Sitting behind this guy at a stop light, listening to his car stereo blasting punk rock and reading his bumper stickers: Son of Sam, AFI Sing the Sorrow, Roses Are Red, one that says, "The next time you think you're perfect, just try walking on water," and another that says, "More orgasms, less kids," with little sperm drawings to illustrate.

I am appalled. All by myself in my car, I exclaim, "Fewer! FEWER kids!"

If bumper sticker publishers can't even use proper grammar, I honestly don't know what kind of world we're living in anymore.

awake at this ungodly hour and delirious with fever and a raging strep infection (thanks for the memories, o library, you shit) and my biggest frustration is not finding a website that will allow me to play zuma on my mobile

but this is quickly topped by a new obsession : WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE MATCHBOX20 SONG "YOU WON'T BE MINE" MEANS?!?! AND WHY ARE THERE RANDOM SOUND EFFECTS? AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO HEARS THEM?

I've just about googled the issue to death but all the reviews out there seem to say are "it's about breaking up" or "I like the piano" or "it's got, like, an orchestra or some junk" or "the words are so deep I totally relate" or "rob's voice makes me feel all ooky"

FOCUS PEOPLE!!! stop stating the obvious and explain to me why I hear running water, tree frogs, buzzing flies, voices, and a crackling fire!! aaaaa!

oh well. by all accounts, it's rob's fav song, so i'll just call him ad find out. I know i've got his number here somewhere, the president gave it to me. not Dub, the west wing guy. maybe i'll wait to come down off the coug medicine first. I'm amazed I'm able to type.

On my way upstairs for the night (or, "up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire," as the Brits would have it) and I spot a small piece of landscape bark on the landing. I nudge it with my foot and realize my first impression was erroneous: it's too rounded to be bark, it's too dense, and I live with kobolds.

I'm too lazy to go fetch a kleenex for the job, so after a moment's hesitation during which I'm pretty sure I'm gonna fully leave the turd lie, I finally pick the thing up with my bare hands, run it to a toidy and flush it. Washwashwashwash hands.

For some of you, maybe this is nothing. For others, maybe it's unthinkably gross. For me, I've had worse. And I've learned the direct approach is the safest. One time I was scooping Maimer's litterbox and there was a little lone poo on the floor next to the box. After chasing it around a bit with the scoop, I finally pinned it against the box side and tried to wiggle the scoop under it. It was a stalemate for about eight seconds (a liftime in turd terms), which was broken when the scoop slipped, the poo broke free and BECAME AIRBORNE, arcing right past my face. My life flushed--I mean flashed--before my eyes. When I'd recovered from the shock, I scurried after the errant feces, snatched it up and tossed it in with its brothers. Bare hands.

See, bare hands are nothin'. It helps to have some perspective. If I'd been yawning, I coulda had that thing in my mouth.

Back at the doc-in-the-box for my follow-up workman's comp visit. This time, the waiting area is packed, with a new Phlegmy Bohemian Youth, this one accompanied by Distant Parent, or Sudoku-Obsessed Man. Also making an appearance are Soulless Marketing Career Man with More Money to be Made Elsewhere, Depressed Young Mother with Infant, Woman Whose Incessant Coughing Sounds Like Sobs, and Chinless Obese Woman Snoring with Open-Mouthed Abandon on the couch.

Play-by-play: The TV is blaring a cartoon that not only no one appears to be watching, but whose demographic is completely unrepresented in the room. Retrieving my dropped water bottle gives me the undesirable opportunity to inspect the carpet stains. Depressed Young Mother with Infant and Phlegmy Bohemian Youth are each admitted and quickly replaced with a new Depressed Mother with Infant and yet another PBY with guardian.

Oh yeah. Waiting time this visit? Two hours. Two hours of mobile solitaire and inhaling airborne pathogens ferocious enough to make it all the way here from Indonesia. I'll keep you updated on how my avian flu progresses.

This is the Workman's Comp in 12 Easy Steps... Library Edition!

Step 1: If you don't have one already, get a job in a library.

Step 2: At your (new) library job, injure yourself in a stupid way, say, by falling out of your shoe.

Step 3: Fill out a workman's comp form.

Step 4: Find where they keep the workman's comp forms, then complete Step Three.

Step 5: See a physician.

Step 6: Discover your regular doctor is unavailable because you put off the dreaded appointment until the weekend, when the only legitimate health professionals open are the emergency room and the walk-in "doc-in-the-box."

Step 7: Complete Step Five by going to the damn doc-in-the-box.

Step 8: But first, shave your legs for once, you slob.

