Sweet.

That, my friends, is water pressure. In my kitchen sink. Something I've been wanting badly since the day I moved in. There have been two places--the kitchen sink and the master bath shower--that have had the most piss poor (pun and yucky visual intended) water pressure--that have been driving me nutso. And aren't those the exact two places where you care about water pressure the most? I mean, those and the Turbo Bidet Orgazmo 3000. But I digress.

When the plumber came today to install the toilet (see: "Sweeter," below), I batted my eyes and said, "Well, while you're here, could you tell me what's up with this water pressure...pleeeeeeeze?" The master bath is a more-involved issue (i.e., another day, another several hundred dollars), but I'll be damned if homeboy didn't fix the kitchen sink lickety split. For free. [After today's work, I highly recommend "Clarke Kent" plumbing in Austin. Gay name; Good service;Reasonable price.]

Sweeter.

There she is ladies and (probably no) gents (except for Butt...you stalker): an adult size Kohler toilet that's functional and everything. I love it so much, I could almost kiss it. Almost. It has been nearly 3 weeks since I've been able to #1 or #2 in my bathroom, and I gotta say, this is one sweet ride: tall, long, and luxurious. Me likey.

Sweetest.

Holy Mother of God. The Bose soundock for the iPod is SO worth the money. The sound quality is unreal for something so compact. I am seriously considering throwing out my regular old stereo for this mo-fo. I've been listening to it non-stop since I got it, and it rocks so hard, even when it's cranked.

The downward slide.

My 16 year old cat, Ellen (a.k.a. The Ellen Melon, Brownie, Grunchy, etc.), is going downhill fast. It's so hard to watch. She's so bony, and shaky, and still. I've been at home most of the day today, and I can state without a doubt that she has been in the same spot on the guest room bed for at least 10 hours. Hasn't eaten. Hasn't drunk any water. Hasn't peed or pooped. She's just slept and occasionally readjusted her position.

I know the end is near--and by near, I'm not talking this weekend or anything, more like a few months at least. But still, it's very hard to think about her not being a part of my life. She's been with me since the winter of 1990 for Christ's sake. I've had 4 different cars and 9 different addresses during that time, but only 1 Ellen.

I look over at her, sleeping on the bed, and my heart hurts.

I am in love with a dead man.

I was watching some documentary thing on MGM movie musicals last night, and they had this whole section on Gene Kelly, and by the end of it, I'd fallen madly in love with him. I've always thought he was handsome and talented. And ever since he played that clarinet-playing old coot in "Xanadu," I've had a special place in my heart for him. But as they played clip after clip of him dancing and singing and leaping around, I just melted. There was nothing the slightest bit fey about the way he danced--just pure athletic elegance. When he danced, not only did it look effortless, but it looked like he was enjoying the hell out of himself. Plus, it didn't hurt that he was very, very good looking--unlike Fred Astaire who was sort of goofy in an endearing way. I mean, look at him.

Sigh.

Now I want to know more about my new dead boyfriend. Where was he from? Was he married? Any kids? I'm totally smitten.

To say I'm disgusted and disturbed just doesn't cut it.

Don't ask me how, but I ran across this on ye olde Internet: a PRO-anorexia support group. I don't guess I should be surprised. I mean, the internet is filled to the gills with freaky shit. But these entries--which seem like they're all written by very young women--are so fucked up. It just goes to show you what the overwhelming pressure to be thin can lead to. Now that I have a daughter of my own, this whole body image for girls thing is really scary.

Christmas in Texas...

...means you get to play OUTSIDE with your toys wearing short sleeves and sunglasses.

It also means you get to put about a gagillion miles on your environmentally-friendly, human-powered new car...

And finally, it means that you get the present that matters most: lots and lots of sugar.

Yes, my hair and my shirt match. I planned it that way.

Do a little dance, make a little love...

Merry Christmas, Disco Freaks!

I am intrigued.

First let me say, that I think "Classmates.com" is sort of dorky. But, a couple of years ago, I registered on it, and have received a couple of e-mails from long, lost classmates along the way. Usually quick catch up type exchanges, then nothing else. You know: you learn the recent history, blah, blah, and then you're sort of done.

Well, yesterday I got an e-mail via Classmates.com from someone I've been dying to hear from: a male classmate of mine who I've always had "I wonder what would've happened if..." thoughts about. He e-mails me out of the blue, and I wrote him right back. Now I'm waiting to see if my eagerness and quick response wigged him out, or if I'll actually hear from him again.

