In which I take a whole day and totally girl out with myself.

Sunday I gave myself a pedicure. And a manicure, too. I painted all 20 of my nails frosty pink while sitting on the front porch in the breeze and sun, drinking a beer and talking with Bghead and Truck and AmmZon as they came and went. Bindu slept under the porch swing, her legs squaring off her cute little stocky body, black pointy bat-ears flicking lazily.

Later, I dyed my hair with the second of the three boxes she sent me last winter. I walked around the house smelling of chemicals with my hair ‘piled loosely’ atop my head per the instructions, waiting for 35 minutes to pass. Truck and Bghead were playing darts in the front room — Truck had been hanging the dart board as I’d put dye in my hair — and saying things like, “Okay, motherfucker, let’s make this a bettin’ game!”

AmmZon said, “I would have done that for you, you know,” indicating my dripping head and pointing out that I had a big glob of dye on the back of my neck. I wiped the dye off with toilet paper and thanked her for the offer. I thought I’d actually gotten pretty even coverage, though, for applying it myself, even if I did have dye all over my neck and shoulders.

In the kitchen Truck said, “I don’t think women should dye their hair. I think they should make it look like they’re dyeing it and go out like that, because you look hot.”

“Yeah, you love the smell, right?” I said, putting a pinch of salt into my drink.

“Actually, not at all,” he replied. “It reminds me of when I dyed my own hair. Ick.”

When my 35 minutes had passed, I stepped into the shower and rinsed and conditioned. I love the conditioner that comes with hair color, I truly do.

I don’t think I’ve ever spent that much time on personal beauty in one day in my whole life.

In which if it weren’t so boring, it’d be shocking how boring it is.

Today I accomplished the following:

1. Slept in.
2. Made lunch.
3. Made coffee.
4. Ate.
5. Dipped Bindu (because fleas are evil and deserve to die).
6. Took a nap.
7. Walked to the Dead Cock for a veggie burger and some drinks.
8. Walked home.
9. Read several chapters of a good book.
10. Started a sleeve on the big brown sweater I’ve been knitting since last winter.
11. Wrote this post.

It’s true. I really am this bland sometimes. I know you all think of me as a rock star and all, but honestly it’s hard to rock out when you’re broke and have no car.

Don’t look at me! It makes me shy!

In which I’m sad. And inconvenienced.

On the way to work yesterday, the jeep started coughing and huffing as if it were running out of gas but I’d just put gas in it. I pulled off onto 6th street. The jeep died. I put it in neutral and tried to get it into a parking slot but it was too heavy.

I called Truck and he got a ride over with a neighbor (thanks, P!) and they helped me park it in front of Norm’s storage place. Then I walked to work.

Last night, bghead drove me around. First to the gas station to get more gas, then to the jeep, then to buy injector cleaner… Truck and AmmZon joined us. Our whole household hung out in front of Norm’s storage while Truck looked at my jeep.

Today I walked to work. I was sticky when I arrived because Iowa’s all about the humidity.

Truck just called. He went over and looked at the jeep a little more. It turns out that the problem is not any of the relays or fuses we’d hoped it would be. So it’s probably the fuel pump, which is inside the gas tank, which means it’ll be at least a few hundred bucks to fix because the tank will have to come out. Which means that I will have to save all of my income for the next month in order to get the jeep fixed, and be car-less in the meanwhile.

Tonight I have to figure out who I can ask to trailer it for me (rope-towing is illegal, which SUCKS), because it can’t stay where it is much longer. Maybe I can park it here at work, because this location is between two car shops and I wouldn’t have to tow it a second time when I’m ready to have it worked on.

Sometimes, poverty is not so fun.

In which there’s really nothing worth reporting and you shouldn’t even be reading this because you’re far too cool a person to waste time on an entry like this.

Friday evening I went over to hang out with Raybo and Tsunami, but after visiting with them for only a bit The Curse arrived, and I had to run home before I bled on any of their innocent furniture. In bed by eleven thirty on a Friday!

The rest of the weekend involved finishing a book, starting another, and doing two loads of laundry. I did not do anything more exciting than eat two chocolate candy bars and sleep a lot.

Monday, I thought uncharitable thoughts about my uterus. Uncharitable because it’s really not my uterus’s fault; it’s the glands that produce – or don’t produce – various hormones in unreliable quantities that are causing my uterus to behave the way it does. It’s just following orders.

Yeah, following orders like those Nuremburg dudes.

Today at work, I edited 119 invoices individually before sending them out because the accounting software used by my employer is, to coin a phrase, totally stupid omgwtfbbq!!1!1!!.

However, I did meet a cute girl (with dimples!) today who offered to take me for a ride on the back of her motorcycle sometime, and she’s a massage therapist. So I guess getting up this morning wasn’t a total wash. Did I mention the dimples? *swoon*

In which it’s not where I thought it was.

When I went to The Ex’s earlier this week, I got my external USB HD and pulled my other drive right out of my old computer. Today I settled down with Truck’s laptop, my enclosure, the hard drives, and a screwdriver to reunite myself with my long-lost data.

Well, most of what I thought was on those drives isn’t there. The partitioned drive that usually lives in the USB enclosure has files from Indianapolis on it, mainly – all stuff I absolutely do not need ever again – and the drive out of my tower seems to be conspicuously lacking all of the graphics files I was hoping were there.

Which means most of the data I was hoping for was on my work machine when I got laid off last year. I thought I’d backed up the important stuff, but I can’t find it now.

In other news, The Curse is here so I went to Walmart and bought chocolate and a nightgown, and I will be in my room for the rest of the weekend.