Step 9: Try not to catch SARS or the bird flu while waiting your turn behind the Phlegmy Bohemian Youth and the Harried Mother With A Billion Snot-Nosed Kids.

Step 10: Get chewed out by a "doctor" with unprofessionally casual wear, heavy accent and open contempt for American youth. See the errors of your ways in having stuck it out at work and postponed medical attention as well as having ever picked out, bought or worn shoes that are so easy to fall out of. Leave feeling less of a person in general.

Step 11: (Almost there!) Get saddled--I mean fitted with an ankle brace to be worn constantly for the next week. "Forget" to ask whether or not it must be worn even to bed. (What you don't know you're not responsible for.)

Step 12: Hobble around work for the next week, fishing for sympathy, which you garner in truckloads. (It's the comp time that doesn't appear forthcoming.) Try not to think about going back to the grumpy foreign doc-in-the-box at the end of the week.

You did it! Now don't do it again.

At the doc-in-the-box for my workman's comp injury and I look over and see this sign:

If you are planning travel out of the country for the Lunar New Year, Please read the following:

That's it. The rest of the sign was blank.

What is this Lunar New Year that requires people to travel out of the country after not reading anything? I've never felt so out of a loop that appeared to have nothing in it in the first place.

That's when I was distracted by this sign:

If you have been to any of the countries, listed below, and have a fever with a cough, sore throat, or trouble breathing, PLEASE ask for a mask and let the receptionist know. THANK YOU.

(Cue juicy sneeze from guy next to me.)

Below it was a list of over a dozen countries I never thought of visiting before but now have them mentally filed under "dirty."

It's the only explanation I can come up with. There are gnomes outside my window. And on my roof. I can hear them scrabbling around out there right now. It has to be gnomes. What else could get a Kobold as pissed off as Maimer is right now? Well, not right now. At the moment she's too sound asleep to hear them. But usually when the things come scurrying around, she slams herself against the glass, practically foaming at the mouth with rage, gibbering like an insane Kobold. And the sadistic gnomes just keep taunting her.

And if anyone has ever wondered what sound a gnome makes, well eat your heart out, because I know. For your information, they go "caw caw." And they fly. Glittergold's honor.

Stay tuned for when I finally catch a glimpse of one. I'll let you all in on what gnomes really look like. Maybe even snap its picture with my camera-phone.

Yes, joy. For I now have my own cell phone. It's a smart phone. It's smarter than me. It's allowing me to post to LJ from my bed, something I've been trying unsuccessfully to figure out how to do on my own for quite some time now. In fact, Smartie here can do so much more than I ever could, I'm pretty sure I never have to leave my bed again. I've got phone, tunes, reading material, email, surfing, games... all the good things in life it's been my unique objective to gather around me within arm's reach. And now I've got it all, in one little 4.25' by 2.3' by 0.9', 6.1-ounce silver box. Yes sir, I never have to move again, except to wield a stylus.

*gurgle* Hmmm... I wonder what's the chance of getting some Doritos outta this dumb thing?

IM conversation between Erin (me) at the Outer Rim and Dylan (musegryph) at the main branch:

Erin: the screensaver here says "You are an important part of the team"

Dylan: A not-so-subliminal message, huh?

Erin: yeah... unless i'm staring off into space like i was a few minutes ago. i think some morale slipped in by accident.

Dylan: Quick! Beat it down, Erin! You can't let it get to you.

Erin: arrrgh! fighting... back... the warm... fuzzies!

Dylan: Never let morale get the best of you!

I'm doing my monthly Tuesday stint at the Youth Services desk at the Outer Rim (our library branch in the boonies) when a pre-teen walks up to the desk and stands there, just looking at me.

"Hi," he says finally.

"Hi," say I.

"Who are you?" he asks.

"I'm Erin," I answer.

I'm just getting ready to launch into my "you've never seen me before because I only come out here once a month for four and a half hours, but no I'm not an idiot four-and-a-half-hour-a-week charity employee, I work full time at the main branch" speech, but at the mere mention of my name, the boy's face lights up, he does a little excited jig like the one I did the time I spotted Bob Saget at LAX (not particularly a fan, he's just the only star I've ever seen) and then he runs off to tell his friends.

Next month I'm going prepared with autographed photos.

I wake up this morning, stumble into the bathroom, peer in the mirror and see a black hair on my upper lip.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!! NOT A MISSTACHE!!!! I CAN'T HAVE A MISSTACHE!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - OOOOOOO...

I brush at it. Oh. It's just Maimer's.

A little girl gazing at a poster of the 43 American Presidents fondly strokes one portrait and says, "I love you, George Washington."

