You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have...a big pile of crap

First, the good news, which 99.9% of you already know about because I emailed you about it yesterday: the BF and I are engaged. It happened in Seattle, it was a complete surprise (to me), yadda yadda yadda. No ring, no dates set, no locations picked out. If we don't get married in someone's back yard with a potluck reception, as is my hick family's tradition, it will be a miracle. My mother, you will all be heartened to know, screamed for a full ten minutes with relief and joy when I told her the news. Which makes sense, since you would probably have the same reaction if you truly believed this turn of events would deliver your wayward child from frying in an eternity of hellfire. I'm-a comin', Jesus!

Anyhoo. The bad news. Well, it looks like my dear little fuzzyhead is in the early stages of kidney disease. But all is not bleak--apparently if we change her food and give her special (read: expensive) new food if could keep her going for awhile longer. It's been a wake-up call for me, though, because I've never really experienced the decline/death of a loved one. The only people I've ever really known who have died during my life are my paternal grandparents, though I never knew them well, and was relatively young when they passed away. I've even escaped the up-close deaths of my childhood pets - we had to give away my dog when we moved to Oregon, and my parents gave away my first cat, an outdoorsy fellow, when they sold their house and moved to Arizona. Both of those pets have since expired, but I haven't had to see them suffer or find them dead, and in both cases I only heard about it later, and years after I'd had them as my own pets. The only remaining friend from my youth is Easy, and I will be a broken hollow shell of a human when she finally does go, at least for a while. But she's still hearty, and here's hoping she's got some life in her yet.

Oh yeah. The conference. Eh. It was kinda dull - ALA Midwinter is mainly for committee meetings, and when you're not on a committee the whole thing is kinda pointless. I went to some discussion groups which were mostly not interesting, but I did give out a few business cards and engage in copious small talk, so I guess maybe I got a little of my network on. But now I'm stoked--OK, maybe that's too strong of a word--interested in going to ALA Annual, which wouldn't you know it, takes place right here in good ol' DC this summer. Anyone who wants to attend is invited to stay with me, provided I still have an apartment. Unless you get paid by your work to stay someplace nice, in which case I will be staying with you.

Swing low, sweet chariot

So I took my cat in to the vet today, and had about $640 of lab work done on her. She's been losing weight lately, not eating as much, and seems to pee a lot more than she used to. Also, she's 14 now, and I knew that this moment would be coming soon. I had just hoped she'd have at least two or three more healthy years in her. And she may yet - the lab tests don't come back until Thursday at the earliest, and the vet couldn't even say what he suspected at this point since she's old and the list of possible maladies is long.

All of which has me pondering mortality and the value of life. As I have perhaps foolishly made public on this blog from day one, I am poor. The $640 for the lab tests made me freak out a little, though I know my cat is worth every penny, and now I'm wondering how much more I am willing to shell out to keep the little fuzzhead going for what could be a only very short time in any case. I mean, 14 for a cat is, according to all the charts I saw at the vet's today, about 75 in human years. She might have a little bit left in the gas tank, but the red needle is on it's way to empty, no doubt about it.

So a part of me says: you can't afford any major procedures. She's a cat. A much beloved, cared-for and undoubtedly overly spoiled cat, but a cat just the same, and it would be silly to spend thousands of dollars keeping her alive, if indeed she is ill and needs treatment. On the other hand. I adore her about as much as most people adore members of their own family, possibly more. She is my family. And I would spend whatever it took to keep a family member alive, even if I knew it would only be for a short while, right?

And yet. There are government programs set up, Medicaid and Medicare and whatever, especially for people who can't afford medical treatment. There is medical insurance, and tax deductions and various other means of obtaining funds and reimbursements for people who are sick. But nothing exists to help out those who need to pay for treatment of a sick animal. And by the way, how telling is it that the doctor who told me all of these tests would be needed never bothered to mention how much it would cost? It doesn't help matters that the median income where I live is about $90k. I feel ashamed every time I have to ask a doctor or dentist how much a procedure will cost, because health consequences be damned, the price will determine whether or not I can have it done.

So am I going to look like an asshole if I ask how much it will cost to fix my sick kitty? Probably. God, I hate living here. And I hate having to make this choice, even if it is a bit premature. Should I be allowed to even own a pet, if I can't afford any and all expenses it may incur throughout the course of its life? I don't know. I do know that I love my kitty so much that writing this post has caused me to cry at work, and I don't think I should have to miss out on that kind of love and that kind of companionship just because I'm poor.

