I which I totally agree.

According to my roommate Truck, these are the four dirtiest syllables in the English language:

cocktail weenie

“Because,” he explains, “the phrase ‘cocktail assfuck’ would just be redundant.”

In other news, goblinbox.com will turn six years old on Friday!

In which I feel a change a-coming.

It’s official. I didn’t get the office manager job. (I think the HR woman wanted to hire me but got overruled, but that’s just a gut feeling and I may have manufactured it to make myself feel better. I wanted that job, damn it.)

I’m going to drive up to Iowa City — Friday or Monday depending on the weather — and register at Kelly Services. Maybe they can start getting me temp office gigs. I have to get some income. Hopefully I can find a couch to crash on so I don’t have to commute two hours every day, but I’ll do what I have to. Well, until I run out of gas money, that is.

I’ve been knitting a lot and my sweater is looking very much like an article of clothing!

For fun, I’ve set up an email account and have been emailing the authors of various odd or amusing craigslist personals. The replies I’m getting are super fucking fun. I mean, mainly I’m looking for jobs and housing, but this post made me laugh out loud. I read all the personals, not because I’m looking for anything in particular but because sometimes, usually in the m4m section, there’ll be a massage ad with a picture of a totally naked guy in it, and it appears that I enjoy being startled by unexpected naked guy pictures. I mean, it’s just not something you expect after you’ve been surfing for job postings.

My sleep schedule has wound itself back around the clock and again I’m on India time. The weather sucks and it’s wet and cold and rainy and we have a flood watch because the ground’s too frozen to absorb the rain. My box of yarn (from the gift cert my mom gave me for Xmas) has been in the mail for over a week and hasn’t arrived. I haven’t washed my hair in at least five days. AmmZon made an asparagus quiche today. I have yet to file my taxes.

If I can get a job in Iowa City, I will move there and join a stitch’n’bitch and drink good coffee and shamelessly ogle the cute college boys. And girls. I’m equal-opportunity that way, although my thoughts about cute girls are usually less charitable, like, “She’s pretty but must she speak with that annoying voice?” and “That skinny little bitch ain’t got no ass at all.”

In which I complain.

I need a simple, clean, working 3-column WP theme (because I’m tired of the one I’ve been using for the past two years or so!). Today I went to the Theme Viewer, searched for Widget-ready 3-column themes, downloaded six of them, and tested them out.

Three didn’t work at all — bad coding. Two work technically but won’t work with my content because I have too many Pages and it fucks up the layout. (Most themes expect fewer than five Pages, but I have a lot.) One doesn’t work in IE. The final one is groovy looking but it’s not clean enough, not simple enough. I want goblinbox.com to be utterly accessible and readable. I don’t like sites that are overwhelming; if you want to dig through my sidebar that’s cool, but mostly I want you to read the post, comment if you’re moved to do so, and not have to do a lot of scrolling and clicking and crap to do it.

On top of all of that, I no longer have Fireworks installed so I can’t tweak images, which bums me out and means I have a hard time incorporating my logo into new layouts. All in all, highly unsatisfactory. I’ll probably go back to my old stand-by tomorrow. *grumble*

Update: I tried a variety of templates and they all have problems save this one. They don’t work in IE (I HATE IE OMFGWTFBBQ), they don’t work with my content, they aren’t Widgetized, they suck, I don’t like them, you don’t like them, or they’re just ugly. So I settled with this one. At least it’s clean.

In which I’ve not done shit.

I’ve slept about twenty of the past forty hours, I think.

Or I’ve at least spent them in bed, either sleeping or listening to my iPod. I no longer get the cramps I was getting last year (the ones that made me weep for hours and contemplate performing an auto-hysterectomy) but the damn process still makes me feel like my whole body is a black-and-purple bruise. To hell with hormones, I tell ya.

Of the last three places I’ve interviewed, one hasn’t contacted me, another wants me in Monday for a follow-up interview, and the third emailed to say they’d filled the position from inside. I have $50. I will need gas, smokes, dog food, and feminine hygiene products the next time I leave the house, which will pretty much eat that up, and then I’ll have nothing. The jeep needs work, and I need to get my teeth cleaned about a year ago.

One roommate is out drinking with my ex; the other’s in Keosauqua seeing her cousin. I’ve been called by two girls who want to go out tonight in spite of the bitter cold, but I ain’t goin’ out. I’m reading The Tie That Bindsand drinking cranberry juice, and that’s enough action for me.

In which I’m eavesdropping on AmmZon and Jonq in the living room.

Jonq, who is a bartender and dropped by here on her way home from work, just told a driving joke. I repeat it here for your amusement:

Ninety-four percent of the population, when skidding toward a ditch, say, “Oh shit!”

