you got the closest seats in the section, it'd only be marginally better than the furthest seats in the section. So we got off the train at like 7:00 and were promptly and thoroughly confused about where to go next.

Why? Because (a) just about every street was closed, even those not on the parade route, and (b) everyone in any position of authority was also thoroughly confused. We'd ask an officer if we could take the next street all the way up to 3rd, or would it be blocked off? And he said "I don't know." We asked this at about every street, and other various similar questions along the way, and always received the same answers. The police, the FBI, the people with SECURITY on their jackets - no one knew anything. No one was directing anyone. The massive hoards just had to figure it out for themselves. It was really a dumb way to run things.

So through a combination of constant questioning and comparing notes with other random strangers in the hordes, we wound up walking through this tunnel. Like, an underground street. The kind that emerges onto a sort of highway, with exits. And it was all completely deserted except for throng and throngs of people wandering on through. It was like a disaster movie - like we'd all survived a nuclear holocaust and were emerging into the light of day. I swear. It was fucking surreal, dude.

Whatever, we finally made it to the "line" for the silver "gate", which in reality was a "half-mile stretch of road filled with a humongous crowd" which was gathered before a banner that said "silver gate" but which was obviously nothing but a cruel motherfucking joke. Let me be clear here: we all had tickets. Each and every one of us. Probably 50-100,00-ish people (there were tons in front of us and way way more behind us, as far as the eye could see), and all of them had silver tickets.

None of us got in.

Yeah, I know, right? Honestly, the city/police/inaugural committee/SecretService/whoever should be completely ashamed of themselves. It was a disaster. Basic summary: we stood about 2.5 hours in the extreme cold, packed like sardines, waving our tickets, watching the minutes tick by, and nothing happened. We moved maybe 4 feet in all that time. There was no one at the mythical "gate". There was no one who came by to inform us of what the fuck was going on. Security was alleged checking people in from 8am to 11am, so when it got to about 10:30, we decided to give up.

I really can't describe my level of disgust and anger here. I went to Grant Park on election night, okay - like a million people there and they had maybe 5 days to plan it, but it was in and out of there lickety-split, smoth as mam's milk. This was like 2 million people - less than that in the ticket-holding areas, only like 200,000 - and they had TWO MONTHS to plan it. And there was no information, no one tended to the crowd flow, no sign of any management whatsoever. It was really appalling. God knows what the thousands of people behind us did, but we just left. We couldn't see a jumbotron from where we were, even, and there was only the most distant sound from a speaker somewhere. No way were we missing the swearing in and the speech, dammit.

I said to Rita: "Let's just walk and find anywhere in the next 30 minutes before it starts with a TV screen and a hot beverage." We decided to walk through the Museum of the American Indian in an effort to avoid the crowds and lo! It was the American Indians who saved us! Not that they had any reason to, what with us being palefaces and all, but the generosity that day (among anyone not involved inthe planning or logisitcs of the event, that is) knew no bounds.

There was a big-screen TV! And it was warm! And they gave us hot chocolate! And it was really really really hot hot chocolate! And we thawed out and watched it on TV with a thousand other refugees from The Silver Line Of Doom. It was a typical Obama crowd: every age, every color, a hundred different walks of life, and everyone happy and attentive and polite to each other. And then there were some Indians, in full headdress. One banged on a ceremonial drum. He'd decorated teh drum skin with an Obama logo.

It was actually really pretty awesome. :-)

Then we set off on the Bataan Death March of the Third Street Tunnel again, after a false start at a nearby Metro station that was just killing us with the pressing bodies and the standing on concrete again and the diesel fumes from the nearby buses. By this time my feet were killing me, as I'd been on them for about 6 hours (more than two of them standing in that unmoving line - it's generally the standing that gets me more than the walking) plus the several miles walked the day before. We were also starving, since we were only allowed to bring a light snack into the secured area WHICH WE NEVER GOT INTO YOU MOTHERFUCKERS YOU, and a couple of granola bars only satisfies so much after hours of walking in the freezing cold.