Westward-ho!

In case I missed letting some of you Seattle/Northwest peeps know that I'm gonna be in town next weekend, consider yourself warned. I'll be going to the ALA Mid-Winter Meeting, which is sure to be entertaining and informative, or at least better than staying here and doing nothing. I'm supposed to be networking and stuff while I'm out there so that maybe I have half a chance of getting a job when I move back, but I can never really seem to muster the energy for the schmoozing. Nevertheless, I just spent $18 getting ugly and non-official-looking business cards printed, so maybe I should at least pretend to wheel-and-deal.

Anyway. The other night I was at work and bored, a rare occurence, and so I took the opportunity to read my blog archives. Some things I've noticed: I used to write a lot more about books I was reading and movies I had seen, but maybe that was because I used to post a lot more often and needed something to write about. Also, (I)(use)(way)(too)(many)(parentheses). (I guess I'm fond of the parenthetical statement.) And wow, have I really gone off the deapend since about August or September with the memes. Sorry about that - they are the lazy man's method of blogging and I realize this. Plus, they're really ultra-fucking-boring.

I didn't really have a point to make there, I was just saying. Here's something you will all enjoy: LEG UPDATE! Well, not much is new, unfortunately. It still hurts. But I feel that perhaps my knees are slightly better, although my hip/pelvis (I have an inflamed joint where my hip and pelvis meet) is still sore and it looks like it will be sore for the rest of my life, since I don't like either of the two options I have been presented with: 1) taking steroid medication - oh good, I get to gain weight and have worse acne than I am already blessed with! or 2) get a cortizone shot. No thanks, I'll just live with the pain. As my good friend and supermodel roommate once said, "Sometimes you have to suffer for fashion." Indeed.

Also, I don't like my doctor so I don't think I'm gonna go there anymore, and besides, it's too expensive and I can't afford it. So, bring the pain!

I'm lame

NEWSFLASH! I had a bunch of things I was going to blog about and then I never did and now I've forgotten them. Anyway, I ran across a short little meme and I knew you'd all be so happy about it, so here it is.

Five Things You Don't Know About Me

1. I have an addiction to at-home workout DVD/videos. They are practically the only media I will actually buy with my own money anymore. I buy one, use it a few times, then have to have another before too long. I've probably collected more than 20 of them now, although the VHS ones get little to no use these days (the Jane Fonda step aerobics tapes just don't it for me anymore, nor does Cher). I've even gone so far as to buy a yoga DVD, featuring Denise Austen no less--I now have two Denise Austen DVDs, and I admit I feel a little stupid about it.

2. I do not now, nor probably will I ever, own an iPod. Gadgets of the devil, I tell you. I mean, I'm sure they're great, but really, must they cost so much? And, costing so much, must they be so ubiquitous? "Hi, I have an iPod. I make $80k a year and you don't." Blow me.

This meme is more difficult than it would appear. I'm having trouble thinking of three more things that no one knows about me, since I pretty much spill the entire contents of my life on this blog. I'll keep trying, though.

3. Oh, here we go. This one is really embarrassing--I used to have a crush on Pauly Shore. Yes, you read that correctly. I don't know what I was thinking, but it goes without saying that I was a confused teenager at the time. I even bought one of his stand-up "comedy" CDs (the term "comedy" being broadly defined here).

4. Well, this is dumb and I may have said this in some previous post, but I don't actually enjoy the taste of alcohol. In fact I find it repulsive, yet I do drink from time to time in order to get a buzz, and occasionally, in order to get utterly stumbling-home slurring-speech blurry-vision, beer-goggly trashed (not very often, though, and I don't actually drink beer, as it is disgusting).

5. Shamefully, I have tried to take up eating disorders at various low points in my life. However, my attempts at anorexia have never lasted more than about two hours, four if I ate a really big meal beforehand. Attempts at bulimia have failed as well, as it seems I am incapable of making myself vomit on command. So I've had to settle for either being fat, which is no fun at all, or exercising and watching what I eat, which is laborious and time consuming, and also no fun at all. But which I do anyway, because see first clause in above sentence.

Lusting in Seattle

I want to be Nancy Pearl when I grow up. Seriously, how cool is her job? By the way, the link goes to her Book Lust Wiki, so you should click on it and not be afraid.

It's the moment you've all been waiting for

My yearly top ten picks for books and movies! Since I've already bored you with it once, I think it's time this yearly custom became an annual tradition.

