Too Much Sex

in the City.

I told myself that I would never watch that show. Much as I like SJP, Sex is all about shopping and being fabulous, and I'm just not that kind of girl. The most expensive pair of shoes in my closet is by far my rock climbing shoes, and when shopping, I'm far more likely to resemble cartoon Cathy than glamorous Carrie, minus the shrieking. I'm more of a whimperer.

But I'm on NetFlix now (where all the cool kids hang out), and as my very dear friend E. is a big fan, I thought I'd give the show a shot. And in time, I did get hooked. I don't know these women or anyone like them, so it was a bit like watching gorgeous, exotic, tropical fish in a swanky, Manhattanesque aquarium: I stared from the outside, fascinated and a little seasick.

I suppose it's inevitable that just about any woman watching is going to wonder where she fits into the line-up. Am I most like wild and crazy Samantha? romantic and prudish Charlotte? silly and self-destructive Carrie? Sadly, I think I most resemble driven, cynical Miranda, only without her optimism and zest for life.

Ultimately, I am none of these women, nor would I want to spend much time with them in real life. If I had an extra $500, I'm about as likely to spend it on a donation to the Republican National Committee as I am to spend it on a pair of Manolo Blahniks (seriously, WTF? I don't get the idea of miniature boas for my feet -- my toes just aren't campy and fabulous enough to get away with it). $500 is most of the way to plane tickets for two to San Fran. or a dive computer.

So as I'm watching the umpty-umpth episode and trying NOT to see anyone's tits (was that just a ruse to get boyfriends to watch quietly with their girlfriends, 'cause I can't think of a good reason to make a predominantly female audience stare down yet another pair of tits every episode), I couldn't help but wonder:

Are they ever going to bring Arrested Development back?

Oh. My. God.

So, this was family reunion weekend. My father's family does this massive hug-eat-chat-eat-play games-eat-chat-eat-repeat thing once every three years or so. Now some of you may be flinching already, but I actually have a really fun family, and I look forward to these reunion things. My dad has six brothers and sisters, so I have lots of cousins and second cousins and etceteras that are very fun to hang out with, provided we steer clear of discussions involving politics and religion. If you've read my blog, you may realize that these are topics I find interesting and engaging, so steering clear is tricky. However, feeling obliged to bitchslap my otherwise-much-loved uncle across the potato salad is an impulse I could do without. So we play round after round of Oh Heck and throw horseshoes and go for walks and overeat with our kith and kin (well, maybe not our kith – we don’t like them) and generally have a merry ol' time. There are, unfortunately, a few bugs in this system.

And I mean bugs. We were staying at a very nifty YMCA camp in Montana, sleeping in bunks either in the main lodge (where I was) or in cabins. Sometime in the wee hours of Saturday morning, I felt a weird scrabbling sort of something going on in the left ear-ish area. I had the very unpleasant feeling that something had just taken up lodgings in my ear. There were thrummings and drummings and possibly the cast of RiverDance in rehearsal, but I put it down to swimmers' ear (despite my not having been near water except to shower) and tried to go back to sleep.

The next morning, there were still periods of vibration against my left ear drum. I kept shaking my head, feeling that watery feeling, but nothing was coming out. My dad tried to shove an entire Kleenex in there, but nothing grabbed hold. We looked with a flashlight, but couldn't see anything, so again I took refuge in denial and went about my business, periodically shaking my head like a demented spaniel. Happily, one of my aunts has been through a similar experience with a miller moth (well, not happily for her, but hang on, I'll get to the happily part), and even better, she has a son who is a physician's assistant. AND he carries his gear with him wherever he goes (smart, for a guy with two young sons and a cousin who potentially forgot to remove the 'for rent' sign when she moved into her own head).

My aunt wasn't about to let me go on denying the possibility of critters squatting uninvited in my head, so she asked her son to take a look. He got out one of those proper ear-looking-in machines, poked around for about a half a nanosecond, then said, "Yeah, there's something in there. We should get that out." Ugh. We filled a glass with warm tap water, and he used a syringe to flush out my ear. It took three squirts to dislodge my lodger (a spider affectionately known as "Craig" because naming him kept me from freaking out), who came out soaked but very much alive. The several cousins who were observing this whole event took off running (and so did Craig), but Doctor Cousin calmly sent Craig to his Eternal Reward via a very heavy boot. Another quick look-see determined that Craig had been in there alone. And that Craig wasn't actually a Craigette looking for a warm place to hatch a brood. I got the all-clear and a very clean ear. (And that's the "happily" part.) That night I slept -- sort of -- with my head swathed in more layers of gauze than Tutankhamen.