But we made it at last to Union station and even got seats on the train somehow, and Paul picked us up and fed us Cuban food before sending us on our way. We drove all night and got to Indy at like 1:30am, where we immediately turned on CNN so I could see Michelle's dress. (I think it was just kinda meh - love the skirt, love the fabric, but the bodice was boring and shapeless and wrong.) I think I finally passed out about 4am.

Then I drove home to Indy yesterday, after Rita stuffed me with a hearty brunch.

It's odd - I didn't really get all emotional there. I did get choked up when they announced Barack Obama so he could step up and take the oath, and a little right at the end of his speech. A lot more when the little girl in front of me kissed her mom, who was weeping, and patted her head. But it was when I was driving home yesterday, with some news report on the radio saying in this mundane way, "Today, President Obama spent the morning in a meeting with..." I dunno. Just the thought that this could be normal - that I might not dread the daily newscast. That what started not so long ago with a bunch of normal people - lots of kids and some shrill progressives and a bunch of odds-and-ends types, people who just wanted to give it a try - that it all somehow ended in this? I wonder if I'll always remember it so vividly, what it was like to believe it was a crazy long-shot but oh how nice to just go with it, give in to the less cynical side of yourself.

There was always some big chunk of me that believed it was all tilting at windmills. The good guys don't win - the usual intolerable assholes do, and you suck it up and move on. When you tilt at windmills, you aren't supposed to actually become the goddamn President of the United States. But here we are.

So I cried a little. Or a lot. Mostly out of an enormous relief. Partly because it was the first time in years that anything I let myself believe in, actually panned out. Some of it because there are the tentative stirrings of the tattered remains of love and hope for my country - and I didn't know how much that even mattered to me, it's been so long that I've suppressed it. And a little just because I was tired and sleep-deprived and other not-so-good things are blooming behind my eyes these days, and life is always a little complicated like that.

So that's my inauguration story. I'm glad I have one. I also have the swank invitation and program, as well as the useless ticket they gave to me. Or to Alexandra, I mean. Which is a lovely keepsake. Not as lovely as this thing, but oh well.

So now I have to go to bed, without uploading photos or even proofreading this, sorry. So so sleepy, gnight. I'l open comments in case I forgot something and this doesn't make sense and you can ask wtf, okay here, gnight.

Hi I'm home and I will blog les details of le trip later. Right now it looks like Blogger is going down for maintenance for a while (I think? my time zones are all discombobulated) and anyway it'll take some time to tell and I have to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

In the meantime, this is making me feel quite safe and satisfied and relieved, like I was unknowingly holding my breath for eight years and can suddenly breathe again.

:-)

So the idea that I'm going to the inauguration and all is starting to sink in. Very excited, of course, and still stunned - but I've begun to think I'm getting used to it.

Then I go to the Presidential Inaugural site and I'm all "AHHH I'M GOING I'M GOING I WILL BE THERE FOR ALL OF THAT AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

Life can be awfully fun sometimes when, deep down, you're still basically a 15 year old nobody from Indiana.

This morning I woke up and thought my biggest news and most exciting thing would be surviving the Absurd Extreme Freezing Cold outside my door.

But, after several completely unexpected emails and phone calls, a lot of impromptu planning, a sense of adventure and a few really fucking awesome friends, my big news and most exciting thing is as follows:
Five day weekend!
Road trip!
With Rita!
Plus a visit to Paul!
Because two (free, government-supplied) tickets to the inauguration!
OMG I AM TOTALLY GOING TO THE INAUGURATION WITH TICKETS AND THIS WEEKEND AND OMFG.

Wtf? Keeee-RAZE-eee, am I right? My friend Rita (in Indy, so alla this comes with a quick sleepover at Dawn's, too!) and I have been saying since last summer how we totally have to go to the inauguration. And we emailed our respective congresspeoples to request tickets on like Nov. 5.