I think I just met our first woman president to be.

Well, my week of vacation is over and I don't feel like I did anything but discover that I'm dismally bored without my job to annoy me. Friends are leaving for school. Went out with the girls for goodbye drinks--my first time at a bar. (I've been busy, okay?) I ordered an amaretto sour, basically the only drink I know I won't choke on, and when I commented sheepishly on the sissiness of my selection, the bartender obligingly offered, "Yeah, my grandma drinks those." ...One of those moments I wish I had the Aeon-Flux-like ability to kill someone with one of those skinny red straws.

Good time to try out some serious writing I did ages ago:

I am the cold in these mountains. I am why this place is uninhabitable. I howl through the valleys and brood over the peaks, shaking the snow from the air and bristling with bitter ice. All who hear my ancient voice despair. I steal the steamy breath from their throats and close their eyes for the last time, taking my revenge on the innocent, on those who never knew me, never trembled under the piercing gaze of my chill blue eyes, when I had eyes. Now my eyes are long gone from this earth. Every last part of me is gone, except my limitless cold rage that has made itself a frozen wasteland. My kingdom.


Is it just me, or did that totally suck ass? Lemme try this one: it's like a creepy oracle's warning in the same story:

Cold inside, where cold sets in,
And cuts the bone, and sears the skin,
And frosts the lashes weighed with sleep,
And steals the last of voice's peep,
Entombed within the endless deep,
Where dreams are made and ways are steep,
Down, down,
Ever and all to keep.


Not as bad, I guess. Except "peep" is a total suck-ass word, there. Gotta fix that.

At least my room is still safe. Peebag has declared war on the living room, the family room and now the dining room has joined the ranks of victims. I went in there for a teabag a little bit ago and soon found myself wandering the room, a packet of English Breakfast in my hand, playing hot-and-cold with an elusive pee smell. Sure enough, Mom's expensive drapes have been violated. What is wrong with that animal?

To be honest, at this point in the pee wars, I'm no longer sure all the crimes are Peebag's or if some of them are Maimer retaliating and retaking territory, but I'm not about to admit that to a Peebag-loving household. It's Maimer and me against the world. If I betray her bladder now, then I'd have to start cleaning up the pee. And I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment. I'm not even telling Mom her drapes have become toilet paper. She'll find out on her own eventually. I'm guessing the next time she drinks tea.


On an unrelated note, I've gone two days now without seeing Aeon Flux and I'm starting to feel a little panicky. It's okay, though. You know why? Because it just hit the dollar theaters. And between now and the next showing, well that's what they put clips on the internet for.

At a coffee house with friend M., who's deaf, and her brother S. So M. comes back to the table and signs to S. that they're all out of paper towels in the ladies' room, could he let the staff know. S. hops up, then stops and you can see the exact moment when the realization hits him and he says, "Wow. This'll be awkward."

When S. came back, though, he said they just gave him a funny look. Probably because they were already distracted by the weird guy ordering a latte and complaining loudly about how he's mad because he'd tried so hard to get laid the day before, but it hadn't turned out. So a guy knowing the status of the ladies' room paper towel supply was the least of their worries. We're all having a good loud laugh at this story (which is being both spoken and emphatically signed) when S. suddenly falls silent with a sheepish grin. We follow his gaze to see a disgruntled young man glaring at us from a sofa in the corner. Some lessons we learn the hard way: If you don't want a bunch of perfect strangers laughing and gesturing about your sexual ineptitude, you probably should save those kinds of complaints for a shrink, not your local barrista.

That's when M. realized her purse was gone. We'd switched tables at one point and the purse, left at the first table, had been turned in to the lost and found. "No problem," said her brother. On our way out, he commended the staff on their prompt restocking of the ladies' room paper towels and asked if he could just get his purse back.

Okay, as previously mentioned, I went to see Aeon Flux again last night, this time with biblio_girl and Caffeine Chick, who's such an LOTR fan, she recognized Trevor Goodchild immediately as Celeborn. I don't know how.
See for yourself. (Includes Decker from Timeline and Borias from Xena, too.)
Wow, Hippie Platinum is definitely not a good look for our Sir Hotness, as biblio_girl has fondly dubbed him. (For accuracy's sake, and to demonstrate our healthy footing in reality, I will mention here that the man's name in fact is Marton Csokas, pronounced "cho-kash.") That's fine, let Orlando Bloom have the blond wigs. But if you're gonna talk about careworn, mussed hair, long sweeping coats with aristocratic collars and edgy patchwork sleeves with flared cuffs, lots of black with clean Asian lines and anti-utopian textures--our Sir Hotness rules it all.

