PSA

You know how everyone's like, "you should never, ever stick a Q-tip in your ear." And you're all, "But why would it be so perfectly, specifically designed for ear-sticking if you're not supposed to stick it in your ear? That's just crazy. What on earth else would you do with it?" So you stick it in your ear and do a little maintenance and feel, briefly, very satisfied.

That's right before you start wondering if your ear will ache this much for the rest of your life or if--worse--you may be unable to hear any sound under stadium-rock volume ever again.

Don't stick a Q-tip in your ear.

Fin.

Honey, I'm home

I have an L.A. recap and a tiresome flight delay tale to tell, but today I'm just too sleepy to manage it. I'll tell you this though. When I spun the tale of airline woe for my mother on the phone earlier today, she said, "You should have called us!"

Obviously, when you are a grown woman with a viable salary, the solution to being stranded at the airport at midnight is not to call your parents who live in another county, and ask them to please come get you, but rather, to call a taxi. Still. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude to have a family that would have taken that midnight call and made the hour-long journey to save me fifty bucks. We should all be so lucky.

Speaking of lucky, this is the time of year that the angle of the sun collaborates with my bay windows such that actual rays of light come into my north-facing apartment in the evening. Admittedly, it instantly reveals a certain cavalier attitude towards dusting, but also, for about an hour, creates a glow in the house that makes my life seem beautiful in a cinematic sort of way. And if it seems so, who's to say it's not?

It's nice to be glad to be home.

Celebrity sighting

At 4am, something woke me and I scrawled a note on a scrap of paper, otherwise I would not have remembered to tell you about my dream. Imagine how very sad that would have made you. People love nothing more than hearing the dreams of others. Particularly strangers. Do you know me? I hope not. This'll be great!

I dreamed that I became acquainted with Tilda Swinton, possibly through a mutual friend, I can't remember, but we were definitely staying at the same hotel. We had a few chats and then I saw her in a play in a surprisingly intimate theatre, which was also at the hotel. After the show, we were meant to have dinner, but first I needed to take a shower, so I went to the massive hotel locker room (?) where I somehow managed to wash my hair, but not to dry it. It was crazy crowded in there. It reminded me of an airport. So there I was, frantic, with wet hair, late to meet Tilda Swinton. I decided it would be better to go tell her I was running late than to just leave her waiting, so I struggled into my clothes--I seemed to be damp all over--and ran out into the lobby.

She was standing there, majestic, with a small entourage at the top of a short flight of stairs. I looked a bit deranged, but explained the whole hair-drying situation. She looked at me levelly and said, "I liked the distance we had in the theatre." I wasn't really taking this in because I was so excited that she'd been able to pick me out of the audience during her performance. "This..." she waved her hand to indicate the smallish space between us, and therefore our comparatively close proximity, "seems dangerous for us. And for the relationship."

The Tilda Swinton of my subconscious has intimacy issues.

We were still on for dinner though. Apparently, she always eats at the hotel restaurant whenever she's in Denmark. Also, we were in Denmark. Try to keep up.

She turned away, but I had something else to say to her, so I touched her leg to get her attention. Because she was standing at the top of the stairs, and I at the bottom, it was the part of her I could most easily reach. She turned and gave me a withering look. So here's a lesson:
Do not touch Tilda Swinton's leg.

The end.

I'm going to L.A. in the morning, so it's possible you may not hear from me for a few days. Probably, I will be busy meeting all sorts of celebrities in real life and experimentally touching their legs. But I'll be home soon enough. Have faith.

Les voisins

The Upstairs Baby has been absent for a delightfully long while. I couldn't say for sure how long. Ten days? Two weeks? Long enough for me to relax into the perfection that is my apartment without him. The mornings when he doesn't wake me. The evenings when my meals aren't uninterrupted by his. The totally lack of screaming. The total lack of crashing. Nothing but the occasional footsteps of his father who was still up there and who, frankly, didn't seem too broken up about his absence either. It has been idyllic. It went on for such a long time that I began to fantasize that the Upstairs Baby's parents had gone through a tragic divorce. Generally speaking, I'm not hopeful that parents of babies are getting divorced because, let's face it, that's terrible. I am only hopeful that babies that live over my head might be relocated. I can't really be bothered about the circumstances. It's not my baby, after all. Indeed, I think maybe there should be a rule that if a baby is going to wake you up, it has to be your own baby. Preferably a baby that you totally signed up to have, fully aware that it would be waking you up for years to come.