Moral: Kay the Anti-Camper may have a point.

So Very . . . . Seattle

Having been unceremoniously tossed from my condo, I'm now enjoying a quintessentially Seattle experience. I'm in a coffee shop on Capitol Hill, latte by one side, plate decorated with scone crumbs on the other, typing away on my laptop while listening to an mp3 player. It's break week (sort of, since I'm still teaching one class), so I could be at home right now, luxuriating in patches of sunlight with my cats, but the construction on my building continues. Today they're sealing some cement (last chance to ditch those bodies, kids!) on the first floor of the building, and since I live on the first floor, I can either hole up for the day or get out. As I do have to go to work, I opted for out. So here I am. Out, but taking all my accessories with me.

I was just having a humorous exchange with BF Toasty on Messenger, and I discovered a serious flaw in the whole latte experience: if you snort-laugh while preparing to take a sip, the foam covering disguises any accidental snubbling. (To snubble: to snort, accidentally, a snot bubble out the nose due to uncontrolled laughter) This latte foam-cover is both a good thing (I'd rather not know) and a bad (what if?). I have been reassured that coffee is a sterilizing medium, and I'm opting to believe that, since it's a fairly recent cup of coffee for which I paid a Nicaraguan's annual wage.

Several very good friends offered me crash space at their homes for the time when I'm not able to be at home, and while I appreciate this hugely, I'm looking on my involuntary ouster as an opportunity to eat scones and drink overpriced, hopefully snubble-free lattes.

PS My fat cats are officially On Diets (from 1/2 cup of food daily to 1/3), and I'm suddenly afraid to fall asleep at night. I fear waking up to find bits chewed off in the night. If I don't show up for an appointment within an hour of the appointed time (oh come on; I'm never more than AN HOUR late), someone come find me. Bring kibble.

Rags.

Hey, Who Pardoned Paris? (And Other Rantings)

Rant the First: So she had her fifteen minutes of fame, followed by her fifteen minutes in prison. I think we're sending the right message when spoiled little rich girls can drive around more tanked than the entire US armed forces in Iraq and get what amounts to a rap on the snoot in punishment. Yes, that's what this country is all about: the rich elude accountability and the poor vote Republican.

Rant the Second: I have a theory about all this immigration nonsense that everyone's spouting these days. Send them back, people cry! No amnesty for lawbreakers! And yet, not one of the hundreds of immigrants (legal and less so) that I've taught in my ESL classes has ever tried to pass off a measles-laden blanket on me. Not one has ever tried to shove firewater down my throat (though they do occasionally try to pass off meat-laden dishes at the potlucks), nor have they hustled me down a trail of tears onto a crap piece of lifeless desert. Not one has tried to sterilize me against my will. They haven't shuffled me off to prison or put my grinning idiot face on their baseball jerseys. All in all, I'd say these immigrants are a fair sight better than the last crop.

So here's my theory: Bush and Co. are to blame for a crap economy in which everyone below a six-figure income per annum is heading steadily down the slippery slope of economic depression and most of us are a single bad accident or illness away from serious financial difficulties; however! however! if they can just get us to believe it's ALL THE IMMIGRANTS' FAULT, well, come next election season we might just vote for the guys with the really big fence over the guys and gals with the actual ideas.

Don't fall for it. The people cleaning your hotel rooms and building your homes and picking your fruit and tending your gardens are not The Problem. They aren't terrorists or drug smugglers or even drains on the economy. Instead, they are people who work hard, really hard, for eight or more hours a day, then come to classes like mine for another three hours every evening. They send money home so that their families can afford to buy tortillas despite the insidious effects of NAFTA and our panhandling farmers. Bush and his disastrous regime are the ones responsible for the dire state of our economy. He can wave and point his hairy little fat fingers all he wants, but we won't be fooled, will we?

And they've all come to look for America

The Bus Ride by Hieronymous Bosch






Thanks to a fortuitous schedule and good weather, for the last few weeks I've been able to commute to work by a bus/bike combo. It's been really nice, actually: from one school to the other, I ride on three different trails, and I'm starting to develop nodding acquaintances with the commuters riding the other direction. One trail is apparently being used by the government to conduct wind-tunnel experiments, but apart from that, the riding part is cool.

