In which time goes by so slowly.

It’s nearly two o’clock. The day is oozing by, positively oozing. It’s like watching a river of molasses. Or crude oil. Or something dark and viscous. (Or dark and vicious. Whatever. It’s slow, is my point.)

And while the past three days have felt rather Spring-like, this morning the temperature dropped about twenty degrees. My teeth were chattering when I jogged down to India Cafe to get some lunch. Brr.

What you may not know is that my Mr Coffee Mug Activated Warmer is one of the most important electric devices in my entire life. Here it is, keeping my mug o’ tea warm:

I think I got my Mr Coffee Mug Activated Warmer out of a freebox in college, but I’m not sure. I know I’ve had it for at least a decade, if not longer. I always keep it on my desk at work, wherever that may be. It in turn always keeps my hot beverages at the perfect drinking temperature.

It’s wonderful. Everyone should have one. You can even warm your fingers on it.

Now I believe I shall brave the elements and run next door to the gas station for something in the way of chocolate and sweet. Maybe hot chocolate. Or maybe a chocolate bar and some milk I can bring back to my desk and make tea with.

Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

In which I forgot my baby. I’m a horrible mother.

I have to drive home at lunch time today, and I don’t care if it’s a waste of gas!

See, I was just about to put Linux on my iPod — I had all the files downloaded and extracted and renamed and was at the point in the instructions where it says ‘now connect your iPod to your computer,’ and I reached into my purse to grab it…

…and it wasn’t there. I left it at home next to my bed! Ack! Double ack! (I never go anywhere without my iPod.)

Floydzilla comes with iDoom preinstalled, yo. Not to mention Asteroids. Who doesn’t want to play Asteroids on her freakin’ iPod, I ask you?!

In other news, I’ve managed to drive to work two mornings in a row now without spilling my tea. Yay!

In which I find myself driving around at dusk.

Last night I hung around the office ’til 5:30 or so, updating my iPod and surfing blogs. Then I rolled past the bar but Bread wasn’t there and since Amazon Blonde doesn’t work there any more there was hardly any chance of getting a decent bloody mary.

It was going to be dark soon, so I headed home to change my headlight. That little enterprise took longer than you’d think — many screws need to be removed to swap out one’s headlight.

After that, I drove past the Libertyville bar, but Bread wasn’t there either.

Drove back to town.

Apparently I didn’t adjust my new lamp very well, because two people flashed me when I had my low beams on. I’ll have to fiddle with that.

Stopped at the gas station for gas (still two-something a gallon) and cigs. Drove back by the Dead Cock. Where in the hell is my hubby getting drunk?

Cell phone rings. He’s at the bowling alley, and if I stopped by he’d buy me a drink.

So I went over there, and he bought me a drink. Then he wanted $15 bucks for something. *rolleyes*

After awhile, I left for rehearsal. My voice really opened up last night and felt good; I don’t know why last night rather than any other night but sometimes that happens. We worked on a song I wrote and afterwards PK gave me shit about being indifferent about originals when I first joined the band. “You shrugged and said you weren’t into it, and then you bring us this!”

In other news, I think I’m gonna put Linux on my iPod because my brother did it. Plus, who doesn’t want Space Invaders and Pong and Asteriods and a Matrix screensaver on her 5th gen iPod?!

In which gravity continues to have a profound effect on the objects in my life.

I made a huge mug of tea this morning, very black and strong, with the perfect amounts of milk and sugar. We have these nifty drinking glasses, they’re 1-quart canning jars with handles on them. They hold a lot of tea.

So I’m driving to work today and had one of my famous moments of total spas-fucking-ticity and I dumped the better part of a quart of tea all over my leg and the floor well of the driver’s side of my jeep!

I have tea all down my right leg, all over my right sock, and in my right shoe.

At least I didn’t dump the stuff all over, say, my guitar (which was in the back seat) or all over the passenger seat (which contained my purse, a book, a scarf, and my hat).

When I got to work I pulled the floor mat out, let it drip for a moment, and threw it up on top of the luggage rack to dry.

In which — aw, hell. Nothin’. In which nothin’. *sigh*

This morning I caved — because not only am I weak but it’s cold and I was hungry and very sleepy — and I pulled into McD’s for an egg ‘n’ cheese biscuit, hash browns, and a small orange juice. Now that I can use plastic to get food there, it’s even easier. The bastards.

I’m a little bit unhappy about how cold the house is this winter, with all that insulation gone due to the remodel in progress. There are icy arctic breezes in the hallways. I’ve been sleeping with a hat and slippers on.

The cold snap hasn’t broken and let me tell you what: it is WAY FUCKING COLD. We heat our house primarily with wood, and no matter how thoroughly we stoke the stove at night the fire always goes out before morning. This means that every time I’ve hauled my ass out of bed in the past five mornings it’s been about 40 degrees in my room. Which makes me cranky. Very, very cranky.