And if you are thinking that I am a terrible person, I am thinking that you haven't lived in an apartment in a long time.

Yesterday, even before I even got all the way up the front stairs, I knew the jig was up. (An expression that, now that I've written it, I am dubious even exists.) There was a crumpled Air France luggage tag on the landing that told me all I needed to know. The Upstairs Baby is back. And lo. This morning did suck. As, verily, all mornings must henceforth suck until the Upstairs Baby is 15 years old and does not wake up until noon.

Do you have a lovely, well-insulated upstairs flat? Are you also secretly in love with me and uninterested in procreating? We should talk.

Not television, the other thing

The book I got from the library with the suspicion that it would change my life is not changing my life. It is stylistically confusing and slightly anxiety-producing. Which is just how I feel about the work of Miranda July. Unsurprisingly, the book in question changed Miranda July's life. Or maybe not that exactly, but she did one of those "you should read this book" author quotes on the back. A fact I probably should have taken under consideration. Still, I do love the prologue. The prologue may, in fact, have changed my life, so maybe I should be grateful for that and just stop reading it now. Here. She says this, for instance:

At a certain point, I know, you have to forget about your soul and just do the work you're required to do. To go on and on about your soul is to miss the whole point of life. I could say that with more certainty if I knew the whole point of life.

-Sheila Heti, How Should A Person Be?

I love that.

Now. Here's another library curiosity. You may recall that I was lumbering along with a book that I believe is quite a good book, but one that requires that the reader not be constantly distracted by Game of Thrones or similar. [Did I mention that my friend referred to Game of Thrones as Tits and Dragons? And that I told him that I would be stealing it immediately? I think we should all steal it immediately.] Anyway, when you're all hopped up on Tits and Dragons, it is difficult to apply yourself to literature. What with one thing and another, the three weeks were nearly up and I was only on page 83.

Approaching the librarian, I asked, "Is it possible to renew a book before its due date?"
"Oh, yes," she assured me and took the book from my hand. "Oh. There are ten holds on this book, so I can't renew it. Do you want to hang on to it? You might make progress by Wednesday or, it's up to you, I can't renew it, but after Wednesday it's 10 cents a day."
I found it quite shocking that a librarian was suggesting I intentionally keep a book overdue for my own selfish gain, despite the fact that ten people, ten studious, intelligent people who probably don't even watch television, were waiting to read it. "No, no," I said. "That doesn't seem very fair. I'll just turn it in. I'll try it another time."
I removed a bunch of papers I had stuck in the book and handed it back to her. She suggested, "Why don't I place a hold on it for you, so that once it cycles through these ten people, you can get it back?" That seemed like a very satisfying solution, I agreed.

Imagine my confusion then when THE NEXT DAY I got an email from the library informing me that the book I had placed on hold was ready to be picked up. No doubt the self same copy that I had just given them.

What madness is this? Wither the ten people, dear reader?

I feel that there is a moral here somewhere, but I'm damned if I can figure out what it is.

Remedy

I don't like to get you all excited by posting on a Saturday. It sets the wrong precedent. But I am aware I missed Friday, so...

Some disorienting things happened yesterday and I woke this morning feeling raw and fragile. Fortunately, the sun was already on the scene, amazingly without it's sneaky San Francisco sidekick, freezing wind. A good start, certainly, but I felt further action needed to be taken. I suspect that the antidote for raw and fragile varies from person to person, but this is what I applied to the situation.

1. I took myself out to tea. I'm not going to lie: I did have a scone, but I also had some protein like a sensible person. My waitress had very graceful posture. It was her first day, but it didn't seem like it.

2. I went to the library and along the route I did, quite literally, stop to smell the roses. I sat in the library for about an hour during which I was grateful for libraries. I read an article about the Obamas and one about Audrey Hepburn in Rome. I returned a book I had not yet finished because I was informed there were ten people waiting to read it. I am sure they will make brisker progress than I seemed to be making. I chose two new books instead, one of which I think might change my life. I was grateful for libraries some more.

3. I cleaned the house. Or made a start, at least. Then I sat in the afternoon sunshine in my orderly kitchen and had a banana.

4. At the last minute, I did the smartest thing of all, and drove across the bridge to see a baseball game. My niece turned over an inning by striking three kids out: one, two, three. The adults in the stands talked about her with awe, murmuring her name like that of a celebrity spotted on the other side of a restaurant. She's ten. She rules.