The bad bit? The bus. Oy. What a collection of heavy-weight no-hopers. It's a bit like being picked up by the cops because I bear a distant resemblance to someone who once did something naughty, and now I'm spending my evenings slouched in my seat, trying not to be noticed or to shout out: "I don't belong here! I'm not one of you!" I wear my bike helmet the whole time which makes me look like one of the crazies, I suppose, but which also protects me from loogies, high-lobbed crack pipes, and the aliens which are apparently drilling holes in the head of the woman across from me. It's a sea of insanity, and me without my water wings.

Not everyone on the bus is nuts, of course, and the few of us who don't think we're Harry S. Truman (or Harriet Tubman, I can't tell; they mumble) cower in the front, practically sitting on the driver's lap for protection. As the shouting and animal noises continue in the back, we catch each other's eyes sympathetically, give tiny "we're all in this together" smiles and clutch our transfers -- tickets from this eighteen-wheeled Bosch painting to another one.

And naturally, buses in this area being what they are, the bus ride home is a mere 30 minutes shorter than the bike ride going the other direction. I would ride home, but it's late and dark by the time I leave class, and one of the trails is the Green River Trail, and that just seems like asking for it.

So to all the crazies and to the just plain bullying and rude: I see you. You have been seen. You may now stop acting like a performing monkey on crack just to get the attention of total strangers. We're all very impressed. Now shut up and sit down; the head-drilling aliens can't see you if you don't move.

Spittin' Distance

So there I am at the bus stop, all kitted out in my bike gear complete with smugface, and there's this totally gross guy who simply cannot quit spitting. After the first incident, which landed directly on the sidewalk in front of the bus stop, I gave him my Petrifying Gaze, and he managed to direct his phlegm to the gutter from then on out, but seriously, it was like every few seconds. Is this evidence of a glandular disorder, or what?

OK, I realize in the grand scheme of things, I rate pretty low on the Squeam Scale of Tolerance for All Things Gross, but this was beyond the pale. So I tackled him, rubbed his nose in it and said, "bad trashy bus-stop boy!" I think he got the point.

Huh, whut?

Thanks to Michael Oreal for photo of the original stud muffin.

Phone conversation with good friend (M) who happens to have a fairly thick Egyptian accent:

M: So, what are you reading now?
RA: Tales of the City
M: Ah! I'm a stud muffin.
RA: (long pause) What?
M: I'm a stud muffin.
RA: Er. . . . congratulations?
M: What?
(confusion)
RA: Congratulations. Very pleased for you.
M: What?
(light dawns)
RA: Ohhhhhhhhh! You said 'Armistead Maupin!'
M: Of course. What did you think I said?
RA: I thought you said you were a stud muffin.
M: Why would I say that?
RA: I don't know. Hence the confusion.

Peeing in the Park

Thanks, Guzer, for the photo. (media3.guzer.com)

My toilet broke. I don't want to talk about why, except to say that I thought I was saving my garbage disposal from overload, and now my toilet is broken. Let's just say that Vlasic has a lot of explaining to do.

Two days of peeing in the public restrooms at a nearby park later, the plumbers have arrived, and I'm trying to ignore comments like, "Yeah, Miss, looks like we're going to have to snake ya."

It's going to cost me $285.05 to "stop freakin'." That's a good thing, 'cause I actually was. Freakin'. Minus the "g," with the apostrophe, full-on FREAKIN'. I do not like icky things, and toilets fall into that category with a resounding thump. (PS. So do the toilets at the park, but there you go.) All my pretentions of being a self-sufficient, independent, go-it-alone type gal melt and so do I. Several desperate phone calls to actual self-sufficient people later (and a few tears to mommy), I finally realize that there is one very independent, self-sufficient thing I can do: I can call a plumber.

Update: Just heard a very happy flushing sound, but it appears that the snake has his wee head caught. Hmmmm.

Update update: snake's free. Plumber isn't, but worth every penny. Thanks, boys, and not a butt crack in sight!


--Rags

Some of My Best Friends are Women

I can't believe that in the 21st Century, we still have to convince some people that women are autonomous beings with the right to determine what happens to their own bodies. OK, once more for the in-bred, in simple terms:

If you truly believed in saving babies, you'd be vegetarian (eliminating meat consumption would mean sufficient food supplies for all). You'd donate your money to provide vaccinations for 3rd world children, you'd fight against malaria, HIV, abuse and neglect, global warming, war, famine and despotism. You'd adopt children -- even the "flawed" children that you've fought so hard to "save." Do you do these things? All of these? Or do you wave misspelled signs at Planned Parenthood clinics, do you harass women confronting a decision that is never easy, do you shoot doctors, bomb medical facilities, cheer for a "president" and a pope who do everything they can to ensure that women can't exert any measure of control over avoiding unwanted pregnancies in the first place?