Gotta love the wardrobe of Aeon Flux. It's like Project Runway did a challenge around the theme of mankind's extinction. I call it: Going Out In Style.

Okay, I have a confession to make. I don't really own the Donnie Darko soundtrack. I am currently obsessed, not only with blogging and with Aeon Flux (saw it again last night), but with the song "Mad World" on the Donnie Darko soundtrack. Unfortunately, I don't have access to that song anywhere (none of our libraries has it!), so I've ordered the cd and while I'm waiting the estimated two weeks (!!) it's going to take in shipping, I have this 30 second clip I got off Amazon that I just keep playing over and over. Oh, like you don't have your own mental health problems to be ashamed of!

As for the cd I ordered, that's not even the Donnie Darko cd. Instead, I bought the Gary Jules cd that has "Mad World" on it. Because I'm a wannabe Darko fan. I didn't order the actual soundtrack because honestly I can't stand to look at the cover of the thing. Or listen to any of the tracks. Thing freaks me out. I am both fascinated and repulsed by that movie. biblio_girl introduced me to it (thanks for the mental trauma, Girl, I loved it!) and I want to watch it again to understand it, but only if I can do it with my eyes closed and my fingers in my ears, going "La la la la la la!" I say, "I love that movie!" the same way you might say, "I love sharks!" What you really mean is you have a morbid fascination with sharks but, given a choice, you would rather avoid actual contact with them.

Plus my friends who are die-hard Darko fans are seriously some of the scariest people I know (not biblio_girl, though, I don't consider her die-hard or scary). But maybe that's part of my fascination with the movie. It's like trying on scarves. Am I a scarf person? Am I a Darko fan? I'd feel seriously more badass if I were.

Just got back from seeing Aeon Flux with musegryph and biblio_girl. Okay and the big twist for me (no spoilers, don't worry) was not why are people disappearing or what is the government hiding, but where the hell have I seen that guy's face before? Seriously, the characters weren't the only ones deja-vuing here. And I'm not talking about Johnny Lee Miller, who some of us affectionately refer to as the Manwhore (long story involving an innocent Google image search gone horribly wrong). No, I'm talking the guy playing his brother. All I could think was, "I didn't like you wherever it was I saw you before, but I sure like you now!"

Well, I came home and went right to imdb.com. Apparently I don't watch enough Xena or LOTR, because what shocked me is that guy was totally Decker from Timeline! The mind boggles.

Okay, aside from obsessing over the male lead, which is not the point of the movie (I do keep forgetting that... hello, Phantom of the Opera!), I was very impressed by the entire experience. For us sci-fi fans subsisting on a meager diet of Imitation Trek and Edgy Human Dramas Incidentally Placed in Space, this was a pleasant surprise, along the lines of Serenity: an original take on technology and the future, a believable new world populated by familiar themes and emotions, a twisty plot with lots of action and some romance thrown in. I loved it! I haven't read any other reviews as yet, but judging by it's lack of publicity, I suppose I'm not in the majority in my assessment. I could give a shit. Really. This movie is worth owning. And if you're going to nit-pick because it strayed too much from MTV's animated Aeon Flux, well I can't help you there since I never saw it. But do what I do when Hollywood "murders" my favorite novels: just take it as a brand new story. And with this story--cast, filming, effects and all--it's worth it. IMHO.

Sorry, that was corny. But appropriate for my current state of clumsiness. And I do have a story:

So I wake up in the middle of the night for a bathroom call, and when I look in the mirror, there's blood on my nose. I'm like what the-- I scrub at it. It's a gash. Or at least a deep scratch. Now I'm feeling paranoid. How is it I'm getting cuts on my face in my sleep? Did I scratch myself? My nails are nonexistent. Did Maimer do it? But the little kobold's just sleeping innocently at the foot of my bed. Did I fall asleep with paper and pencil again? I'm gonna lose an eye if I keep doing that.

Accepting the strange reality that I somehow sleepwalked face first into a cheese grater, I slap a bandaid across my nose and head back to bed through the pitch black of my room. I go to dive into bed and run face first into the Leaning Tower of Music and Reading Material that lives on my nightstand. This could have something to do with it, I'm thinking. I'm afflicted with life-threatening clumsiness! Combined with chronic disorganization, it's amazing I've lived this long. So it's still pitch black, I still have a bandaid on my nose, but now my face and hands are throbbing, I'm catching books, cds and papers as they slide every which way and the commotion has awakened Maimer who decides now's a good time to maul me with love. I can't see a thing, but she's yapping and growl-purring, rubbing against my arms and biting my fingers as I hold desperately onto the crumbling remains of the Leaning Tower. When my Cowboy Bebop mix cds start hitting her, though, she starts to complain.