Again, a disclaimer: my picks for books will necessarily be out of the books I've read this year, not just books published this year, since it's not very often that I read brand new books. I finally kept a log of everything I've read in the year, and it turns out that I've only completed a disappointing 30 books, so that's not including 4 books that I started but didn't finish (Bleak House being one of them, which I have spent the whole of December reading and which I'm not even half-way through yet. Damn Dickens.). Out of those 30, 4.5 were re-reads, which I find as I revise this post has gone up from what I had originally counted as 2.5. Darn. I thought I was doing better this year, but apparently I'm not.

As for movies, I didn't get to see a lot of the smaller films that are making the critics' top ten lists, so you'll just have to bear with me. Overall, I felt like this year really blew for movies - only one or two really stand out in my mind as being worthy of watching again or even remembering in any fashion.

So the lists.

Best Books I Read in 2006

1. The Runaway by Alice Munro. This is only the second book I've read by Munro, but I think she may be one of my new favorite writers. As with pretty much all her books, this is a collection of short stories, some of which are related and some of which are not, but they are all excellent.

2. White Teeth by Zadie Smith. To be honest, the thing about this novel that really makes it outstanding in my mind was that fact that Smith was only 21 when she wrote it. This simultaneously awes me and fills me with self-hatred and gut-twisting envy. But I gotta give props where props are due.

3. Gilgamesh by Joan London. For a first novel, the writing was so tight and clean you could eat dinner off it. Also, good pacing and plot - I think I finished the book in a couple of days.

4. Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood. Everything Atwood writes is compulsively readable, including this little novella which is not large on plot but is very wonderful just the same. Finished it in about a day and a half.

5. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. Here's the thing: after I read this book I was like, "Eh. OK, it's good, but I don't see what the big deal is." Then I keep remembering all the little stories and details and thinking to myself, "What book was that from? ... Ah yes." And that's basically how I know for myself if a book or movie is good - if I keep thinking about it long after the moment is over.

6. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley.

I think I'll stop here, actually. It seems kind of absurd to rate one third of the books you've read as the best of the year, especially when one-sixth of those are re-reads from previous years.

Best Movies I've Seen in 2006

1. The Departed. This is the Martin Scorsese film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, involving Boston criminals and lots and lots of violence. It's sort of a tie between this and The Queen, but there is a part of me that feels The Queen was too light to be number 1.

2. The Queen. It's about the queen, and Tony Blair and the death of Princess Diana. What more is there to say? Oh yeah. Helen Mirren is pretty good.

3. The Devil Wears Prada. One of the best movies of the year? Probably not to most people. Not even to me, really, but thing about this movie is that it was exactly the movie I wanted to see at exactly that moment in time, so I have very warm feelings for it, much the same way I feel about Love, Actually which, truth be told, is not a great film. But Meryl Streep is so excellent in it - if you block out all the pap about Anne Hathaway's character, you can have a really enjoyable experience.

4. Inside Man. Just a plain good movie to see in a theatre - intense, fast-paced, truly suspenseful until the very end. Clive Owen rocks. [P.S. After having seen Children of Men, I can safely say that Clive Owen double rocks. And in fact Children of Men probably belongs on this list.]

5. An Inconvient Truth. Never have slideshows and animated polar bears been so powerful or rage-inducing.

6. Marie Antoinette. Frothy, light-hearted, good clean fun, if a tad overlong. Perhaps the soundtrack may have biased me a little.

Doesn't really fit since it was a made-for-TV movie, but deserves an honorable mention: Bleak House, whose virtues I expounded upon previously.

OK, I think that's all I have the energy for today, what with the obligatory January 1st hang-over and all. Welcome to 2007!

Highlights of my Christmas vacation

In no particular order:

1) Getting screamed at for being a "FUCKING BITCH!" because I could not correctly navigate my two large rolling bags in a crowd full of angry travellers and accidentally bumped my bags (which I was pulling behind me, therefore out of my line of vision) into someone else's empty luggage cart. God, why can't I just watch where I'm going, huh? Because, people, I'm just a stupid fucking bitch. (BTW, it will come as no surprise that this occured at the monstrously managed Ronald Reagan National Airport in DC, at 11:00 at night, after having spent all day on planes and in airports. Fun!).