Anti-Choice is Anti-Women. There is no other debate to be had here. You don't love babies. If you did, you wouldn't force them to be born into lives of misery and want. If you did, you wouldn't force them to be born, then attempt to cut off money and aid to their parents. You wouldn't force them to be born, then leave them, helpless, to their own devices.

"I got you here, kid. I saved you. Now you're on your own." Yeah, you're a big fucking hero.

Remember this: Government by the religious extremists is the philosophy of the Taliban.

Remember this: Forcing women to submit to your control over their bodies is rape. So what does that make you?

Climb back into your Bibles and back into the 15th Century. Your kind is not needed here.

Meaningless

The enormously disHonorable Alberto Gonzales. Latest fatuous dickhead fall-guy for the clown some still insist on calling "President."

The most meaningless words in the English language have got to be, "I take full responsibility." Alberto Gonzales said them today, Bush-ites -- sorry, that should read "Bu-shites" -- have been saying them over and over and over for the past six years. "Mistakes were made," they say. "I take full responsibility."

Big fucking deal. If there are no repercussions, no punishment or penalty, if absolutely nothing changes, these words are as meaningless as any other lie put forward for political efficacy.

The Bush administration has made perfectly clear that honesty is not a priority. So how about these words:

"Impeachment. Trial. Prison."

You want to "take responsibility," then do it. But let's make sure it actually means something for a change.

What day is it?

The Mr. Incredible band-aid makes almost anything better.




Oh right. It's Friday the 13th. Any day that you wake up to discover a note reading "625-5011 Seattle Police, Non-Emergency" hastily scribbled on a sheet of paper and taped to your door is likely not going to be a good day. I called the cops (my immediate thought is that I'm in trouble for something; from whence did I come by this guilt-ridden conscience?), they put me on hold, transferred me around, did the dial-tone jig, traced my name and address, blah dee blah, nothing. So I'm thinking whew, dodged that bullet, when I suddenly wonder if there could be something amiss with my car.

I head down to the "secure" parking garage, only to find that MacArthur's driver's side, back-seat wing mirror has been bashed in. Nothing's missing -- likely my alarm (or lack of interesting-slash-valuable property) has sent them packing. Back inside to call the police again. The police, as ever in genuine emergencies, snap into action. They bravely take down my name and number and heroically offer to call me back sometime today. Breathless at the selflessness of these, Seattle's finest, I retreat to the couch to wait them out. In due time they call me back, take a bunch more information, and then -- you won't believe it . . . wait for it . . . . they ASSIGN ME AN INCIDENT NUMBER! I know! It's incredible, isn't it? They don't pay these people enough!

All kidding aside, the police officer I talked to was extremely nice and sweetly apologetic that writing all this down was as much as they could do. I didn't actually expect to have Horatio and the Miami CSI crawling all over my car, finding hair (plenty of that in my car), torn off Press-On nails, tooth fragments, cigarette butts with epithelials clinging to the filter, all the usual detritus that criminals can't seem to hold on to when actually committing crimes (honestly, on TV those guys are like PigPen, with stuff just dripping off of them all over the crime scene), but I thought, you know, come lift a print (besides mine), poke around, you never know. I thought maybe Horatio could say something pithy like, "They realized this garage is not so secure. Well now, neither are they," and put on his sun glasses and dramatically walk away to that high-pitched yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaah from the Who song. Hey, a girl can dream.

Instead, I spent 20 minutes picking glass out of my Jetta. Did you know that bumblebees don't biodegrade? I swear that thing was knocking around in there two summers ago, and he looked just as fat and jolly (and dead) as ever when I plucked him from under some debris in the back seat. Weird.

Well, at least they didn't steal my impressive empty-Diet-Pepsi-can collection. Those are going to be worth serious bucks someday.

--R

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. died yesterday, age 84. Although he probably wouldn't agree, it was much too soon. I got to see Vonnegut speak once at the UW. It was wonderful, but once is not nearly enough.

One of my favorite bits is from Deadeye Dick in which the title character is lured out of hibernation and into an opera. The heroine of the opera, trapped in a glass case from which the oxygen is slowly being sucked, opens her mouth to begin her death-aria. At this point, Dick stands up and shouts, "You'd last a lot longer if you don't try to sing." I love that.