My congresspeople are as follows: Dick Durbin, Rahm Emmanuel, Barack Obama. I said to Rita, "I'll ask, but this isn't happening. It's all on your Indiana guys, man." And then I got messages telling me "sorry we regret unfortunately et cetera et cetera." Rita didn't get anything but silence, and when we spoke a few days ago, it was a rather hilarious conversation between two people trying to convince themselves that it was no big deal, we'll just stay at home, have to work anyway, can't really afford to travel right now, blah blah.

Then this morning, an email from Rita. HEY INDIANA PEOPLE READING THIS: YOU HAVE TO VOTE FOR ANDRE CARLSON. Because all last minute, he offers Rita two inauguration tickets. She thought it was a scam email at first, until she really looked at it. Then she had a small heart attack and forwarded it to me.

In short, my boss said yeah take those days off (which involves rescheduling my annual review and adding a measure of panic to this verrrrrry time-sensitive financial project I'll miss a day of, so let's hear it for my awesome fuckin boss, huh?); Rita got confirmation that the tickets were ours if we can pick them up in person in DC on Monday morning; my fantastic friend Paul said yeah of course we can stay at his place; my fantastic friend Paul's wife and kids agreed that we could stay there (and extra-kudos for them, accepting one virtual and one total stranger for two nights in their home, with incredibly short notice); Rita told all her friend thats *I* got the tickets (so they won't kill her for inviting me instead of them, and I DID say I have the best friends in the universe, right?); I failed to do more than a single lick of work all day; there was much excited girly screaming, and voila: it's all set.

I'm going to DC this weekend. To the inauguration. In the ticketed section. Without hotel or flight costs. Because I am the luckiest fucking person on the planet. With a seriously amazing friend who immediately gave her only other ticket to me, and another seriously amazing friend who's all "my couch is yours to sleep on, come forth!", and one serious motherfucking boatload of luck.

Seriously, I should be playing the lottery.

And now if you'll excuse me, I need to go girlyscream some more.

Huh. I could not feel any different (physically) tonight from how I felt last night. It's remarkable, really - I was half-convinced for most of today that I was coming down with something, and/or dangerously sleep-deprived. But not so much, it turns out.

Last night after work, I went on a hunt for Very Good Gloves. My own gloves (always ill-fitting, in addition to half the cashmere lining having shed away) recently acquired a hole in the thumb, and it's like ten below zero here, in case you hadn't heard. So I decided: screw it. I will go pay much money for very very very warm gloves. So I went to Macy's, which had nothing but yarn and Italian leather. Useless to me! Then I went to like 5 other places, trudging around in my too-heavy snow boots, growing increasingly hungry and acquiring a hunger headache, and finally trudging home in a veritable blizzard with a cheap but insulated and good-enough pair of gloves from Filene's Basement.

And then I put them on and found the pair was two right hands. So back in, allllllllll the way to the back of the store for a goddamn exchange. All for gloves I didn't really like all that much.

It was a crappy night, is what I'm saying. The headache was hellacious, my sinuses were torturing me, I was nauseous (after finally getting home, I ate too fast), and I basically felt like someone beat me up. Felt like that for the first half of today, too. But now I feel just dandy fine, and I think a lot of my physical misery can be blamed - oddly enough - on old contact lenses. Which sounds weird, but this is the second time I've noticed that chucking an overripe pair of contacts and putting in a fresh set the next day makes me feel like a million bucks alla sudden.

Which is all the incentive I need to make an overdue appointment with the eye doctor.

Ramble ramble ramble. Anyway, I still need Very Excellent Gloves, and damn the expense - so my friend Heather will be aiding me. She got this awesome amazing wonderful pair (lined with rabbit fur!) from the department store where she works and tomorrow she'll check to see if they still have some in stock and let me know. I think I can use her handy employee discount, too. So yay.

Because let me tell you: it's not just any pair of gloves that can handle sub-zero temps like today. Within a block, my fingers were going numb inside the new gloves. And they're Thinsulated! But still, man: So. Frikken. Cold.