2) Listening to BF's underweight sisters compair thigh circumference and trade remarks such as "You're so much thinner than me!" and "No, you're thinner! God, I want to kill myself, you're so much thinner than me!" Luckily, no one ever suggested I might be thin.

3) Getting screamed at by BF's little sister because we suggested going out to eat, and then, when no one could agree on just who was going to go or where we would be going, decided against the idea. This made us stupid, indecisive, and selfish, and the target of the family's hatred. In the end, we suffered through an awkward meal at a local restaurant in order for BF not to be disowned.

4) Listening to BF's alcoholic sister rage drunkenly about those goddamn gays who are always rubbing their disgusting gayness in other people's faces. If we let them get married, before you know it everyone will be gay! Do you want that, huh? Is that what you people want?

5) Being asked point blank by BF's dad, in thinly disguised language, just when the hell we were going to get married already.

6) The aforementioned quiz administered by my mother.

But really, it is so nice to be with family during the holidays, don't you think?

Hey kids, just a quick word from Tucson while my parents are at church (yes, on a Tuesday - apparently they go every day now). BF and I got in at about midnight last night, which would be 2 a.m. Eastern Time, for anyone who is keeping track. So we stumble off the plane, tired as shit and wanting nothing more than to fall into bed, when my mom greets me with the surprise that she has gone even crazier than I had previously suspected: she announces that she is giving me a test. She has made up two beds, one for me and one for BF, and it will be up to me to do the right thing and choose the appropriate place to sleep. So of course I chose to sleep in the same bed as BF. I mean, come on. We've been dating for seven years, having shared the same bed under my parents' roof many, many times in the past. What, pray tell, has changed? Nothing, only that my mother HAS GONE INSANE. *Sigh* Merry freakin' Christmas.

All I Want for Christmas

16. A sane, stable and if not completely atheist, at least tolerant family.

17. A giant piece of chocolate cake. I'm hungry, OK?

Since I may not be able to post again before Christmas, Happy Times, everyone!

Points to ponder

1. Why is the busiest night of the week at the library always a) the night before vacation starts, and b) always the night I'm working by myself?

2. Why must I be in exruciating pain in every part of my body? As I told you, I had a root canal on Monday. Root canals, by their very nature, are not the most relaxing of experiences. They involve the sucking out of the marrow, if you will, of the bone that is your tooth. They invariably involve much drilling and digging and poking with sharp, pointy objects that look as though they were invented to inflict as much pain as possible. They involve needles and metal clamps and blood and suctioning and much drooling. And, if you are me, they involve a dentist who does not know how to properly administer novocane, because let me tell you, I felt EVERY poke, and EVERY prod during my recent root canal, and at the point in the process where he sealed off the tooth with some sort of pink plastic-y, gummy stuff? I almost screamed, or started sobbing, or passed out, the pain she was so intense.

I know, why didn't I just stop him and tell him I was in pain? Because friends, I am what one calls a--how do you say?--ah yes, RETARD. At first the pain wasn't really that bad, just a little poking. I thought, "Well, OK, ouch, but whatever. I just want this bullshit over with as quickly as possible." Then it was, "OK, now that is a bit more painful, that scraping scraping SCRAPING DEAR GOD THE SCRAPING WITH THE POINTY METAL OBJECT WILL KILL ME!" But still, I told myself, being a good little stoic, that this too shall pass, and then the procedure will be over, and I can go home and cry. But oh, I was so very wrong my friends. The procedure was not over. Then came the sealing pink plastic-y stuff. It looks very innocuous, innocent almost, in its gooey bubblegum pinkness. But believe me, it is the devil. A look of sheer abject horror/misery/torture must have shone in my eyes after the dentist jabbed it into my already-screaming tooth, because he suddenly got very concerned, telling me to relax and breathe. But oh, the pain, and oh, the agony, they would not let me relax. At some point adrenaline must have kicked in, though, because gradually the pain subsided and I was able to gather the strength not to kick the dentist in the balls.

Finally, with my poor sucked-out tooth throbbing despite the rest of my mouth being numb, the root canal came to an end and I was able to limp over to the metro station to go to work. (Yes, the majority of the pain was in my tooth, but I'm sure my knees hurt, too, because they will always and forever hurt until the end of time, and thus the limping. Besides, it is a well-established fact that pain in any part of your body will manifest itself in a limp, because otherwise how will people know to feel sorry for you?)

