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01.27.2004 it ain't over til it's overAnd apparently, it's NEVER over. After a longish and restful absence, an ex-lover has been reappearing in my dreams recently. For the love of me, please, get out of my head already! I've buried you under a thick pile of numb resignation, stop haunting me, and take your girlfriend with you. I could be spending that time with Snoop Dogg, a bag of donuts, giant leaping bugs...anything else, feeling something new. Sometimes I pray for permanent memory loss, or maybe a lobotomy. And babies. I keep dreaming of babies. I'm having them, I'm holding them, and they all have the wobbliest little baby heads ever, so I have to work overtime to keep their swaying little baby noggins from snapping off their rubbery little baby necks. I don't know what it means. If my biological clock is ticking, I can't hear it, and it wouldn't do me any good right now if I could. I'm not one of those women who goes crazy for babies. Don't get me wrong, babies are nice. I hear they taste like chicken. Someday I will probably have one, and be happy about it. Til then, it does me no good to keep dreaming about them and their poorly-supported heads. Also? I programmed this semi-slick little expanding menu for a new website I'm working on. Yay, me. Except it only works as desired in one browser. And differently in all the others. And just flat-out wrong in the most popular browser of all. I am using style sheets, I am following the W3C standards, I am offering ritual sacrifices to the web gods, it doesn't seem to matter. I want to cry. Over this, over that, and just in general. Bleah. On a happier note, I went on a cooking binge last night. I made chili, quiche, and the beginnings of a chocolate cake. (Did you know that if you overmicrowave chocolate, it turns a completely different, completely unusable texture? Well now I do.) And a sandwich. All because I ran out of "good" food last weekend and the thought of having to eat Top Ramen again made me panic. I could easily become obsessed with this cooking thing, which doesn't bode well, as that means burnout and total disinterest can't be far behind. Thus, I must exercise some restraint, otherwise I'll be back to eating Top Ramen, and no one wants that, except maybe for the people who manufacture Top Ramen. 01.26.2004 some days...Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. -- Oscar Wilde 01.21.2004 good morning!...loserYou know that commercial for Pull-Ups GoodNights® underpants? The one where the kid talks into the camera about how much he'd like to quit wetting the bed (wouldn't we all?), and how the GoodNights have helped him lead a semi-normal kid life? I wonder how much therapy that kid will need or is currently getting for all the crap he's now taking on the schoolyard for being a nationally-televised bed-wetter. Doesn't matter if he actually is one or not, that poor kid's social life is toast. how the ordinary becomes extraordinaryYesterday Travelocity sent me an email telling me that fares to NYC were only $143. My boss suggested Village Inn for a business lunch. I thought about washing the dishes piled on my kitchen counter. I thought about reading. I thought about writing. I thought about dating. I thought about working for a newspaper. I continued to watch too much TV, including a bit involving a shoplifter. And two days ago, I saw an episode of Seinfeld featuring the character named "Sue Ellen Mischke". So last night, I dreamt that I went to NYC on a business trip. I walked down the eerily-unpopulated streets of faux-dream NYC to a Village Inn, where I enjoyed a pancake breakfast. Then I proceeded to carry my half-empty plate around town in my two outstretched hands, for reasons I know not. Eventually I realized I'd inadvertently stolen the plate, and went about trying to retrace my steps back to the Village Inn to return it. On the way, I stepped into a newspaper office, where I watched a handsome young man flirt with a pretty young reporter who revealed that she was working on her first novel. She introduced herself as Sue Ellen, but coquettishly offered that her friends called her "Birdy". Handsome Young Man asked Birdy out on a date, and that was all she dreamt. Which begs the question...."Birdy"???? Wait, I just figured it out. Last night I spent way too much time trying to get my cat to play with a new feathered toy. "Get the birdy!" I urged him, to no avail. Oh, it's so disappointing to analyze my dreams and realize just how mundane they really are sometimes, especially when they are currently the most exciting part of my life. 01.15.2004 pimpin' the pimpI am not an ambitious person. If I have been striving for status and riches, I have been failing miserably. But I do have a few small goals in life. One is to not die choking on a piece of carrot, or in some other equally-lame, accidental way. Another is to find the man of my dreams, then chain him to my bed so he can't get away. But on a loftier plane, I've wished for the esteem of my web heroes and heroines, the people who make me strive to write and design better, because dammit if they aren't constantly showing my ass up. One such heroine of mine is the saucy muse, Joelle. She's smart, funny, gorgeous, and inspirational, and she is a design machine, the best kind with sleek lines and German engineering. While I struggle with ONE stinkin' redesign, she cranks out hit after hit. So imagine my incredible delight when Joelle pimped me on her site. It was like a dream come true, and not the one where I was going to marry Snoop Dogg. If you have the means and the motive, I highly recommend you employ Joelle's web design services, and if you have the time, I highly recommend you visit both Tenth-Muse and Put Down the Donut often, nay daily. You'll be a richer person for it, just like I would be if I wasn't such a lazy slacker. 