He too is a Pine Curtain Refugee. Now lives in Colorado, apparently. He never exactly fit in to the East Texas dude mold--he didn't like football, didn't dip snuff, didn't say the "N" word, didn't drive a bitchin' camaro, and basically didn't give a shit what people thought of him. He was a true individual in every sense of the word, and he and I were really good friends. We never dated, although we did kiss. Once. After graduation. It was sort of intense. At least for me it was.
Last time I saw him was at our 10 year H.S. reunion. He looked pretty much the same--which is to say angular, tall, handsome--was married to a nice gal, and (if memory serves) already had two boys. My God, so much has happened in my life since then. If we do start corresponding, he's going to think I'm making shit up when I tell him what's been going on over the past 8 or 9 years.

At any rate, I'm curious.

You know what feels really good?

Introducing your co-workers to R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet," when they've never, ever heard anything about it, and then listening them piss their pants laughing while they watch it on their computers.

Looking back, looking forward.

This time last year, I had just returned from my first trip to Russia where I'd met the baby girl who would, several months later, officially become my daughter.

I will never, ever forget the exact moment I laid eyes on her for the first time. I was tired and very, very nervous. It was snowing like crazy outside, and the orphanage was extremely overheated. I'd been waiting all day to get there, and our trip had been delayed due to some "business" that was going on at the orphanage. So, it was now early evening and already dark outside. My facilitator ushered me inside where we removed our coats and put plastic booties on over our snow boots in a feeble attempt to keep the floors clean. They put me in the sparsely furnished, very warm Director's office and told me to wait. The walls were covered with photos of babies and toddlers who'd been adopted from there. Adoption announcements. Christmas cards. Birthday announcements. I looked at all of them at least 50 times. My palms were sweaty. I was lightheaded. Minutes seemed like hours. I could hear Russian being spoken and lots of movement in the hall outside the door. I kept thinking that they were about to open the door, but no. More waiting.

Then suddenly, a nurse walked in--a large woman dressed in all white--and thrust a baby out in front of her. The translator said, "Here she is. This is your baby." I gasped. All of the air went out of the room. My heart, beating impossibly loudly, leapt into my throat. Tears flooded my eyes. And, in that instant, that micro-second, my heart was hers. I would never, ever be the same after looking into those amazing, AMAZING blue eyes. Her eyes brightened the moment she saw me, as if she could feel my excitement to be in her presence. I timidly asked, "Can I hold her?" To which the translator brusquely replied, "Of course! Take her!" I spent the next few hours just holding her, gazing at her, touching her face, hands, hair. Memorizing every thing about her.

That's the first photo I ever took of her. She didn't smile. I don't think she knew how. No one had ever smiled AT her, so why would she? She was pale and tiny. 4 1/2 months old exactly. Wearing pajamas with bees on them and the words, "Fly away with me..."

I was completely bowled over by the enormity of it all, and the quiet intimacy of it. I was all by myself in this unfriendly foreign country holding this precious, precious child. I know that I will never know what it feels like to gaze upon the face of a child you've just given birth to, but I can't imagine that it feels any less amazing than what I felt on that night in that room.

I will also never forget the enormous pain and emptiness that I felt when I had to leave her there and come back home, not knowing when I would be seeing her again. Everytime I thought of her (which was at least 500 times a day), I felt like I'd been punched in the gut and hit in the heart. It physically hurt to think about her there in that godawful place, wondering if anyone had picked her up that day, if anyone had held her, if she'd had enough to eat, if she was sick, etc. It was mental torture. And as the weeks turned into months, the helplessness and deep ache just became more profound. All the while, I was physically ill, dealing with the intense cramping and bleeding that preceded (and necessitated) my hysterectomy. It was fucking awful.
Last Christmas was not joyous. It was lonely and sad. My stepfather had just died, and my mom was depressed and alone. I didn't have enough time off at work to go home to be with my mom, so I spent Christmas eve with a work friend eating popcorn, getting wasted drinking wine and watching DVDs.
This Christmas will be SO different: My mom, The Geej and me, all together. Hanging out and enjoying each other.
Thank you, Universe.

This is news?

Um, hel-LO! Researchers! This isn't a new phenomenon. Girls have been kicking Barbie's perfect plastic ass since the day she rolled off the assembly line. I guess you just haven't been paying attention to all the armless, magic-markered, mohawked Barbies lying around. It's about time you woke up and took heed of this neophyte feminist statement.

Bastards.

All I want for Christmas is my potty.