All I Want for Christmas

12. If I can't have a house, a decent-sized two-bedroom apartment would also do nicely.

13. Oh, I don't know, I'd like some new clothes I guess.

14. For my hair to look good for just one freaking day. Just one.

15. Bigger boobs.

Maybe I should start pricing wheelchairs

So now my left knee has started hurting.

Seriously, does anyone have a rifle I can borrow? I can't guarantee its condition upon return, though.

And to think, all this nonsense started when I began running on a regular basis. Damn the running! Damn the running straight to HELL!

All I Want for Christmas

10. To miraculously be handed a job on a silver platter, wherein I will be able to work from home when it suits me, work from my very own office and/or cubicle (I'm not picky) when I need to get out of the house, and wherein I will not have to deal with human beings, I will not have to work on weekends, and where I will be able to mostly make my own hours. This job will also pay enough for me to live comfortably and take a nice vacation once a year; will have good medical benefits; and will give me ample personal leave days. I am aware this job does not exist.

11. For serious, for all this bullshit in Iraq to stop. Enough with the killing and the dying already.

Fair warning: this post is just a meme

Yeah, I know. Sorry. But hey, good news! I'm feeling slightly less like I'm drowning in my own mucus. I bravely soldier on.

Anyway.

Meme of Firsts

1. Who was your first Love?
Unfortunately, sad to say many of these will feature the answer of "BF," since as I embarrassingly reported in an earlier post, I have only ever dated one person. The same holds true for this one. If we'd like to include first crushes, on the other hand, the first crush would probably be a kid named Darren I really had a thing for in the sixth grade. I can only vaguely remember what he looked like. Either Darren or Corey Haim. I was 12--shut up.

2. Who was your first kiss and when?
Again, BF. I am such a dork. It was our first date, which would have been September 17, 1999. I think the first kiss was actually at Owen Beach in Point Defiance, which is in Tacoma. Ahhhh, Tacoma. Can you smell the romance?

3. Who was your first date?
The aforementioned BF. Before Owen Beach, we had dinner at Grazzi, an Italian restaurant in Old Town. I had a delicious salmon dish. Sadly, the restaurant is now closed...I guess we'll always have the memories.

Wait!

I lied! My first date was actually a few weeks before I went out with BF--a friend of his asked me out and we went to The Keg (mmm...Keg.....*drool* *drool*). Nothing happened with that one, obviously, especially since the guy lived in Vancouver, WA--about a 2 hour drive to the south--and he was coming down with strep throat at the time. Also, we didn't have very much to say to each other.

4. Who was your first prom date?
I never went to a prom. I never went to a single dance in high school. Do you think I missed out on anything? Other than getting to wear a pretty dress, me neither.

5. Who was your first roommate?
My cousin Missy. I attended Southern Oregon University for one mostly-regrettable year, mainly because I was too afraid to branch out on my own. After one semester, however, my life came into focus and I hastily got the hell out. The lesson was well-learned, though--never room with a friend or relative, particularly as a freshman. The whole point of going away to college is to find your own identity, not be trapped into the one that everybody else wants you to have.

6. What was your first job?
I worked at a winery in Salem, OR, during my sophomore year in high school doing data entry (no, sadly, it was not a wine-tasting gig). My cousin's then-wife (this is a different, male cousin) worked there and got me the job, but they didn't have enough computers available for me to work during the week, so I had to go up there on weekends, usually by myself, and it was always so fricking cold in there, I guess because they had to keep the wine cold (duh). On one hand I enjoyed working by myself, but on the other I got so bored (much like my job today!) that I began to loathe it with every fiber of my being. After that one year I quit, using the excuse that I needed more time to concentrate on school work, which to be honest, I did.

7. What was your first car?
The first car I drove was a 1990 white Dodge Spirit. It was neither fancy nor hoopty, just a plain vanilla car that got me from point A to point B, with very economical gas mileage. The first car I actually owned, though not purchased by me, is the same car I drive today--a 1996 dark purple Ford Contour, which has now become a death trap and is pretty much gasping its last wheezing, grinding death rattle. If the car doesn't figure into my own demise somehow, I will be very surprised, since it seems unlikely that I will ever be able to afford another one, and will have to drive this one until either it or I expire on the freeway.

8. When did you go to your first funeral?
The one and only funeral I have ever gone to was my paternal grandfather's when I was six years old. I barely remember it. My attitude at the time seemed to be, "So he's dead. When do we eat?"