I’m boring and I haven’t done anything fun since my last post. The weekend review goes like this: I stayed home Friday (because I was tired after putting in my first 40 hour week in, like, three years. I know: waaaah). Saturday BoS came and made us breakfast (bless his fuzzy little heart) and in the afternoon Bread went to Hickory House to play poker and didn’t come home ’til midnight (while I stayed home in blessed solitude and didn’t even get dressed). Sunday I slept in, then rode to town with Bread and got dropped at rehearsal while he went to BoS’s. The end.

I know: yawn. I’m boring, I’m astonishingly broke, and you’re glad I posted that Frappr map so at least there’s something to do around here. Please, do my boring life a favor and go Frappr. Right over there, to the right, the map thing? Click on it. Yeah. Be my friend. Mmm.

In which there are issues with the utilities.

I had two bloody marys at the Dead Cock after work last night. I hung out with MissT for awhile. Then I went to band practice.

After about 40 minutes of practice, the power went out. And it stayed out. So I left band practice — no way to play electric instruments with no power — and for lack of something better to do went back to the bar, which still had power although it was flickering frequently.

Played Megatouch games with MissT for awhile, had a drink.

Drove home. The Hwy 34 corridor had no power at all, not a farm light or street light or house to be seen. It was eerie and really, really dark.

No power in Batavia, either. When I walked in the back door, Bread had candles everywhere.

Power was restored shortly before midnight, which is when we went to bed and ravished each other. (Actually, I ravished him and he laid there and took it like a man. *wink*) The power stayed on all night, then went out again sometime between six and seven for another hour.

So I’m really tired and I want to take a nap, and it was really fucking cold in the bedroom this morning. Cold and tired is my least favorite combination ever.

It was zero degrees outside when I got up, but it had heated up to a balmy eleven degrees by the time I drove past the bank sign on my way to work.

In other news, my knitting site is down, and so is its host. Neither name will resolve, which means their DNS servers are down, which means something catastrophic has happened. I don’t even know where they’re located physically. And I don’t know any IP associated with the host or I’d try some tracert to see where it breaks. Of course, none of you care about any of this… it’s just that it’s hard to break the Internet so it’s interesting when something stops working.

In which I babble aimlessly, just as you’ve come to expect! Because if nothing else I certainly aim to please. Now hush up and pay attention.

Last night after work I picked Bread up from BoS’s house, then bought us drive-thru (with plastic – ugh) and took him to the bowling alley, where he was going to hang out watching BoS bowl league until I finished band practice.

But then he decided he was sleepy so I went ahead and took him home; it seemed silly to make him sit in the bowling alley bar when what he really wanted to do was fall asleep on the couch. I mean, he’d done three loads of laundry that day, so he deserved a ride home, right? So I drove him home and dropped him off, then turned right around and headed back to town for band practice.

The moon was just rising — it was about a quarter past seven — and it was massive and orange and so very beautiful. I tried to take a picture of it with my cell phone, but it sucks and does the experience absolutely no justice:

When I got to rehearsal, there was chocolate because PjK is a doll. Yum.

I taught him, WTC, and KO another song I’d written and they seemed to like it. We played but mostly we chatted a lot. Love those guys. (GSW and BvB weren’t there last night, so it was only a partial rehearsal.)

My guitar needs new strings; it won’t stay in tune. I also really need to start playing with a pick.

I gave WTC a fairly vigourous back rub (he actually likes Rolfing) because his back is still fucked up and apparently he can’t get emergency visits with his chiro.

And then I drove home, around 10:30, and went promptly to bed.

In totally unrelated news, this is a picture of Bread and me from the engagement party the other night:

My favorite VD quote from the blogosphere: “At least if you’re single you know what to do: wear black and self-medicate.”

In which the poverty continues.

I have a cup of shitty gas station coffee, two cigarettes, five dollars (in the form of a $2 bill and $3 in quarters), and my guitar.

Happy VD.

Now, who wants to buy me lunch?

In which I need to do some auto maintenance.

At a red light on Burlington, Brady pulled up beside me. We rolled our windows down.

Him: Hey Mush!
Me: Hey!
Him: Your right brake light is out.
Me: Oh fuck.
Him: Yeah, I thought you’d say that.
Me: Fuck! Hey, thanks, though.
Him: No problem! Have a good one.
Me: You too.

In other news, my nails really look like crap, which is totally unlike me:

Do you see that? I have dirt under my nails. Christ!

In which I’m confused. And so are some Turkish people!

So I’ve had 17 hits today from Google Turkey.

People using Google Turkey and entering the search string “mohammed caricatur” are getting this page (a rant from 2004 called “Morning people are not better than night people, damn it”), which has neither mohammed nor caricatur anywhere in it.

It makes no sense at all. Here’s a picture of goblinbox.com coming up second in a totally erroneous search result.

Update: Actually, it’s worse than that! The same thing is happening with Yahoo, Google Germany, and Google Belgium. I’ve had 330 hits from that search string in the past week! (I love the Internet. If it had lips, I’d kiss it.)