Remember how I was so excited about my new tile and my new toilet in my new master bath? Well, I'm over it. Seems when they removed the old toilet designed for tiny people, the flange broke. What's a flange, you ask? THAT is a flange, and as best I can gather, it's this part that attaches the toilet to the sewage pipe or some such shit (pun intended). It's not uncommon for these suckers to break when a toilet over a certain age is removed. So when the plumber came to install my new toilet last Wednesday night, he also noticed that there was a crack in the sewage pipe that was going to necessitate a "special" flange be ordered--a longer-than-usual one that would cover the crack so that water wouldn't seep underneath the floor. And guess what: My new toilet still sits in the boxes it came in, and I haven't heard from the plumber. I called him on Friday to see if he had an update for me, and he said, "Well, I've got some supply houses looking for it, but if we can't find the part we need we may have to have the guys who installed the tile come back out and remove the tiles from around the toilet area, let me install, then re-tile around it." What? Jesus. This is starting to really piss me off. We're about to run into the holidays, which I'm sure is going to delay things even more. I feel like such a useless girl. And, so far, all of this extra hoo-hah is going to end up costing me at least an extra $200 on top of what I already paid for the basic "re-set" service. Home ownership is FUN!!

To top all of this crap (again, pun totally intended), I'm sick as a dog. Chest cold. Head cold. Sore throat. Stomach ache. You name it: I've got it. I've got the kind of cough that, when people hear you coughing, they look at you with shock and horror. I feel like I'm in danger of cracking a few ribs each time I let out a big ol' hack. This morning after about 2 hours of restless, hacking sleep (and that's WITH taking medicine), I coughed up some stuff that would freak out even the most diehard science fiction fans. I just want to crawl under a rock and die.

Hand-Me-Downs RULE!

I am so lucky. Scratch that. The Geej is so lucky. From even before her arrival, my wonderful, WONDERFUL girlfriends began showering me with gently used clothes from their own children. I am lucky because Malcontent Mama's daughter (who also happens to be my goddaughter) is seasonally in sync with The Geej when it comes to sizes. But I've also gotten clothes from this gal, and this one, and at least 4 or 5 others. I've only actually BOUGHT this child o' mine about $100 worth of stuff in the past year. It's very cool to be in this clothing pipeline as a) it saves money, b) it makes sense from a recycling, conscious consumerism perspective, and c) the damn kids outgrow stuff so fast anyway that they probably only wear it 3 or 4 times before it's dunzo.
The outfit you see here was a hand-me-down, and I'm embarrassed to say that I can't remember from whom. But I've been dying to see The Geej in it since the day I got it. Today she wore it to daycare since it's her last day there for two weeks (that's right, they're closed for two weeks, but I'm lucky enough to get to pay a full month's tuition. Yay!). Might I just say, she looked edible.

Worth every penny.

Here's my new master bathroom before:

Why, I ask you, would anyone put CARPET in a bathroom? Makes exactly no sense. So, after painting the dark-green-shiny-teal bedroom, getting tile installed in the bathroom was the next priority. And here is the result:

Much, much better if I do say so myself. In the process, I also decided to replace my toilet, which was apparently designed for use exclusively by people under 4 ft. tall. That's getting installed today. And then I get to buy towels and bathmats and stuff. Yay!! Merry Christmas to me!!

A bad, bad influence.

My mom still rolls her hair on hard plastic rollers that she sleeps in. It's ridiculous. Recently, while The Geej and I were speding the night at my mom's house, this happened:
Oh Lord. Make it stop.

Little by little.

The new house is slowly coming together. Yes, half-unpacked boxes still plague me, but I'm making progress. Sort of.

Case in point:

Here's the guest room before I moved in--

I only wish this photo did justice to the godawful "why in the Hell would ANYONE ever paint ANYTHING this dark, high-gloss teal" color that was actually going on in there. It was just so icky. And shiny. And dark. It gave me the creeps and made the room look itty bitty. But now...

Ahhh. SO much better.

As I type this, there are tile dudes at my house installing tile on the floor of the master bath, which until now, was covered in carpet. Again: Why? Who puts carpet in the bathroom. Talk about icky...

Next up after the tile (and after the holidays): New back door.

Now, back to unpacking...

SBC Yahoo DSL Sucks Donkey.

I think the "DSL" stands for: Dick. So Lame. And I thought RoadRunner was bad... Whaaaaaaaaaah!

I could write a 10 page long rant about the whole DSL hook up thing, but I'm not going to b/c I am at work on a Saturday, and I want to get the hell outta dodge. Why am I here? To check on a work-email that I was supposed to receive by the "end of day" yesterday and never did. And I don't want to be at work. But I had to because I have NO FUCKING INTERNET AT HOME because Yahoo sucks.

That is all.

I am going insane.