My other favorite Vonnegut moment is the story he told about the world's greatest practical joke. A couple of guys bought a park bench exactly like the benches in Central Park in NYC. They walked around the park, periodically being stopped by cops who thought they were stealing the bench. Each time, they produced their receipt and graciously accepted the apologies. After they'd seen and been stopped by every cop in the park, they stole all the benches. They made a big pile of them somewhere in the park, carrying them to a sort of elephant graveyard for benches right under the nose of the law. This story is likely totally apocryphal, but it's so plausible as to be almost believeable, and I love it anyway.

He also told about the world's dirtiest limerick. It's awful. I'll tell you the story, but you have to promise not to tell my mother. Or yours.

I like to think that Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams are in some sort of Writers' Heaven right now, drunk, presumably trying to cheer up Spalding Gray and talk Hunter S. Thompson down off the ceiling.

Poo tee weet.

A-Job Hunting We Will Go!

I feel like I've been job hunting with Dick Cheney -- there I am, rummaging around in the bushes, trying to scare out a decent career with future prospects that doesn't involve speaking. . . . really . . . . slowly, and suddenly I've got a faceful of buckshot.

Job hunting sucks. I particularly like one place that I've applied to three times, where, when I go back to check my "status," there's this list of NO MATCH NO MATCH NO MATCH. Always a pleasure. Why don't they just say, "Status: BIG FAT LOSER WE POSTED YOUR RESUME IN THE LUNCHROOM SO EVERYONE COULD HAVE A GOOD GIGGLE." Hey, if I wanted this kind of impersonal rejection, I'd try to publish my book again.

Actually, it's been interesting. I haven't done any for-serious job hunting in quite a while, and I'm finding the process intriguing if teeth-grindingly, stomach-churningly, blood-pressure-raisingly frustrating. I even practiced interview questions with BF Toasty who's a hell of a lot better at answering the questions than I am. I considered doing some sort of Cyrano-type thing, stashing Toasty under the conference table for all interviews and letting him answer the questions while I lip-sync and smile, but then I remembered that the guy who had Cyrano talk for him got married, got shot and got dead, and frankly I just couldn't handle the potential parallels.

So: in short, 30+ resumes sent out like soldiers in a war, never to be seen again. Three interviews, one solid job offer that would be a great job if only I liked government-issue free cheese. *sigh*

Still, it was fun watching my Mom try to make sense of the statement, "This morning I posted on Monster."

--Rags

And they all go marching, down in the under ground.

Tragically, the "under ground" is my kitchen. Specifically, the cabinet just south of the microwave.

I hate ants. I couldn't hate them more if they marched around my kitchen with tiny little Bush/Cheney '04 signs stuck to their butts. Well, possibly a tiny bit more, but the difference would be negligible. That's how much I hate them. I hate them like I hate that I, English teacher, had to look up how to spell "negligible" because it just didn't look right. Every spring I must do battle with sugar ants who invade my tiny home and tromp their horrible, wee feet around in my raisin stash.

I am a vegetarian. I buy plastic shoes and eschew (as opposed to just plain chew) meat and gently escort spiders outside rather than kill them if they're just too big and hairy-legged to share my space, and I feed a pair of hungry guest cats out my back door, and doesn't nature owe me just this one tiny dispensation of NOT BEING INVADED BY ANTS? Come on!

So, critter-loving, tree-hugging, no-kill goodie that I am, I mash those tiny ant bodies bare-fingered if I must. Spring sees me turn from Buddhist to Bad-Ass as I open that cabinet door to be greeted by a mad scurry of tiny, brown, antennae'd horrors. Now I'm on the hunt. I buy fistfuls of bait traps, giant cans of aerosol-propelled death, and I wade in. Windex? I scoff at such wimpy weapons. Leave your boy scout troops at home; I'm bringing in the Big Boys. If it hasn't got a skull and crossbones on the label, I don't want it.

Just went into my kitchen to find only one ant, and he was coughing up blood. First round to me.

Nip Wits

Clio sez: "Touch the blankie, lose an eye."






From the Animal Rescue Site, I purchased a catnip "bed" and cat toy. Both are filled with organic cat nip, and they arrived today. The cats are going nutz out there, flinging the furniture around and generally making a mess. Nippity doo dah.