5. Then we all had pizza.

It's hard to go wrong with pizza.

Thursday

The title of this post is particularly inspired, n'est ce pas? I'll tell you why. Today is Thursday. And I'm writing this today. I marvel.

I am listening to Neko Case on iTunes, much like I did sitting in this very office at about 10:30pm last night. I thought it might, you know, bring things full circle and create a sense of closure.

Now, I do realize that there are many jobs where people routinely toil until 10:30pm, either because they work in some kind of important sector or because they have somehow come to believe that it is important. It's more unusual to go home at 5pm, but then get a call at 9:30 informing you that you've totally screwed something up. And by "something" I mean the sophomore treasure hunt. A thing that is universally understood to have no importance whatsoever. And yet.

In similar circumstances, most people opt to come in early to solve the problem. I do not enjoy early. I prefer to be asleep during early. After many self-deceiving years of "I'll get up early and do that" I finally know this about myself. On the contrary, to catch me at 10pm is to catch me at my best. Another thing I've learned about myself is that I need to be at the very height of alertness in order to understand anything at all about the logistics of a scavenger hunt.

And that, dear readers, is how I came to be here with the janitorial staff and Neko Case, five hours after I'd already gone home, cutting up colored slips of paper yet again. Colored slips of paper that I had spent rather a lot of time cutting up the first time. Colored slips of paper that I had put in an envelope along with some instructions and some bus tokens and then...I don't know. Recycled? Gave to someone as a memento? Ate? I have no idea what became of it. I managed to successfully distribute 14 other such envelopes, but number 15 apparently got the better of me. Among the only things I do understand about scavenger hunts is that they don't work without the clues. (Seriously, if you knew how hard I have to think in order to prepare these accursed clue packets, you probably would lose all respect for me. But I figured it out! Without crying! Or being totally wrong! I rule [in a miniscule, correcting-your-own-stupid-mistake sort of way]!)

A great many other small, tiresome things went awry today, which, were we drinking, I would enumerate in a lengthy, profanity-laced fashion, but, for now, let's just say that I don't think any students went missing irretrievably. So that's something. Also, it's over for another whole year, which is even better.

Tonight, as a hard-won reward, I get to see the Blog Bully. We're going to a play that's the second in a trilogy. Having already seen part one, I'm quite confident that it is not secretly an opera. I'm also thrilled to report that we already know how to get the theatre; there will be exactly zero riddle-solving required to find it. Things are looking decidedly up.

Do re mi

Last week, I went to a play that was secretly an opera. This is not unlike how I went to a [movie] musical in December and it also was secretly an opera. In fact, I'm going to call this the Miserable Phenomenon. (Only you have to pronounce it in a French manner. Mees-er-ah-blah.)

Please. If you are an opera, don't go skulking around pretending to be a play. Just be an opera. It will be better for everyone in the end.

The opera I accidentally saw last week was about a guy being stuck in an elevator. It is called (ready?): Stuck Elevator. That's pretty much the whole plot, but there are other things to sing about too, most notably how much it sucks to be an illegal immigrant. (Oh. We don't say that anymore. Um...an immigrant illegally in this country.) Who is stuck in an elevator. It's not a good combination. In truth, being stuck in an elevator for 81 hours (81 hours! It's a true story.) is pretty horrible no matter who you are, but I'm still not entirely convinced it should be an opera. I didn't hate it, and the lead had a beautiful voice, but I'm sure I would have been happier if I hadn't been anticipating a play (see above).

My favorite things:
1. That some of it was in Chinese and some of it wasn't, but there were supertitles both ways.
2. That some of the songs were addressed directly to the elevator. As someone who talks to inanimate objects as a matter of course, I appreciate the impulse to ask the elevator directly to stop being stuck. 3. An Elevator vs. Take Out Man wrestling match

My least favorite things:
1. Operas that are not out of the closet about being operas
2. The song about the guy wetting his pants, some of which was sung from the point of view of the bladder. Also, the fact that they rhymed "pants" with "pants."

Hate mail

This morning I got an email from Banana Republic.

Subject heading: Top yourself.

I'm going to assume that for some reason no one in the Banana Republic e-marketing department knows what this means. Otherwise, I would have to assume that they're really, really mean.

In case you meant it, Banana Republic, I'm here to remind you that if I top myself I won't be able to buy any more sweaters from you, now will I? It seems you've not thought this through--certainly not from an ethical perspective, nor from a business perspective. Also, even if I were teetering on the brink, I like to think that it would take more than an email suggestion from the Gap Corporation to make me end it all.