Also just fyi - the pigeons in this city own the heat lamps. At the train/bus stops, I mean - there are heat lamps under which we all stand like french fries as we await our transportation. The pigeons hang out there, under the lamps, staying warm, and they mark their territory with pigeon poop. So you wind up with situations like today on the train platform, where a group of pigeons in the exact shape and size of the heat lamp overhead stand with their heads tucked under their wings, and refuse to budge. Refuse. Seriously, the pigeons in this town are unbelievably single-minded. You can kick them and they won't move. Or they'll skitter away if the laws of physics force them, and then immediately come back.

So you wind up wading your way into the sea of pigeons if, like me, you have wet filthy snow boots that you generally leave outside your front door anyway. And then you and your fellow intrepid travellers are ankle-deep in pigeons, waiting for the train, muttering about the fuckin birds (as the birds are certainly muttering under their wings about the fuckin humans). Then the train is delayed for 25 minutes and you wonder if you'll all freeze together like that, like the world's weirdest popsicle. And you think about your painfully cold fingers and the scene from The Empire Strikes Back where Luke crawls into the steaming carcass of a huge beast, and you wonder if you sliced open a pigeon, could your hands fit inside?

Then you come home and blog about it. The end.

Good morning, y'all. I am currently slugging down coffee and dreading the forecast. Juuuuuust another typical Monday morning here in Chicago. Sigh.

So its SBD, fyi, pdq tcb etc. You got anything to tell us about? A book, maybe? I am currently without book, Instead, I spent a good hunk of my weekend watching that Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow and two other (cooler) people on the road in Spain - that show? Where they eat every single food in Spain. I don't even like Mario Batali, and I'm not fond of Gwyneth, really, and I don't care too much about Spain. Yet somehow, the show is mesmerizing. I guess because I want that to be me and three of my friends. Honest to god, I can't figure out why I don't get to do that. And get paid for it!

Anyhoo, so that's all I have to report in the realm of entertainment. That, and the John Adams series, as aforementioned. But books, not so much.

So please: tell me what to read. And tell us if you SBD, in the comments, thanks.

Okay bye!

FYI: Carapelli olive oil sucks. Massively. It's disgusting. Do not buy.

If however, you DO blindly buy a new brand of olive oil because you feel like branching out a little, and you wind up with a bottle of awful-tasting crap, do not despair. Instead of drizzling it on salads and pastas, rub it into your fingernails and legs and feets.

Also FYI: those little mini-cans of curry paste from the Asian market are ridiculously spicy, even after adding plenty of coconut milk to the pot-o-food. Ridiculously spicy, I tell you.

Also in case you were wondering: still with the rash and the itching. Still no clue why. Still taking benadryl. But at least the rash is way less, and I've decided it must be something I'm putting in my mouth. As I haven't been swallowing any new or different pills, it must be food that's the culprit. I think it can only be - oh the horrors! - the new bottle of Sriracha sauce I bought last weekend. I've eaten it plenty before, but never in such quantities and so continuously as this past week. I'm skeptical (all the ingredients are totally normal!) but I'm cutting it out for a while to see what happens. I will be unbelievably sad if I can't eat it anymore. I may wear black to signify mourning, that's how much I love the stuff.

The freezing snowy brutal weather also continues. So much for doing anything today but sitting inside. listening to the sounds of snowblowers and the howl of the wind. And all the while, the air is thick with falling snow. I can't remember a longer period of continuous storm warnings, one right after another after another, since November.

I'm beginning to get depressed about my birthday. Not a good sign. I'm leaving up my Christmas decorations as a defense against the gloom.

In conclusion, I just watched the first two episodes of John Adams and loved every minute. Of course, I'm a sucker for all things American Revolution. (Except that Mel Gibson movie, which was execrable.) This re-confirms my love of Abigail Adams, which I really let fall to the wayside - haven't thought of it since I was a teenager when I read some bio of her and decided I wanted to be just like her, aside from the husband and kids part of her life. Anyway, it's great so far, so if you were thinking of watching it: thumbs up.

Now I must go moisturize. And maybe nap, too (she says through a yawn), since the benadryl is kicking in and the snow just won't let up anyway.

Oh Friday nights, how I love you. Love!