Tomorrow it will be 2 weeks since I moved into my house, and I am so sick of looking at boxes, I could die. It's driving me totally nuts not having everything put away. Even more annoying than the fully packed boxes are the half-unpacked boxes. It is so hard to get anything done. I mean, by the time The Geej has gone off to slumber land, the last thing I want to do is unpack boxes. Instead, all I want to do is veg out and not do ANYthing. I did manage to get my clothes sort of organized this week, which was a big deal. And I hung a few things on the wall. But my "one box a night" goal I set for myself this week has clearly gone by the wayside. It's not just the inside of the house that's bugging me either. Half of the garage is...well...a clusterfuck. There could be an entire family of raccoons living out there for all I know, but I need to deal with the box situation IN the house before I move it outside. If I get the house boxes done by the end of this weekend, it will feel like I've accomplished something. I swear, I'm having the world's biggest garage sale next month. I gotta purge.

The other thing that's driving me crazy? No internet at home yet. I got all the equipment I need to get hooked up, and I plan to work on that tonight after Her Royal Geejness goes to sleep. I am pretty stupid when it comes to technical stuff, so who knows how that will all go. If I get up and running, I'll post later tonight. If there's no post, then you know I'm sitting on the floor looking at a bunch of wires with a confused/slightly retarded look on my face, cussing. Until then...

Beyond ridiculous.

I was channel surfing last night and the godawful Billboard Music Awards were on. They were about to cut to commercial, and the announcer tease said something like this: "Coming up...the Century Award presentation to Tom Petty...R. Kelly performs...and the announcement of the T. Mobile Ring Tone of the Year award." What the HELL?! "Ringtone of the Year?" Am I just getting really, really old or is that the most asinine thing you've heard of lately? And I'll give you a dollar if you can guess who one of the show's major sponsors was...

That's right: T. Mobile! Your dollar's in the mail.

And while we're talking stupid t.v., one of the best written, well-acted, original shows in years, "Arrested Development," is officially getting cancelled while shit like "According to Jim" carries on. Hollywood is so fucked up. Thank goodness for "The Office" and "My Name is Earl." Although "The Office" isn't exactly original as a premise, the show has come in to its own and is pretty damn funny. Dwight KILLS me. "My Name is Earl" IS original and just simply a good time. Plus, I have a special place in my heart for Earls in general as many of you may already know.

Finally, I just want to say HALLELUJAH that "The Real World: Austin" has finally breathed its last vomit-tinged breath. What a lame, lame, LAME season. I mean, "The Real World" as a concept jumped the shark a loooooooooong time ago. But I felt like I had to watch this season since it was filmed here and all. God, what I wouldn't give for those hours of my life back... The "Housemates" were idiots. Wait. That's too kind. Let's see...they were about as interesting as underwear stains and half as fun. If this bunch represent what college kids are like these days, then I'd like to set off a bomb to destroy the entire self-centered, sex-starved, ill-informed, lazy, belligerent, System-of-a-Down-loving, drunkass lot of them.

Austin is a cool city with lots to see and do. But the only places they ever went to were the lamest bars (The Dizzy Rooster and Treasure Island) and restaurants (Chipoltle and Paradise) on 6th Street. Hey Real Worlders: Austin is more than one city block! You stupid, insipid fucks.

So why did I watch if I hated them so much? Car crash, baby. Car crash. Once I started watching, I couldn't look away. I wanted Wes to get kicked in the teeth while flashing one of his shit-eating grins or sent to jail for date rape and, while in jail, becoming some big dude named Spud's bitch. I wanted Johanna to get a flesh eating STD. I wanted Neamiah to get his nuts caught in a vice. And Melinda and Danny? I was hoping for a murder/suicide type thing. But alas, no such luck. Instead, I got my mind rotted by all of the immature, spoiled, hyper-dramatic bullshit one could possibly pack into 1/2 hour increments. I am so ashamed...

3 Reasons I Should Always Have My Digital Camera With Me.

This morning on the way to work I saw...

1. A Hummer on a flat bed tow truck, and it was all kinds of wrecked up. I'd hate to see the car it hit, but this one was going to the Hummer Graveyard. Hah fucking hah!

2. As the traffic on MoPac was creeping along at about 20 mph, I got behind a Honda Civic with its sunroof open and a big dog head was sticking out of it. It was a Weimeraner (sp?) (who always look so stoic to begin with) and he was just looking about, taking in the scenery.

3. On 5th street, right near El Arroyo, there was this poor bastard standing there in jeans, a jacket and a baseball cap holding a poster board with the words: "I cheated on my wife, and this is my punishment," written in magic marker on it. He was sort of looking down at the ground as the rush hour traffic sped by. Brilliant.*

*I found out later on the 10:00 news that that dude was part of a radio stunt. Those wacky morning deejays at mix 94.7 really pulled one over on me!! What a bunch of hilarious goofballs!**

**Not really. I think morning deejays are the most un-funny people in the world. Especially on super crappy radio stations. Ugh.

I couldn't agree more.

I seriously wish I'd written this.