Stella was hit by a car Saturday and suffered multiple hip fractures. After a day and a half on antibiotics and painkillers in the animal hospital, The Ex had to have her put down last night.

Farewell, sweet Stella-bean.

In which I copy her.

I’m at work. It’s a quarter after five on a Tuesday and I’m the only technician on the clock. My phone could ring at any minute! and these are the tabs I have open in my browser:

• eBay > ThinkPad A30 A list of laptop-related items for sale.
• DUN 678 Work-related troubleshooting stuff.
• eMusic.com Surfing for music to download.
• drhorrible.com Because I’m in love with this fuckin’ show.
• BMI Phonebook For looking up local access numbers for customers.
• cnn.com Perusing headlines, and wondering what the holy hell is wrong with the world.
• screenshots.modemhelp.net Screenshots for most common operating systems. I mean, I totally forget the differences between WinME and Win2k when I’m doing tech support.
• ping.fm For posting Twitters.
• Recording Liars An article about Todd (who is Godd).

Your turn!

I received a new battery for my laptop today! I ran it down to 3%, and then plugged it in and now it’s charging. Soon, I will be able to sit more than 5 feet from an outlet AND BE ON THE INTERNET AT THE SAME TIME. Such heady stuff, my babies!

I’m eating chocolate because The Curse™ is descending upon me. (Actually, I’m eating a fudge pop-tart. (Yeah, yeah, it’s gross, but I wanted chocolate – damn neuroreceptors, anyway – and that’s all there was.))

[Note: the following link may contain TMI. YHBW.] I recently started charting again, not because I’m concerned with fertility – I’m SO not, I had my uterine lining scoured out, hoorah! – but because I’m tracking my PMS symptoms to see if they’re really that much of a pain in the arse or if I’m just a whiner.

I suspect it’s probably a little of both, but one needs must gather empirical data to see if she is, in fact, truly bloated three-quarters of the time or if it just seems that way ’cause she’s pudgy fat and it’s summertime. Snort!

In which I’m the proud owner of a shiny new airline ticket.

First of all, to all you “online marketers with a passion for blogging” fucktards: fuck the hell off. Stop linking to me. I hate you. Srsly.

Second of all, to everyone else: it’s official! I’ve bought a ticket to Vegas! I’ll be there from September 28th through October 3rd. YOU SHOULD BE THERE TOO. Srsly! Come celebrate my birthday with me! IN VEGAS!

Third of all, come see me play this weekend: at Sapolil’s tasting room on Friday night, or at the Onion Festival on Saturday! Srsly. Two days! You pick! * ** ***

– – – – –
* If I had any deep thoughts I’d share them with you, but sadly I’m vacuous and silly and enjoy from the very root of my being both “srsly” and the over-use of exclamation points in written prose.
** Also, today at work there was a dial-up outage in Washington state that caused me to have to say the exact same thing over and over to many, many callers, and such a situation always reduces my general intelligence.
*** Finally, I had a mango after lunch. I know that seems unrelated, but my teeth are very close together and when I get stuff stuck between them it itches and I don’t like it and I no longer have floss in my desk so I had to do call center work for HOURS with itchy teeth. Srsly. !!!

In which there’s another little road trip that will cost more than it earns. (I mean, we don’t do this shit for money, people. We do it, when gas costs four-plus-dollars a gallon, for the attention!)

This weekend’s gig is about two hours away in a town called Ritzville, which means more driving and more conspicuous gas consumption on the part of the band. Since we’re playing the main stage at 1:30, we’ll have to leave W2 around ten in the morning.

I’m having a clothing crisis, people. I’ve finally realized that the guys in this band wear jeans and t-shirts (and the occasional Hawaiian shirt, for no apparent reason) exclusively, and that what I used to think of as “gig clothes” just isn’t apropos. This is a blues band, and we’re – I guess – aiming for a certain kind of style.

I basically need to go shopping in a What Would Janice Wear? mood, and buy some cool shirts. And some clunky shoes. Or boots. Or funky scarves or hats or what have you. Maybe I’ll hit Bimart on the way home tonight and pick up a Western shirt and a straw hat, and wear ’em tomorrow with some weird hippie accoutrements and that cool scarf from mmmFiber and call it style.