See, I have a standing policy of doing nothing but lazing about at home on Friday evenings. Once, a few years ago, I said something to my friend Heather like "People always seem to want to make Friday the night to go out and do something or whatever--" She cut me off. "Oh no no no," she said. "Friday night is amateur night. It's for frat boys and other people without jobs. Real people rest up on Friday so they can have fun on Saturday night, while the amateurs nurse their hangovers and wish they hadn't blown all their drinking money on Friday."

Behold, the wisdom of Heather. I sit in my pj's, with a DVD on deck, a cat shedding all over me, a pizza and a bottle of wine. Sweet dreams are made of this, my friends.

My (non-work) email has been eating up an unusual amount of my time and energy lately. A taste of my correspondence these last few days - it is boring, but I feel the need to share:

Most Condescending Remark From A Stranger: This award goes to Chris, staff person to my state senator. Chris responded to my scathing letter of complaint about the incompetence of our state government with a painstaking explanation of how a bill becomes a law. I let Chris know that I saw School House Rock long ago, thanks, and the animated doofus child in that cartoon had more of a capacity for learning than your boss ever did. Next!

The Do You Really Think You'll Win My Vote This Way Award: Goes to my state House representative, who responded to that same scathing letter of criticism from me by inviting me to call his cell phone number to discuss. I replied that I was at work and couldn't just now, thanks, but my boiled-down point is that you share the blame for this disaster. He briefly and categorically replied that he absolutely accepts none of the blame whatsoever. Well okay.
(a) That's the whole fucking problem, genius - NONE of you take any of the blame, it's ALWAYS someone else's fault, isn't it, and
(b) all the constituents in this district bitching at you about this mess and lodging various opinions one way or the other, and you decide to go back and forth with me? Like seriously, mere seconds after you put in your impeachment vote (for which I gave you thanks), you're on your Blackberry huffily tapping at ME? And all you manage to tap out is your implied disdain for my accusations, instead of maybe devoting a sentence or two - hell, a single word - to disputing those accusations. Seriously? This blustering inept fool has thrown his hat in for Rahm Emmanuel's seat, special election coming up in like a month or two. You, sir, are no Rahm Emmanuel. Hilarious.

Customer Service Representative Most In Need Of A Career Change: That would be Liz, from Signals, who answered my request for a copy of the return/exchange policy (which appears exactly nowhere on their site) with a rather snappish "The policy is on the packing slip." You know what, Liz? It's also probably somewhere that you could easily copy/paste it into an email. Consider that, will you? Wee scolding bitch.

Most Confusing Customer Service Interaction: A chain of Amazon reps gets the honor. First I wrote to say the product was defective, back in July, and asked about a replacement part. Rep 1 replied they'd send a whole new product it's already in the mail have a nice day! Nothing for months until I email to ask about my refund for the first defective item (I was charged for the replacement)? Rep 2 says oh goodness, sorry, that was done wrong, you'll get a full refund right now. Rep 3 emails a few days later to say that they have issued a full refund. Rep 4 later emails to say they have issued a partial refund, subtracting a re-stock fee. I then email Generic Customer Service to say: for godsakes, don't put that used and defective thing back into stock and wtf with a re-stock fee on a defective item that I never even ASKED you to replace? Rep 5 emails that this was a mistake, here's your $4 re-stock fee back, sorry. I checked my account and have been refunded what looks like about 25% more than what I paid on the item, but I'm too exhausted to even try to straighten it out.

My New Favorite Customer Service Person: Sean, from JBL Audio, who totally helped me fix my speakers with a simple trick - and he did it with great good humor and a sense of adventure not commonly found in your average sorta-tech-support guy and just general aplomb. I almost wish something about the speakers would stop working just so I can type at Sean again. He seriously made my day. Heck, since I don't have to return anything or wait for a replacement or refund or anything, he officially made my week. Yay for Sean, who is god people and who is also the only one in my real-name email address who didn't give me migraines today.

I may jut give up emailing for a while. It really is exhausting. Well, except for Sean, who is awesome. Thanks to him, I can now go listen to soothing music instead of shooting off messages to various strangers.