A pause in our regularly scheduled programming

I was going to tell you something silly today, but then someone went and bombed the Boston Marathon, and now I don't feel like it. I'll tell you tomorrow though. I promise.

Last week, more or less in my neighborhood, someone got shot on the corner where I'd been standing 24 hours before. In many people's neighborhoods this happens every day. Today someone or many someones thought it was a good idea to put chaos and malice in the midst of celebration and achievement.

All this violence has become alarmingly commonplace.
And I don't like it one bit.

Friday

We have made it to the end of another work week. There are times it seems unlikely, but, really, it's not about us, is it? The spinning world doesn't care about the argument I had with a guy about ice cream gift certificates or what name a kid wants on his diploma, or the dishes I didn't do last night. It moves ineludibly towards Friday, just as it moves ineludibly towards Monday, or towards 2023.

Don't get excited. This brief, cosmic realization of our smallness in the universe, etc., etc., does not mean I will not be swearing at other motorists the instant I get in my car this evening or seething at the people who will not stop texting in the theatre tonight. To quote Alan Bennett's People, which I had the great pleasure to see on Monday (this week? How is that possible?), "P.S.T. People Spoil Things." Have you noticed how people are just everywhere? Doing everything wrong? Uncanny.

I know that easy-going is the adjective for which we are all meant to strive (in as much as one can strive for anything while being easy-going), but I remain a great sweater of the small stuff. Indeed, I am veritably wringing wet as a direct result of the small stuff. I will probably have a fatal stroke at 54 and then a band of free-spirited, polyamorous vegans* can frolic holistically over my grave and the great karmic order will be restored.

What? There's a rule that blog posts have to be cogent? I'm pretty sure that's not a rule. There are a great many blogs. Surely they don't all make a hell of a lot of sense. Blame the Blog Bully, people. I'm just trying to show up.

This afternoon, a group of students is performing a revue of Noel Coward songs from the 20's and 30's. It doesn't get any Friday-er than that. I will be there quietly tapping my foot and trying to keep my enormous delight from bubbling over indecorously. Noel Coward, as I've mentioned, is a great favorite of mine.

*I'll have you know that was praised by a vegan this very afternoon. He looked upon my consumption of a veggie burger favorably. I do have my moments.

Fantasy

Yesterday, I could think of nothing to say. I apologize. I did talk to the Blog Bully last night for the first time in a long while and he said, "Well, that's what being a writer is. Writing something even when you have nothing to say." That's probably not a direct quote, but it was something plucky along those lines. Did I say, "Wow! You're right! Thanks, Blog Bully!" No. I said, "Are you KIDDING? Have you nary a word of praise? I've been writing and writing. You are the meanest Blog Bully EVER." He then mustered up some pride and compliments for me, but it was too little too late. I am a sensitive flower.

Speaking of almost successes, I did go to the gym yesterday. I know! I too was amazed. However, I did not actually exercise when I got there. I intended to. Honest. But it was all "two people to a lane, I didn't really want to come here anyway" in there, so I just spent some time in the steam room and took a shower before heading across the street to Yoshi's for my friend's gig. And a hamburger. It got me no closer to fitness, I'll admit, but I did feel much better when I left than I did when I arrived, and isn't that what the exercisers are always claiming about going to the gym? So, I think I win. Plus, my hair looked a lot better after I washed it. Turns out you're supposed to wash it. Weird.

Instead of exercising (or washing my hair) I have been watching Game of Thrones. As with everything else that is popular among the vast majority, I am late to join the Game of Thrones fervor, not so much from lack of interest as from lack of access. However, a friend recently loaned me seasons 1 & 2 on DVD. [Another friend just loaned me The Killing season 2, and someone is coming over to bring me Deadwood tonight. I am a well-known junkie. Soon my limbs will atrophy completely and I will have to be carried to work by strapping servants, provided they can extricate me from my deeply indented sofa.]

I have taken to referring to Game of Thrones as Medieval Fantasy Boobs. I meant "Fantasy" in the sense of the genre: dragons and spells and magical kingdoms and the like. However, I'm now six episodes in and have already seen even more bare-chested women than I originally anticipated. I have also, as you'll recall, recently been in the gym locker room, where I saw the usual number of bare-chested women--just regular, notably dissimilar women. Having weighed all this data, I think I am going to have to reallocate the "fantasy" to directly modify the "boobs." In short, it's fortunate that my gym is in San Francisco and not in the Seven Kingdoms because I'm pretty sure none of our bosoms would make the cut. Accordingly, we would all be swiftly dispatched in some grisly manner, as I assume the law of the Great Revered Ancestors must require.

