Things that are pissing me off today:

1. People who are praying that God will intervene for Terri Schiavo—how do they know God hasn’t already intervened? How is it that God’s will is only what they decide that it is?
2. Michael Jackson’s armbands—What the fuck is the point? (there are so many additional WTFs related to Mr. Jackson, that I have chosen only one in the interest of space and bandwidth.)
3. From the NYTimes’ QUOTATION OF THE DAY
   “My party is demonstrating that they are for states’ rights unless they don’t like what states are doing.”
   – CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Republican congressman of Connecticut, on the Schiavo case.

4. People who don’t remember earlier statements they have made. Example: “The level of insurgency in postwar Iraq wouldn’t be so high if the U.S.-led coalition had been able to invade from the north, through Turkey, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday.”—You go to war where your army is, Donnie. Not where you wish it might be.
5. National Vanguard Books
6. That I have never and will never have the guts to dye my hair “Pimpin Purple”—and that the unfortunate truth of the matter is that it’s very hard for young girls to dye their hair, get crazy piercings, and buy clothes that their mothers don’t approve of unless they have someone’s credit card. And impetuous airline tickets to Seattle are right out.
7. Not knowing what to do with RSS feeds, not knowing enough about Lawrence Lessig, and not being able to understand a single convincing argument for installation “art”
8. The fact that the Army raised the maximum age for enlisting in the National Guard and Army Reserve from 34 to 39—because it suddenly made me feel very, very, very old to know that I’m too old even for the new age max. Not that I have any interest in any of this. I just feel very old.
9. That I created What Your Shoes Say even though I don’t have a clue what I mean to say or do with it.
10. Commercials that suggest people might want to buy shoes that animals try to eat or carry off, that there is a correlation between taking a shower/bath and buying a car, or that Internet connections are sandwiches, that spam is chili, and viruses are jello and whipped cream.

• In the week that I have been hibernating, Rubbish A. Toddles, Nosebleed U. Ruckuses, and Litigious D. Glee sent me mail. I’m not sure if they are leprachauns or an odd sect of elves.
• I save too many things for the “right” moment. My pile of unwatched films includes not only The Return of the King but also The Two Towers. That means that I’ve owned TT for over a year and still haven’t found the time to watch it.
• My household inventory clearly indicates that too many of my things are not near where they belong. After all, no one can explain a reason for cereal to be stored in the living room.
• I finished reading Life in the Fat Lane and am about two-thirds of the way through The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. I still can’t quite like Life in the Fat Lane. How can it go to the trouble of fairly accurate info on prednisone and doxepin (I’ve taken both), and then create a completely fictional malady? It all feels a little too fake for me. The point wasn’t to deal with what a real girl might go through, but to create some kind of Twilight Zone reality that she crosses into. Maybe I’m just too unrealistic about that can and can’t be done in a book. I liked TTYL; but I think I had the same problem with it. It’s not quite real I know what it looks like when teens IM and e-mail each other. Somehow things just were’t quite authentic. I mean what person uses u and r and ppl but spells out with. And where did we find kids who only have one msg window open at a time? Come on. I just can’t square the things in these books that aren’t quite genuine, that tie up in a package that’s just a little too perfect to be real. Maybe I should go back to fantasy.
• Sometimes the sirens are so loud because the fire truck is coming down your street. I am not hearing things. They really are outside.
• Too frequently I have dumped full super-sized diet cokes on the floor of my car through perfectly normal driving. I am very tired of this failure to control my beverages and I mourn the loss of precious brown diet beverage.
• A week can pass and I can get nothing done. No lesson plans posted. No entries. No nothing. Oh, I guess I did write an Inbox section on cartoons and graphic novels yesterday. Maybe that counts as something.
• I don’t seem able to write anything. I have a million starts in this house, piles of notes, jotted ideas. But I don’t ever write. More than anything I want to write a book, but I never do. I never do anything.

Today’s Horoscope Says…

My exciting horoscope (“Money matters you’ve been concerned with lately will iron themselves out nicely — very nicely, indeed. All you have to do is cover your bases and be sure that you don’t trust anyone your antennae warn you about.”) seemed to be true. And that’s all I’m saying cuz I’m superstitious about such things.

For some reason this evening, I am highly agitated. I’m pissed off by Condaleeza Rice and Karen Hughes, though I have no real reason. I watched clips of the two of them, and just got more and more angry with them. I’d rather trust a hungry alligator with a baby bird. Maybe they were just the unlucky people in the news clips this evening. I could just as easily have been pissed off at Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Cheney, and Bush if they had been on the small segment of news that I caught.

I have no idea why I’m feeling so agitated though. Maybe it’s anyone on TV. Right now I’m pissed off at Emeril for always making the same damned idiotic jokes. Dear Emeril, No. It’s not funny when you insist that a certain area of the studio is “not the cheap seats” for the billionth time. The smell-i-vision thing, not funny. The “oh, yeah, baby, it’s a real show” thing, not funny. The “then I said to myself, ‘self'” thing, annoying as fuck AND not funny. Why in the hell would I put food in my pocket and go on the subway (or anywhere else)? And, you know, essence is just a handful of seasonings and herbs. I’m just not impressed. As a side-note, that stupid crisco can looking thing that Doc Gibbs plays is annoying as hell. I mute the TV whenever he picks it up. Love and kisses, tengrrl.

Also, if Alton Brown fell in a blender and the liquefied remainders were poured on the ground for toothless bears to eat, it would not be a bad thing. But that’s only come up because of a commercial.

Maybe it’s just that I hate myself today. I baked a dozen cookies. Why? What was I thinking? Why didn’t I do the laundry instead? Or clean something? But no, I baked cookies and made rice and pretty much can’t accomplish anything exceptionally useful. I can’t seem to succeed. But, and I mean with with complete honesty and conviction, even if I didn’t hate myself, those Emeril jokes would still blow.