9. How old were you when you first moved away from your hometown?
I was 15 when we moved from Boise, where I had been born, to Salem. That sucked some serious testacles for someone who was as socially retarded as I was (am). I'm secretly convinced that that move precipitated my inability as an adult to settle in any one place for longer than one year at a time. Whenever I dream about being at "home," that home is usually the house I grew up in.

10. Who was your first-grade teacher?
Mrs. Spets. She hated me, because I was an ugly emotionally distraught anxiety-ridden little puke-face who would burst into tears at the first sign of trouble. I don't blame her for disliking me.

11. When you snuck out of the house for the first time, who was it with?
My friend Michelle and I were encouraged to sneak out by two popular girls in our neighborhood, Jennifer and Misha, when we were in sixth grade. We used to go to people's houses and ring the doorbell, then run away and hide, thinking we were fantastically funny. My mom caught on to us one night and deliberately freaked the bejesus out of us by following us in the car verrrrry slowly. The headlights were blaring in our eyes so we couldn't see who it was, and we were of course convinced that we were going to be kidnapped or raped. After we increased our speed from a quick, nervous trot to an all-out, hell-bent-for-leather sprint, she finally had mercy on us. I never once snuck out again, though that was mostly because I had no reason to.

12. Who was the first person to send you flowers?
Other than my mother? Why, BF, of course.

13. When was the first time you got drunk?
The summer after my senior year in college. Yes, you read that right--my SENIOR year. What the hell was wrong with me? I was such an uptight little bastard for such a long time. *Sigh* All those good party years, wasted. Anyway, my friends Jess and Jeni came over to my sublet one night and thought it would be a good idea to get me drunk and I acquiesced. So we drank wine coolers (remember wine coolers?), and I eventually got drunk, and then Jeni started putting the moves on my roommate Jason, who at the time I liked. They ended up dating for awhile and even got engaged. Don't know if they ever actually tied the knot, though. But don't feel too sorry for me--I got her back by going out with her ex-boyfriend for, oh, more than seven years now. Needless to say, Jeni and I no longer keep in touch.

14. What was the first thing you did this morning?
The very first thing? Probably cough. Then sniffle a little, then go to the bathroom.

All I want for Christmas

9. To magically be transported back to my early college years, and to tell myself a thing or two about the world. First of all, I would tell myself that it's OK to get a little drunk once in awhile and kiss a boy or two. Then I would tell myself not to be a English major, because, honey, there ain't nothin' you can do with that. Would my college self listen to me? Probably not, because she was such an anal-retentive douchebag.

Somebody please shoot me

I have to get a root canal on Monday.

All I Want for Christmas

8. A completely new set of teeth. From genetically regenerated tissue or something.

I hate the world.

I suck. You suck. The entire world sucks, because this week I am dealing with a head cold that won't go away, a bum leg, and today I have a dentist appointment. I have another physical therapy appointment on Wednesday, and next week I have yet another PT appointment, as well as another appointment with the illustrious doctor. Bah! Humbug. And undoubtedly the dentist will find many things that need to be fixed, and so the fun little appointments will continue on into infinity, sucking my money, my time, and my will to live.

Here's the thing: nothing is getting any better. I have felt like poop with my cold since last Thursday, and every day I wake up feeling exactly the same, like I'm drowning in my own mucus. My leg still hurts, which no amount of stretching or exercises seems likely to fix, since my PTs are convinced that the problem stems with the way I walk. Let me tell you, trying to fix the way you have walked for 29 years without some sort of external device to help you is basically impossible. The thing is, my right leg naturally wings out to the side when I walk, instead of straight ahead like most people's, giving me a natural turn-out like a ballet dancer's (I wish). I don't know why I do this, but it's just the way I've always walked. However, the PTs want me to correct the problem from the hip down, by rotating my hip ever so slightly forward, not just by pointing my toes straight ahead. Let me ask you, have you ever tried to tell your hips muscles to rotate forward seven degrees, and have they actually obeyed you? It doesn't work. Those muscles are not really voluntary muscles, at least not as far as walking goes.

And I've been gaining weight since I haven't been able to work out as much, due to both poopy-head-cold-drowning-in-mucus feeling and bum-leg-won't-work-right syndrome. It's just all so damn frustrating. Anyway, sorry to dump on you. On to the list.

All I Want for Christmas (or whatever I was calling it)

3. To wake up one morning in Eva Green's body (new Bond girl). She's pretty, she's thin, and she's French. She also seems tall, though I have no hard data to back this up. What more could I ask for?