Innovation

I have an email in my inbox today from Anthropologie.

Subject heading: How we're wearing shorts.

Needless to say, I am on the edge of my seat. I'm saving it for a little mid-afternoon treat. I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but my fingers are crossed that it's:

atop our heads, like so many jaunty caps. Unlike traditional hats which create a mini oven for your head and leave you with a matted 'do, inverted shorts have two passages for refreshing airflow. Combine that practicality with the endless possibilities for incorporating your hairstyle directly into your fashion look and you've got a surefire hit for the hot days ahead! We are loving shorts with two ponytails threaded through--casual, carefree, evocative of the playful, endless summer days of childhood!

Funny vs. funny

On Friday night, my friend invited me to go with him to a stand-up comedy show on Mission at 10pm. (Partially this is because 1. He likes stand-up comedy 2. He wants to do stand-up comedy 3. He wants me to do stand-up comedy and 4. Stand-up comedy is the cheapest entertainment in town occurring outside one's own house.)

It is very rare for me to go to things that begin at 10pm, particularly on Mission Street, though I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell the cool kids. God knows I'm having enough trouble getting a date in this god forsaken town without you announcing to everyone that I'm not cool. Anyway, there we were. On Mission. At 10pm. I learned that many, many people are wandering the street in difficult shoes and inadequate outerwear at that hour seeking [more] alcohol. They stand in line outside noisy places to get it. I had no idea. It seems like a terrible way to spend an evening, but what do I know?

We waited with some other comedy patrons in a confused cluster for about 15 minutes until we were allowed in to the little theatre, to which (I add parenthetically), I proved to be allergic. Literally. Not is highbrow "the theatre did not meet my requirements" type of way, more in a "oh man, this place makes me itchy" kind of way.

When we walked in, there was already a five-piece band cramped on the tiny stage: a banjo player who looked like a Prohibition-era gangster; a skinny mandolin player with Kenny G. hair; a guitar player with a close-trimmed beard, trousers with suspenders, and a plaid shirt, like a farmer headed to church; another guitar player sporting a copious and poorly maintained beard, a bandana tied sweatband-style around his head, and a tan suit--an ensemble that, taken altogether, said "homeless hippie going to a job interview"; and, on the double bass, an incongruously short, rather androgynous guy with a shaved head, a sideways baseball cap and large glasses. For what seemed like a very long time, they noodled around on their instruments, not actually playing anything. When the lights at last dimmed, they launched into the first of several seemingly identical bluegrass songs. I have no explanation for this. My friend asked me several times if we were at the right show. I reminded him that he had invited me, so if anyone should have some insight into why we were currently watching a bunch of very earnest young bluegrass musicians at a comedy club, it was himself.

After about four songs, a special guest was invited to join them for the next (still identical-sounding bluegrass) number. I'll be honest; I was expecting a fiddle player, or possibly a stronger vocalist. What I was not expecting was a very full-figured woman in garters and spangles to come out and strip. But that's just what she did. She shimmied and shook and vamped and winked to the country twang of five string instruments all the way down to her knickers and pasties.

There really wasn't anything funny about it, or, at least nothing funny in a way one associates with amusement or, more specifically, comedy. It was funny like, "I don't know, but I've got a funny feeling about this." or "Does this smell funny to you?" It was perplexing as hell is what it was.

Just when we had given ourselves over altogether to the Twilight Zone episode "The Wrong Theatre," an actual comic took the stage. He was funny. You know, like a comic. We were relieved. Nevertheless, the band, cramped though they were on the wee stage, stood there for the entire show behind the comics like an eccentric Greek chorus. They didn't play again until all five comics had finished their bits*, which is to say that they just stood there for about an hour. Possibly the theatre itself was too small to accommodate five more people in the house?

*Speaking of people's bits, the stripper came back on at the very end. I know you were wondering.

Thursday night

Have you ever had one of those days where you get all depressed and full of self-pity/recrimination and then later at home you feel no better and become suddenly disgusted with yourself for watching so much television, so you turn it off and--to rather ambitiously combat your TV habit--undertake to read a long biography of Marie Antoinette, but when you get to page 8 you fall asleep in a chair, only to wake up an hour later and relocate to bed where you have vivid, anxious dreams, but no actual rest because your allergies are raging out of control so that when you finally get up the next morning, after hitting the snooze alarm for a full hour, you have a nasty headache?