Well, except Blags. Cmon, you know I had to email him a brief critique of his performance today. But after that, no more. Soothing music, pj's, bottle of wine, Friday night. Ahhhhh.

During yet another session of my too-frequent "I'ma bitch at my politicians now" game, I decided to hop around my state reps' websites to see if they've said anything about the issue that has caused my unhinged bitching. (That would be Blags, how he's not impeached yet, how the state legislature has done nothing but sit on their fat asses gobbling up our precious tax dollars while not doing a goddamn thing to block Blags from appointing this ridiculous clown to the US Senate. I am, like, CRAZED about the whole thing, and I seriously lose my shit about 10 times per day, not even kidding.) So yeah, on my state senator's site, I found this statement:

I am honored and humbled by the support my fellow senators have shown by selecting me to be the new Senate President. I welcome the opportunity to work closely with Governor Blagojevich...

Dude. Seriously. Update your fucking site, you retard.

I'm sorry, I take that back. What an insult to vastly superior capabilities of retards. Apologies.

In other news, I have an inexplicable full-body rash which itches like hell and is caused by absolutely nothing I can identify after 3 days of racking my brain. And yet the incompetent bufoonery of my state politicians drives me even more cazy than this rash. Go figger.

Today we have a mini-post from Kate, a full-on effort for Chas (though to be fair, pretty much every day is SBD over at Chazzy's blog), a truly truly TRULY awful-sounding book from jmc, and a sick doggie at Suisan's house about whom you should all think very nice and healing thoughts, okay? Good job, keep it up.

This will be brief because I'm so tired that I had to type "brief" four times before deciding I don't care if it's misspelled.

Okay, so let's see. First I read:

Let the Right One In, by Bjorn Fjordendyrgen. Okay, that name is made up but I am so NOT in the mood to go find the book. Or look it up, for that matter. It's Swedish. I think his last name maybe starts with an L. Moving on.

I actually enjoyed this book. Well no - I dunno if "enjoy" is the right word, though I didn't exactly not enjoy it. I guess it's this: I found many parts repellent, and many parts annoying, but the whole book was really rather compelling.

Repellent (and creepy) was not, surprisingly, the vampire bits. It was the humans that were mostly repellent and creepy. Turns out vampires hang with a lot of low-lifes. Go figure. There's a group of drunks, one of whom has an apartment full of inbred and deformed cats (his whole place smells of eye-melting cat pee, and yet they hang out there for hours). There are horrid adolescent boys who bully and beat the weak kid. There are other boys who huff glue and look at porn in the storage unit. The details of these lives aren't glossed over, and and none of these people are terribly fun to spend page-time with, but the most repellent is the pedophile.

The vampire here is a 12-year-old girl and the guy who lives with her (and murders/drains blood from young kids) for her - he's a pedophile. Which means he's got all sorts of fun pedophile thoughts and feelings to share, along with memories of near hook-ups with pubescent sex-slave boys to relate to the reader, when it's time to hear from his POV.

And the was the annoying part comes in: Way too many POVs, imo. I dunno, it didn't ruin the book, but it also really didn't enhance the story all that much. I don't think it had to stay in just the one or two POVs, but it certainly didn't have to give us 10 or 15 of them - and some for only a quick half-chapter, and that's the end of that. Much of the book is told from the POV of a thirteen-year-old boy (Oskar) who lives next door to the vampire girl and becomes friends with her. It's really what set the book apart from so many other forgettable vampire tales. The book is as much - or really more about Oskar's tortured teenage existence as it is about a vampire.

So I wouldn't say it's some terrific thing, two thumbs way up, read it now now NOW, or anything like that. But I kept wanting to see what would happen, and how it would all play out - because I wasn't entirely sure. But it's mostly a very depressing read, and gruesome. And icky,with all the murder and deformities and pedophilia and all. I guess it's about finding something/anything good to hold onto in a grim and twisted world that's out to get you. At least that's what I got from it. Not exactly beach reading. But totally readable.