4. Failing no. 3, to grow five more inches in the middle of the night.

5. The ability to excell at a sport of some kind, preferably marathon-running, tennis, swimming, cycling, or ice skating. I would also accept dancing.

6. Marriage or at least a relationship with Colin Firth, but not Colin Firth the real-live person, it would have to be Colin Firth acting in the character of Mr. Darcy; either the Pride and Prejudice Mr. Darcy or the Bridget Jones' Diary Mr. Darcy would be OK. (The BJD Mr. Darcy would probably be preferable, because then I wouldn't have to explain the 21st century to him and pesky things like that.)

7. A house. Not a big house, just a modest dwelling that is more or less in good shape and has all the modern conveniences. This house should be located in the Pacific Northwest, and as long as I'm dreaming, it may as well be in Vancouver. And I may as well go for the gold and say it should be located in Kitsilano.

OK, I think I'm caught up on the list for now.

Done and done

And I mean DONE.

Also, the Hilarity Patrol strikes again. Andrew Sullivan has a gift for finding these things. If you're a Mormon or an otherwise proseltyzing Christian and don't have a sense of humor, sorry, but you kinda have it coming.

And oh yes, let's not forget the list!

What I Want for Christmas

2. To live in a climate where the high will almost surely never be 68 degrees on Nov. 30. I mean, come on. I may as well be living in Florida. (And I HATE Florida.)

All I want for Christmas: the list

OK, I've decided to be a copycat and make a long list for this month: 25 things I want for Christmas. Not that anybody cares what I want for Christmas, but I can't think of any other list to do so you'll just have to put up with it. And unfortunately Blogger isn't savvy enough to let me create multiple pages, so I'm just gonna have to add another item to the list day by day, without making a separate page for it. Sorry.

What I Want For Christmas

1. For my leg not to melt into a puddle of pain every time I attempt exercise. As a corollary to this wish, I also want to be able to run three miles by Dec. 25. Will it happen? I don't know.

Elementary, my dear Watson

So I went to the doctor on Monday. His genius diagnosis:--wait for it--my right leg is weak. BRILLIANT DEDUCTION, HOLMES! Thank God I went to a trained physician, I never would have been able to come up with that on my own! I can see those four years in medical school really paid off.

However, the physical therapist I went to see this morning was much more enlightening (the same physical therapist, who, by the way, does not have an M.D.). He explained what he thinks the problem is, which made a lot of sense to me, and showed me a bunch of things I can do help strengthen the muscles and tendons and shiznit in my leg. So yay for physical therapists--I may just start going to physical therapists for all my medical needs.

Anyhoo. That's basically all the news I have to report. I'm hoping to have my filthy crapfest of a novel "finished" by tonight, which means I should have a very neat little icon to put on my blog soon that says I'm a proud winner of NaNoWriMo. Be on the look-out.

Happy American Thanksgiving, and stuff(ing)

So my leg hasn't fallen off yet but I am continuing my hiatus of exercise, wallowing in every ounce of fat I consume, just to insure that gangrene doesn't set in. That's totally a joke, since my pain originates neither from a gunshot wound nor from a stabbing, but from some wacky joint thing. Anyway.

You know how I'm doing the NaNoWriMo thing? It's going both well and poorly; well because I'm at 35,000 words plus some (the goal is 50,000 by Nov. 30), poorly because I've realized that my so-called novel is a) just insanely boring, and b) not the work of staggering genius I had envisioned. These sorts of realizations tend to depress me, I don't know why. I've tried to give myself the it-doesn't-matter-that-you-write-like-crap-and-will-never-be-published-and-
your-goals-in-life-are-LAUGHABLE pep talk, but I still get a little down when I have one of those flashes of insight where I suddenly see that I will never be rich and famous and no one will ever give me a Pulitzer Prize and I will never marry Colin Firth and live in a mansion in a sunny climate. Because I don't know about you, but when I was younger (like, say, 22) I used to have these fantasies that one day very soon my sparkling talent was going to be discovered, and I was going to be the toast of the talk show circuit, a media darling, a millionaire, a great and respected intellectual, and also somehow a ballerina and one of the 50 Sexiest People Alive.