Cleaning Up My Act

I seem to be in a tidying phase at work. Many dust bunnies have been evicted.

Created the Inbox Ideas section on gender and fairy tales, for Women’s History Month.

Other than this I am most boring. People weep to know me. Various Claudette Colbert movies that I haven’t paid enough attention to to bother listing. I have a very long list of things that I should be doing, but that I seem to be ignoring. If only I could get the dust warthogs evicted from my house. Yes, they are that large.

Perci’s entry on her dad was a bittersweet thing. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one dreaming about a father who is no longer here. In my dreams, there’s never anything quite so concrete or consistent as Perci describes. I am simply doing various things with the family and he is there. Always insanely complicated things that we seem to be up to. Last night it was something about some play that was being staged and my mother had been in charge of the costuming, which was apparently a whole lot of WWI military uniforms. Presumably that is a twisted throw back to the Vietnam lesson plan. But then suddenly I was bringing dinner to everyone and Daddy was in his chair in the living room, in front of the TV. See? Makes no sense.

When I read Perci’s entry, though, I also just felt really sad. Because when you wake up, it’s like losing him, and I feel stupid for having these very clear dreams about things that can never ever be again.

So here’s what I need to know. Let’s say that you just came in from outside and took off your coat, which is always full of static electricity. Even though you have parted ways with the coat, you are apparently highly conductive. You touch random metal and are shocked. You walk probably 10 or 12 feet from point of combustion and touch the on button on the fan. You get another shock. The fan doesn’t turn on. In fact, hours later, plugged into a different socket, it still won’t turn on.

So, is this just an odd coincidence or could I actually have shorted out a fan with my static electricity? If it’s static, it seems extremely bizarre as I had already touched one piece of metal and the fan is mostly plastic. If it’s that the fan shorted out, it was totally out of the blue and is completely bizarre. The fan isn’t even a year old. Either way, it’s very strange.

Definitely made up for getting up early yesterday by staying in bed past noon.

Edited Vietnam War lesson plan.

Finally got Netflix out of the house (same DVDs for 3 months = bad use of $$$).

I can’t seem to remember most of the afternoon. I watched most of Mansfield Park, then most of Peyton Place, and all of The Lady from Shanghai and A Kiss Before Dying (the 1956 version). Then I switched to Hercule Poirot.

To be honest, I couldn’t remember most of that. Fortunately TV listings are online so I was able to reconstruct my day.

Oh, and in addition to apparently killing a fan, I began a new book, Life in the Fat Lane. I’m a good number of pages in, so I’ll probably keep going, but rather than hearing about a beauty queen who gains weight, I think I’d rather read a real book from the fat girl’s perspective (in this case, it’s Patty Asher). I just don’t need to hear that beauty queens have a hard time. It’s not that I’m indifferent to the plight of the beauty queen and this girl’s struggles; but it doesn’t feel new to me. I guess the fat girls’ stories are too despressing. No one would want to read about fat girls when there are Princess Diaries and Gossip Girls to read about.

I have been eating a quesadilla while writing this, and the remainder looks like the state of Wisconsin. I do not know what this means other than that I shouldn’t be eating quesadilla (or much else).

Yes, I persist in recording minutiae to “make each day stand out” as Real Simple has instructed me.

Awake and functioning before 10 AM. No one knows why.
Unexplainable inspiration strikes.
Dress and load the car with a portion of the aluminum can collection.
          ALL BEFORE 11 AM
Make three trips to the Golden Goat, recycling 41.33 pounds.
Celebrate minor glee in reclaiming garage.
It’s only 12:30.
Something is clearly wrong with me. I should be back in bed for a nap.
Balanced checkbook, cleaned up piles of receipts.
Prepare deposit for the bank and drive off to take care of it with the ATM.
Revel in empty garage. 41.33 pounds of aluminum cans take up a lot of space.
Only had to visit 3 ATMs to find one that worked AND had deposit envelopes.
Return home. Hear scurrying squirrel in garage.
Apparently my reclamation was short-sighted. The squirrels own my garage.
Finally watched Ella Enchanted, which sucks

          (“Say no to ogrecide! Stop the Giant land grab!”)
          and has much NOT to do with the book.
Got cold and made chicken-corn chowder to warm up.
Finished (finally) reading Unexpected Development. It only took 2 weeks.
          NOTE: I should make more time for reading.
Minor household cleaning of little entertainment.
Now The Big Sleep is on.
          “I’ve got a bottle of rye in my pocket…I’d rather get wet in here.”
               Did that line really work at some point?

So apparently it was a bad idea to get dressed this morning, and then noting that I was early, go back to bed for a nap.

Make a note not to attempt naps 30 minutes before you need to leave for work.

Worked editing math journals lesson, but didn’t finish it.

Went to the grocery store, where everything has been moved about in some remodeling scheme to confuse consumers.

Came home and paid bills. Friday night fun. Woo woo.

Watched the exceptionally silly 13 Going on 30. Sorry. No quote worthy of memory.

Now I have The Human Stain on, which seems much more promising, but as it is already late, I won’t watch it all now. Befuddlingly, it is on the “Black Starz” channel even though the stars are all white. The plot is about passing, but still it seems like a stretch. Looked up the movie/book and did what what I am sure is a most excellent quote. Who knows if it’s in the movie though. Amazon tells us, “Viagra catapults Silk [the protagonist] into ‘the perpetual state of emergency that is sexual intoxication.'” Why can’t I write sentences like that?

Apparently The Daily Show does matter because the one night I’m tempted to go to bed early is the one night they have a piece on the SAT. I caught most of it anyway. That will teach me to follow the whims of my heart.