So then I picked up

Black and Blue, by Anna Quindlen

It's basically the story of a woman takes her young son and runs away from her abusive husband, told in the first person. I read it in a day.

I don't know why, I guess because it's just hard to put down. The whole time, you're convinced the horrible wife-beating husband will find her and kill her, and you have to keep reading to see. But then I'd think - well maybe he WON'T find her, maybe this is a book all about surviving and building a new life. But then again maybe it's NOT.

There's also a lot of suspense in just the telling of her life, her memories. Wondering how she wound up with that guy, why she lived with him so long, who knew about it, did she ever fight back, what was the worst he ever did, did her son ever see it happen, what made her decide to finally leave? And so on and so on. Between that and the really arduous task of building a new and anonymous life, and the tension of wondering if/when he'll ever find her and kill her - well, I just kept turning the pages. It's easy to think that such easy-to-read writing is simplistic and not the draw, but I think that gets it all wrong. It takes skill to let your words get out of the way, and skill to suck a reader in through the use of a single, non-spectacular voice.

All I know is, it's pretty rare for me to just keep reading for hours without getting bored anymore, so major kudos are in order. Brava, Anna Quindlen. Bravissima.

There you go.

Oh, and I saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was really great, but not nearly as terrific as so many people seem to be saying it is. It's just a good story, told well. I know that's not exactly what you come to expect from movies anymore, but let's keep some perspective, sheesh. It's very good, with a wonderful lead character. And I'll say this for it: I was never really sure where and how it would twist and turn, all throughout. I knew where it'd end up, but I was never entirely sure of how we'd get there. And that's no small thing.

Still, it's not like "OMG I can't wait to watch it again." No, I can wait. A long time, I can wait. You can, too, probably - at least until it comes out on DVD. I'll probably watch it again some day - to watch the Bollywood bit at the end, if nothing else.

Okay I gotta sleep now, bye.

Hallo, happy Monday morning. For many of us, it's Return To Real World Day - no more holiday off-time, no more web-surfing at the office while 70% of your coworkers take a vacation day. Time to use the alarm clock again. Time to get paranoid about having enough coffee in the house again. No more jeans. No more lounging on the couch and wondering what you'd like to do today. Nae muir! O the infamy.

Sigh.

It's also time to get back into the SBD routine, if you are so inclined. I read two (2) books and saw a movie, so I'll have plenty to report. Assuming I'm not entirely dispirited at the end of my day, that is. Fingers crossed on that.

Comments open, let us know if you're sharing with the class today, eh? Thanks!

Excellent news! I'm still capable of getting really sucked into a book. Huzzah!

Oh man am I suddenly bored. Gyah.

So on New Year's Eve, we drank 2 bottles of wine plus a bottle of champagne, between the two of us. I was sloshed enough to not really care when I smashed my pinky finger on the counter accidentally - a Wii-induced injury. I think we were playing tennis, at which I suck majorly. Anyway, so now my pinky finger is a disturbing shade of black-purple. And my tennis game is not improved.

Then on New Year's day itself, we slept a lot and ate pancakes and cheesey eggs and mimosas. (Hair of the dog, what what.) Then today, Dawn and her mom came into the city (yay!) and we ate noodles and shopped for various foodstuffs in Vietnamese-town and then went to the shops on Armitage, and sucked down some hot tea, etc.

You'd think this much socializing in so short a timespan would wear me out, and I'd be ready for some alone time. That's usually how it goes. But no - I want to go to a movie, and not alone. Dinner and a movie, cmon! (Well not a full dinner, just like a salad or a snack or something.) Bah. Sucks that I've run through all my local friends. Well, except Snookie, who can't exactly drop everything and come hang out for a few hours. Which, incidentally, is one of life's horrible little inconveniences. Babies ruin EVERYTHING, I tell you.

Ho hum.

I guess I'll go call out-of-state friends and bemoan the fact they don't live near me, dirty bastards.

In conclusion, I love my Christmas decorations and I never want to take them down, ever. Ever. So there.