So if any of you are confused as to what kind of animal my kobold kompanion is really, it's on purpose. If you're not confused, then I'm not as clever as I thought (a distinct probability) or else you've met the real thing in real life (for those few of you who have, I'm sorry, she's just like that). But if anybody's confused as to what a kobold is, plain and simple, I can help you there. And I'll do it with an acrostic!

Kowardly
Ontisocial
Bicious
Ogly
Lizard
Dogs

There! It's like a kobold wrote it! Cuz they're stupid, too. But I couldn't fit that into the acrostic. Now, there's some disagreement as to whether kobolds are reptilian or canine. (In Baldur's Gate, I always thought they looked like organ grinder's monkeys, with little red vests, going "oo-oo-ah" when I killed them.) But, since each side of the debate is spearheaded by the greatest geniuses of gaming (Wizards of the Coast say lizards, while Ninth Level Games and Dork Storm say dogs), I like to integrate both into my concept of kobolds. Plus I just like the sound of "lizard dogs."

To see different visual concepts of kobolds, do a Google image search. You'll find some gnome-looking things in there, too, since kobolds used to be mythical mine-dwelling spirits before Wizards of the Coast got a hold of them.

Wait! I can fit "stupid" in there! Kobolds are always plural! KOBOLDS! Kowardly Ontisocial Bicious Ogly Lizard Dogs that are also very Stupid!

Rethinking my music choice the other day... "O Fortuna" probably would have been more appropriate for that medieval St. George combat, but I was in the mood for a more intimate, mob-hit kind of tone. Young, innocent Maimer peers through the stair railing at my slow-motion struggle in the coils of the gray accordeon hose, à la Laocoon, to the sobbing sound of Pavarotti... "Ridi, Pagliaccio!"

Well, no vacuuming today. The Sphinx is on vacation from the library all this week, which means she has trouble lifting a paw to do anything. Except blog. I'm addicted. I really have nothing to blog about, yet here I am, boring the ether to tears. Speaking of tears, I just spent the evening with my neice Petunia Button, who is TEETHING. I don't care who you are, after five minutes with a 14-month-old who's teething, you're reaching for the children's Tylenol--the kind that knocks you out--and not necessarily to give to the baby. Even our game of dancing to "Sur le pont d'Avignon" didn't help--she didn't want to stop playing, but her usual squeals of delight were more like wails of despair. Poor kid.

Ahhhh, but she went home and now finally everyone has gone to bed and stopped talking and turned off the tv and I'm alone and it's quiet. Vacation doesn't feel much like vacation when your house is full of noisy family all day needing stuff from you.

I wish I had a book to read on my vacation, but I couldn't find anything. I'm the finickiest reader in existence. I'm a really slow reader, so I get bored easily with what I'm reading. It's all college's fault. I was an avid reader until I had to read a novel or two a week for each of my three or four seminar courses... in French! And don't even get me started on the kind of shit they make you read before they'll let you wrench that Master's out of their soulless, ossified hands... just say the word Ferdydurke to biblio_girl and watch her start to foam at the mouth. The life of a lit major is not to be envied.

So why major in something as useless as French Literature? You mean besides the great perk of getting to read all five volumes of Les Misérables even though Broadway already conveniently consolidated them into one easy-to-view, foot-tapping show? Well, I suppose then it would be because of the math. I mean that there wasn't any. Whereas to become a geologist they wanted me to do all this math! And chemistry. But the crystallography was the real killer for me. Sometimes I take out my old crystallography notes just for a laugh. I have no idea what they say. I had no idea what I was writing down at the time. My professor used to get so frustrated with my blind-stab answers in class, his voice would get all breaky and he'd hop in place, squawking, "No, no, no!" (If you like that story, read "University Days" by James Thurber--he was an even worse student than me, and at the same school!) Anyhow, that's when I dropped out of school the first time.

So why did I want to be a geologist? I love dirt. I love how it smells, how it feels... I love how rocks smell and feel, especially the sulfur-y ones. Smelling the sulfur in a rock is almost like hearing the volcano that forged it go "boom" three million years ago. I "get" earth sciences, the tangible forces of the visible world around us. Unfortunately, the nit-picky molecular stuff that's behind those tangible forces always manages to beat me up, steal my lunch money and leave me with an academic wedgie. So I dropped out. And when I came back to the college game, it was with a different school, a different major. And I finished.

So fuck you, Ohio State, and your stupid buckeyes. I speak French now. And I still have a closet full of rocks.