01.08.2004 I'm so good, I oughta chargeLast night I balanced my checkbook and tabulated my expenses for the next week, and frankly, it wasn't pretty. All this good, healthy living is a little pricey, I've found. Now I remember the other reason I've been subsisting on ramen and ravioli all these years, besides the laziness and the raging carb addiction. Meanwhile, I have a fridge-full of leftover New Year's spirits, chips in the cupboard, meat in the freezer. I was going to share this bounty with my friends gratis, but I'm reconsidering that plan now. I think it may be time to open Tallulah's Bar and Grill instead, where the booze is plentiful (but not free), and the food is...also not free. Please pay at the door and remember to tip your waitstaff generously. Alternately, I had another idea, but it conflicted with the parameters of my Romantic Retirement, the bounds of decency, the law in 49 states. Wouldn't it be nice if you could get paid just for being good? Not good at something, just GOOD. It would certainly motivate more people to do so. I couldn't pull in Mother Teresa's earnings (in this imaginary scenario where she's not dead), but I bet I could do OK. Two, three bucks a week, at least. 01.07.2004 I shall call it..."mini-pod"I'm pretty sure I need one of these. And this, probably. And if I had a new one of these, I could donate my "old" one to a very deserving graphic design student, so it would really be a humanitarian effort, in support of the arts. And you like humans and arts, don't you? (And raisins!) Also, if you don't buy me one or more of the above, the terrorists win. 01.06.2004 funky loveDo you like drinking tea and other hot beverages? Do you enjoy having boiling water at your ready disposal? Does the possibility of sustaining 3rd-degree burns excite you? Then I highly recommend you get yourself a cordless electric kettle. The Philips model I purchased recently has been quietly rocking my world for the past few days. Insert water, place on the heating element, flip the switch, and moments later, DING! goes the little bell, and I've got up to 10 cups of boiling water to prepare my breakfast, pour on the cat, whatever. It shuts itself off, so I'm in little danger of burning down the apartment, and now the microwave is freed for more important tasks, like conducting Peeps research. It is beautiful like a perfect love, although I've never seen nor experienced a perfect love, so maybe it is not like that at all. And while you're out procuring one of these handy appliances, may I recommend that you pick up Maroon 5's Songs About Jane at Target, where it is on sale for under $8? I love this CD, it is funky and smooth, has a good beat, and I can sing to it. I give it a 7.99, at least. So now you're probably thinking, "Tallulah, you've done so much for me, providing oodles of guidance and entertainment in my life, however can I repay you?" Well, you can nominate me for a Bloggie, dick*. I could win a fabulous prize, and the respect and admiration of millions/someone. Not that there aren't thousands of better blogs out there, but do it because you love me, and because of that time I saved your life back in 'Nam. I would do it for you, maybe. * (If your name happens to be Richard. Otherwise that's "darling" to you.) 01.04.2004 ...we'd all love to see the planI bid 2003 a hearty Fuck Off just as I'd wished to: surrounded by people I love. It wasn't a grand affair, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and that was all I wanted. I think 2003 suffered from its magically-delicious start; there was nowhere to go but down, and go it did. One nice thing about a year that sucks so thoroughly, though, is that it's easier to pick out the highlights. Amidst the grief and despair, there was a surprisingly delightful trip to Puerto Rico, and a delightful surprise birthday party. Two men said two of the best things anyone's ever said to me. I met some wonderful new people. I learned to better value my time and myself, which made for a quieter year, but the time I spent with others was richer for it. But most of all, I survived, I endured, which sometimes seemed like a bloody miracle, but then I guess I always do. New Year's Day, I awoke quietly content, and made a list of to-do items for the year. I hesitate to call them "resolutions", because how many people actually keep their New Year's Resolutions? Exactly. Tallulah's To-Dos for 2004:
A long list, perhaps, but all of these things can be pretty easily accomplished. Wish me luck, eh? |