Eh. We’ll see. All I know is that I’ve got between the hours of 8 and 12 this evening to accomplish the following: go home, scratch my dog, make soup for dinner, do laundry, find two somethings to wear for tomorrow’s gigs, pack my makeup and set lists and tambourine and extra shoes and whatever into a bag, help teh BF get his car drive-worthy, relocate to KJ’s place, get laid, and get to sleep at a reasonable hour so I can get up AT EIGHT! ON A SATURDAY! FOR FUCK’S SAKE!

Then: load up, get out, get coffee, meet the band at Southgate, (Hurry up!) redistribute gear into the two cars because it’s too expensive to drive the band van. Then caravan. For two hours. (And wait!) To arrive in a town that will most likely be utterly packed and impossible to park in. Once actually at Ritzville, we’ll try to find KJ’s will-call ticket and then I probably won’t see him again until 2:40 or so, after the main stage set, and the band will run around (Hurry up!) trying to figure out where we’re supposed to be and wondering if we’ll have decent monitors. Then as soon as that set’s done, we’ll move ourselves and Curtis’ drums and the rest of the gear to a bar and set up for a 4-6 afternoon set, then (And wait!) if we’re lucky there will be food, then more music-making (hopefully to a packed house!), and after that (Hurry up!) we’ll load out. And THEN there’s another 2-hour drive to get back home! (And wait!) Where I will probably drink rapidly and heavily and pass out at eleven.

Sunday, I will be sleeping. Don’t call me. *giggle*

In which I mumble about software in a way that is of no interest to anyone but myself.

I can’t figure out what the fuck to do about PIM.

Once upon a time, I used Outlook on my computer and carried a synced PocketPC. Email, address book, calendar, tasks: all in one place and portable.

I no longer carry a PocketPC so I’m trying to keep all my data online, where I can get to it from any computer or my phone with no fuss. I’ve been auditioning various calendars, task managers, and webmail interfaces for a couple of years now.

I have most of my stuff at Gmail currently, but I don’t like their lack of old-school folders or drag-and-drop capability. (I don’t like Google calendar either, truth be told. And while I’ve tried to love Google Docs, somehow I don’t.) I also don’t like my Google user name, but the other names I’d want have been taken and I’d lose all my other Google content or have to move it if I moved to a new account…

I’ve tried Yahoo! Mail but the ads piss me off. I’ve tried my local Horde installation but while it’s robust, it’s fugly. I’ve tried to find server-side applications I could install and host here at the ‘box, but most of them don’t do everything I want or they’re ugly or expensive or need to run on architecture I don’t have.

I’ve tried several web-based solutions, but the good ones are all for-pay and end up costing more than buying a locally-run application, and I could just go back to Outlook for free…

Hmm. The more I think about it, the more I suspect that what I’m really looking for is Outlook. And some way to sync it to a web-based service, which means Plaxo.

Gah.

In other news, after nearly two years of inactivity I recreated my mush email address at goblinbox.com and within two minutes the box started getting spam. Fucking spammers! A pox on you all!

In which there’s more sympatico.

Saturday night I told Kaje that I couldn’t figure out how he turned out so well.

I’ve heard all kinds of utterly insane stories from him in the past two months, and in them he is – not to put too fine a point on it – a total fucking punk. The stories are laff-riot funny most of the time (unless they’re like this), but underneath all the wacky, crazy action is a person who is clearly just about totally off his fucking rocker.

Currently, though, he’s not a punk at all. He’s big-hearted, and a fantastically honest communicator. He’s earnest. And present. And his bullshit tolerance is zero but he’s nice at the same time. A complex creature, really, who becomes more and more worth it with each passing day.

“So how did you get here from there?” I asked. “I know there were some women in that ten year gap you never talk about, but I haven’t heard shit about any of that. I think it’s time you tell me about it. So give it.”

We were in his apartment. It was late at night. He frowned a little.

“I need to know this shit anyway,” I said. “Boundaries, past hurts. Blah blah blah. If I knew you were jealous, for instance, I might be less likely to sit on other people’s laps. It’s useful to know where one’s partner’s weird spots are.”

He mumbled something about how he thinks talking about exes is disrespectful and that’s why he hasn’t done it, and then – because he’s the person he is – he shook it off and got comfortable on the couch and started talking. Continue reading Damage isn't so bad, if you can speak its name →