And then real life kept squashing my dreams. To date, I've never had anything published, nor have I ever really finished a single story, let alone written the Great American Novel. Until last year I've been living under the poverty line and could still probably qualify for food stamps if I really put my back into it, which pretty much nullifies the mansion and the millionaire dream. And I don't know if you've noticed, but that Sexiest People thing? Ain't gonna happen. I guess it's one of those growing-up moments, where you suddenly see that yes, you are going to be just as boring as your parents and sadly, no, you aren't going to have oddles and oodles of money and a career you totally love; you will do the same things everyone else does and live a quiet life filled with vast stretches of doing nothing but getting up and going to work and in the meantime be saddled with crushing debt from those bygone years when you thought, "Hey, it's OK, I'll be rich someday."

And you just have to realize that accomplishing little goals, like writing a 50,000 word novel (which, who are we kidding, is really just a novella), is OK and is good enough and better than sitting on your ass watching Lost because Lost is just not as interesting as it used to be. And that being creative even in very tiny small ways is more than most people can do, when you get right down to it, so you shouldn't fling your hands in the air, even though it feels like poo to know that the part of yourself you always hoped would make you special turns out to be only marginally more talented than the average Joe who voted for Bush and watches Fox News and Nancy Grace on a daily basis.

(And by 'you' I mean me.)

But lest this become a downer post, I want to point everyone's attention to someone who actually can write: The Oh Really. The coolest thing about this blog? Every month she puts out a new list, one item for every day of the month. It's ingenius. Why didn't I think of this? Oh yeah, because I'm an idiot. Anyway, enjoy.

This Very Special Blog Post has been brought to you by The Misanthrope.

Further proof that life is unfair

First of all, was I right or was I right? Jim Webb, welcome to the United States Senate. Unfortunately, his victory was sullied by an outrageous act of unfairness perpetrated right here in Arlington by my very own BF. Turns out Mr. Namby-Pamby Non-Voter (according to his story, his Oregon ballot got lost in the mail--very believable), just happened to wander into Senator Webb's victory rally, which took place about four blocks from our apartment. I was at work at the time, and temporarily revived myself from a swoon of boredom to see an IM message from BF that read something along the lines of "oh yeah, went to webb's victory rally at courthouse plaza today." Not only that, he even got to shake the hand of the soon-to-be-senator, a man he DIDN'T EVEN VOTE FOR.

Grptharghaskldjfioaewh;fot;lohngklasdjhf!!!

That's the sound of me dying from apoplectic fit of rage.

Anyway. In other news, my right leg has finally had enough of my shenanigans and has gone on strike for an unspecified length of time. I'm thinking I should see a doctor about this. Unfortunately, the terms of my health care plan are blurry and I keep going around in circles when I try to find a sports doctor on my plan's web site. I'm pretty sure the fact that my right leg crumples like a piece of paper whenever I try to run or do any sort of cardio activity has to do with overuse and/or repetitive stress injuries, and that's probably exactly what Highly Paid Doctor Who Will Make Me Wait Two Months to See Him will say, but I'm hoping maybe he or she will be able to give me some sort of miracle orthotic that will suddenly cure all my ails, or maybe even just a nice Ace bandage.

Meanwhile, I have decided it would be wise not to aggravate my injuries any further, so have discontinued workouts for the time being, which couldn't have come at a worse time since Thanksgiving is next week and therefore I will be gorging myself silly. The logical thing would be to just not eat as much during this time I'm trying to heal, but logic is for sissies. The gorging cannot be stopped. What's a girl to do? Looks like bulimia is the only answer.

I lost my scarf to democracy

I lost it yesterday morning on my way out of the polling center, after standing in line for one hour and fifteen minutes in order to vote for Jim Webb, Senator elect of the Commonwealth of Virginia, for which action of devotion I will be accepting flowers, cards, cash gifts, and replacement scarves (I like shades of blue) as tokens of your gratitude. Yes, I know he hasn't been declared the official winner yet, but he's ahead by 7200 votes, people. I don't see Allen regaining many of those in the inevitable and lengthy recount brouhaha ahead, so I'm going out on a limb and calling it: Jim Webb, Senator (D).

And as for the other election results, can I just get an AMEN!!!

Thank you, oh people of America, for finally pulling your heads out of your gigantic obese American asses. (Wait, was that too accurate...I mean, derogatory?)

Belated Halloween present from me to you

BF found this one on Andrew Sullivan's blog. Beware: Not appropriate for work. Do not eat or drink anything while watching this. Do not watch in the presence of small children. View at your own risk.

Scary Halloween Video

One more, but not exactly scary, just poignant and sad. This is more of an election day present.