Chills! Hills! Thrills! No Spills! (which puts us one up on last year)

The Notorious Toe Jam Hill -- where many an ego goes to die.

So yesterday, BF Toasty and I did the Chilly Hilly bike ride. It's a 33 mile bike ride around Bainbridge Island, with a total elevation gain of 2,675 ft. (or so it says on my t-shirt). That's, like, a fifth of the way up Mt. Rainier! OK, so it doesn't sound that impressive when put that way, but it was the steep bit, right at the very top, that's what. Seriously, when I go up inclines like that, I'm usually wearing a rope.

There was some variety of precipitation (not including the 'air hankies,' which made parts of the ride like a Mucus Slalom) nearly the entire way, and I think the temp. topped out around the mid-40s, so the ride definitely lived up to its name. It also lived up to the name Wet Bloody Misery Ye Gods Not Another F&%#ing Hill, which is what I dubbed it at about mile 11.

Last year, the day before the Chilly Hilly, BF Toasty managed to break his wrist. Conveeeeeeeeenient. I think he might have sacrificed another bone or two, had he known how very very long the CH was. At one point, topping out on infamous Toe Jam Hill, he rode past me and wheezed, "Soul . . . Crushed" which had several panting riders snorting out their noses, myself included. The ferry ride back was a festival of hot chocolate and trail mix and cookies and brownies, hundreds of riders on board wearing sugar-encrusted smiles and dribbling crumbs down their jerseys. The few passengers on the ferry that weren't decked out in spandex and Gore-tex and didn't make that little clicking sound as they walked were undoubtedly thrilled to have damp, sweaty, chili-fed riders everywhere, desperate for seats big enough to put their entire bottoms on.

There is a cheery camaraderie in sharing a semi-miserable experience with others. I had several breathless conversations with strangers, all of us lamenting the witlessness of not only doing this silly thing we were doing, but of having paid for the privelege. I watched (and was the beneficiary of) lots of really strong riders cheering on the less strong as we wrestled our bikes up the hills. I saw riders stop in the cold and wet and help others change tires or fix chains. One particularly jovial team alternated their calls of "On your left" with "Up your ass!" which was funnier and much less offensive than it sounds here. The people in cars, who had ample reason to be cranky about waiting and waiting and waiting to be allowed to use their streets, were cooperative and cautious.

So, as I pop another dose of Ibuprofen and try to decide where I'll wear my new Chilly Hilly t-shirt for maximum exposure and bragging rights, the question inevitably arises: Will I do this ride again?

Yeah, no.

0.6 of a Good Deed

Just a reminder to everyone to hit The Animal Rescue Site every day. By clicking on the button, you provide some wee critter in a shelter somewhere with 0.6 of a bowl of food. And it's free. You just have to pretend to glance at the advertising.

OK, these people failed to hire me to work for them (CharityUSA.com), but we're talking Animals In Need here, so I'm willing to put our differences aside. Also, you can, like, feed people and help fight breast cancer and teach kids to read and blah blah blah whatnot, but don't forget the critters! Puppies! Kitties! Hungry and wee ones! Just hit the %$#@*&! button and don't argue with me.

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites.woa

Paws for Reflection

<---------- Note very large dictionary in background; quiet
symbol of the terribly literary.

So, half-a-dozen chapters into Compass Jones, I'm thinking it's time to, you know, stop, take stock, try to figure out if this story has an actual plot, or if that's just an optimistic rumor. The smart money's on rumor.

I've been asked a few (OK, a couple of) times now, "What's in the box?" (Compass Jones, Chapter 5). To be honest, I don't know yet. I'm just hoping it's not a puppy. But I'm soliciting guesses (read: ideas) from my audience, so both of you, get crackin'! Let's hear what you think is in the box, and then I'll tell you why you're wrong. Or I'll steal your idea, delete your comment, and take all the credit for it myself. Hey, fiction isn't pretty.

Soggy Moggy

I hate towel-washing day. I wander around the house, dripping, because I have nothing to wipe my wet hands on. Then I remember that I have cats.

My Car is an Academic Underachiever

My car failed its emissions test the other day, and I felt incredibly embarrassed when the guy passed me the sheet with the word "fail" in at least six places on it. (It failed not because it emits anything more noxious than any other American car, but because the speedometer doesn't work which makes the "check engine" light go on, which makes for a fail.) We stayed up all night studying, and today my car passed. I was stupidly proud of her for passing this time and wished that my new tabs had wee little gold stars on them.