But Iowans say, “Hold my beer and watch this shit!”

For VD, I went out and got drunk. At some point, I shamed myself by eating a number-ten-extra-tartar-and-an-orange-drink from McD’s. (Alcohol is baaaad, mm’kaay?)

It’s That Time Of The Month again, which means I’m moody and in pain and won’t be leaving my room for four days.

On the job front, I have a second interview here on Monday. Employment looms ever closer, bitches, ever closer! All praise the FSM, from Whom all blessings flow.

What? Damn teapot.

In which the holiday is just plain bugging me.

I’ve rarely been single on Valentine’s Day.

In the past, I’ve approached the day with either a studied indifference or a banked hope that I might get a little something nice… I’ve rarely had the sense to date guys who were willing to celebrate with chocolates or flowers or dressing up for a nice meal out.

Today, however, I’m irked. I’m single, so I won’t be getting any flowers, and that’s fine. What I’m irked about is all the other VDs — when I wasn’t single — when I didn’t get anything. Is one’s very masculinity at stake if he pulls into the grocery to buy a fucking daisy or three? And is he intrinsically weakened if he agrees to fucking be nice on cue?

I mean, YES, it’s a Hallmark holiday. SO WHAT! The point of it is to be nice to the person you feel romantic love toward. The sentiment itself lacks any flaws, so just suck it up fer chrissakes. (That’s my advice to any of you currently in relationships who consider yourselves anti-VD: just fucking suck it up and take ten minutes out of your day to buy your sweetie something dorky. S/he’ll love it, and it might keep him/her from dropping your grumpy ass like it’s hot. Trust me, it won’t hurt you.)

My roommates are going to the Mount Hamill tavern for chicken tonight.

And here’s the word on Google’s VD logo for today.

In other news, this post makes me realize that I’m actually much happier with my living circumstances than I’d taken the time to realize. I may be too poor to self-medicate on VD, but at least I’m not hauling wood or driving three miles on ice.

In which it weirds me out that I’d never heard of this.

So my roomie AmmZon is totally sick today, the poor monster.

When she gets sick, she always wants her comfort food, which happens to be, and I quote, “an All American cheeseburger – ketchup only! – and fries and a Coke,” from McDonald’s. This is the only thing she wants when she’s sick. It helps her get well. (She even has a particular order in which she eats this restorative meal, but I can’t remember exactly what it is.)

What happens when you order an “All American cheeseburger,” rather than just a plain ol’ cheeseburger, is that you get your small fries for free. It’s like an adult Happy Meal or something because it only costs $2.14.

Apparently this item hasn’t actually been on the menu in the twenty years I’ve been eating there (and I begin to suspect that it might be the very first combo meal ever) and it’s nowhere to be found on the website, but when you ask for it at a drive-thru they always seem to know exactly what it is. This weirds me out because I worked at a McDonald’s once — even ran the register — and I’d never heard of it, but I’ve asked around and AmmZon’s not the only person who possesses this arcane knowledge.

So there you go, my babies: how to get a small fries for free.

Use your powers for good!

In which I’m lazy. And broke.

I slept all day not because I was tired but because I had nothing to do and nowhere to go and no one was home to talk to. I had two cigarettes in my pack and no money to get any more, and one thing that poverty has taught me is that the best way to conserve resources is to be asleep so you can’t use any.

I got up twice to let the dog out, but not wanting to knit or watch TV I just went back to bed again. I can always drop off to sleep, even if I’ve already slept ten hours. Napping is my superhero power.

I keep my money in AmmZon’s account (because mine has a levy on it), and my balance has recently dropped below $300. Now I’m nickling and diming her to death: “Get me $20, please?” “Get me $50, please?” She’ll bring me $20 tonight and I’ll buy smokes and dog food and $6 worth of gas and be out of cash again.

All is not lost, though. I’m not so lazy and useless that I eat badly: today I had leftover broccoli-cheddar soup with a grilled cheese sandwich of utmost deliciousness!

Behold its ingredients: American and jack and brie cheeses, red peppers, green onions, tomato, lettuce, black olives, and pesto, on light rye. It was freaking amazing.

But the very best news is I have another job interview, here, next Thursday. Maybe I’ll get two p/t jobs! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

In other news, I finally surfed over to check out Windows Vista. It’s a blatant copy of OSX. I mean, blatant! I can’t believe they can even get away with that shit: they copied the Dashboard concept and took Widgets and cleverly renamed them Gadgets. And while the new mobile Sync Center feature does seem cool, they probably should have released it back in Windows 95.

I am totally switching to Mac… if my circumstances should ever permit me to buy a computer again, that is.