No?

Oh.

Yeah. Um...me neither.

Not the good kind

I suffer from as many weird body-image issues as the next woman, but I think my sense of self-worth may be most unhealthily reliant on the praise of dental practitioners. If I walk out of the dentist's office cavity-free and brimming with compliments on my obvious flossing, I am like a first-grader who's earned a sticker. So proud! So happy! If there is scowling or tsking or technique lecturing, I am brokenhearted. You can imagine how low I felt when I was informed I required the Human Dermal Product to be sewn into my mouth. It was all my fault! For brushing too hard, of all things. A large-scale punishment for overeager oral hygiene. That seems hardly fair.

In the six months following the surgery, I have tried to mend my brushing habits to meet the needs of my delicate gums. I am even using an unsatisfying extra-soft toothbrush, which, as I may have mentioned, feels not much more effective than rubbing a kleenex around in your mouth. Still, I have been mindful. When I went to the periodontist today, for the final recovery status check, I was primed for praise.

Instead, I have plaque. Not a plaque, mind you. Not a plaque that says "Best Patient We've Ever Had" or similar, just plaque. "You're totally lousy at brushing your teeth" plaque. "Ah, you have plaque here," he told me. And I wanted to say, "You have plaque. You have plaque all over your big, stupid, plaquey FACE." But I didn't.

He made me look at the inflammation with a hand mirror. And then he continued to poke my gums with a super pointy metal stick, calling out mystery numbers to his assistant. "And there's bleeding, of course," he told her, with what struck me as more than necessary condescension. And I wanted to say, "That's what happens when you poke the inside of people's MOUTHS with a pointy metal stick. You big dummy." But I didn't. Instead I said, "I've been worried about brushing too hard. Particularly at the surgical site." He said, "Well, now you're being too careful."

For the love of God! What do you people want from me?

So, that's it. I am a big dental failure.* If you don't want to be my friend anymore, I understand.



For the record, however, though the periodontist has told me time after time that the kidney stone he had was worse than the kidney stone I had, [Oh. excuse me. Renal stone. He calls it a renal stone, because he's a doctor.] it totally wasn't. Mine required SURGERY, suckah. So, whatever. I lose at gum-line brushing, but I win at kidney stones. Ha!

Oops

I missed a day. Sorry. I didn't really know how long the "a post every weekday" thing was likely to last, but I guess now I do. Not very long. But you'll note that I'm back already. See? Getting back on the proverbial horse right away (an approach, it bears mentioning, that I never took with actual horses), proving definitively that though the similarities between my relationship with this blog and my relationship with the gym are legion, I'm better at this by a slight margin. Mostly because I can do this while sitting down, expending very little physical force, and not having to change into any special clothes. Mind you, the email I got from the gym yesterday said that 30 minutes a day of exercise, five times a week would dramatically diminish my "risk of mortality."* It said nothing whatever about blogging.

*This continues to amuse me. No matter how much you exercise, you're still going to die. Sorry about that. There is no such thing as eliminating your risk of mortality. I think they might want to go for "increase your longevity," but then I'm just a writer, so what would I know? I'm sure the exercisers have this well in hand, what with all that extra oxygenated blood flowing freely to their brains and all.

Speaking of the exercise I'm not doing and the mortality I'm recklessly courting by, interestingly enough, doing nothing, I am watching way too much TV. It's depressing, actually. I need to develop an interest in cooking or crafting or something. Or somehow acquire more friends. Or perhaps just different friends? I continue to try to solve the combined boredom/loneliness problem by inserting a boyfriend into the landscape, but the Men of the Internet continue to ignore me en masse, so something else needs to happen. Horticulture? Canning? Embroidery?

I believe this is the moment that most women turn to cats, but, as you no doubt know, I could not detest cats any more if I tried.

Ouch, again

I received a bill for my historic kidney stone surgery, of which, I am ecstatic to report, I am only required to pay a very small portion. It cost a lot. Drink water. That's my big advice.

The most surprising bit is the line item for "Recovery Room" which runs to very nearly $3,000. Did you know it cost that much to lie unconscious, drooling blood, in a room with at least ten other unconscious people?
Yeah. Me neither.

If you're on a budget, I think you can just find a flophouse full of junkies and have more or less the same experience for free.