Can't believe the damn thing isn't working. Now I'm going to have to update the link on my homepage to remove the www since that seems to be the bad page now. http://mandab3.blogspot.com/ works fine, http://www.mandab3.blogspot.com/ does not. So annoying. But I'm not actually paying for the blog space so maybe I should just quit my bitching. I just don't want to have to update my home page. But I need to. Maybe I'll blow off cleaning my apartment tonight and will just spend the time scanning and uploading photos. I'm sure some folks would appreciate that. But then, the apartment does need some work and my weekend is rapidly filing up. And really, Rock Star Fran's boyfriend's birthday party is tonight and that would be a fun thing to do... Too many choices. My life is oh so hard. Though actually, I'm leaning towards the photo thing. I want photos on my homepage! I hardly took any at Steph's party and that makes me sad. I fear that the slacking involved in not displaying my photos has been intruding upon my desire to take photos and that's just wrong.
I'm just babbling now. I'll stop.
Friday, April 16, 2004
Technical Difficulties
The Blog appears to have gone wonky. I can't get to it from my homepage link. And when I use my bookmark it only goes through the April 8th entry. Though all the entries come up when I click on the April entries link. And Muffy just emailed me to say it was down totally for her. So I'm posting this to see what happens.
Bad wonky blog. Bad.
Bad wonky blog. Bad.
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Taxes
I fixed my tax problem and now I'm getting $300+ which is way nicer than owing $2000 and having to pay penalties and things. Whew. And it's done! Yay!
So, I'm currently replowing my way through the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series and am on Obsidian Butterfly. I got on the train this morning and was reading it while standing for the first stop. The woman sitting in front of me starts rifling through her bag and comes out with a scrap of paper and pen. I kinda glance down and see that she's writing down the title and author of my book. She doesn't say anything about it to me, doesn't ask any questions. I'm standing in front of her so she's not reading it over my shoulder or anything so she can't be getting excited about the hot, sexy passages on skinned and mutilated bodies. All she can see is the cover (which does have part of the back of a nekkid woman with the shadow of a fence and butterfly on her). I don't know. It's been in the back of my mind all day. I was kinda hoping she was just writing down everything anyone was reading on the train, but she wasn't. It was a scrap with numbers and things on it. I don't know. Odd.
But she got off at Jay Street so I had her seat for the rest of the ride. So she's my buddy. And she had a goofy Anti-Bush Working Families Button on and some granola crunchy self help book in her bag as well. Maybe she was mad at me for reading porn on the train. Though really, Hamilton's Fairy Porn is more porn like than the Anita Blake books. I think. Muffy could back me up if she ever bothered to READ THE BOOK I bought her. Muffy hates me, y'all. Or she hates Fairy Porn. Or both.
Maybe I should spend a week or two writing down what I see people reading on the train. The woman next to me was reading Star Magazine. Lots of photos of topless boys in Star. Should I start reading Star? No. I find those magazines offensive and don't want to encourage them by giving them money. Ah well. I'll bring one of my little notebooks on the train tomorrow and will try it out. Heh.
So, I'm currently replowing my way through the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series and am on Obsidian Butterfly. I got on the train this morning and was reading it while standing for the first stop. The woman sitting in front of me starts rifling through her bag and comes out with a scrap of paper and pen. I kinda glance down and see that she's writing down the title and author of my book. She doesn't say anything about it to me, doesn't ask any questions. I'm standing in front of her so she's not reading it over my shoulder or anything so she can't be getting excited about the hot, sexy passages on skinned and mutilated bodies. All she can see is the cover (which does have part of the back of a nekkid woman with the shadow of a fence and butterfly on her). I don't know. It's been in the back of my mind all day. I was kinda hoping she was just writing down everything anyone was reading on the train, but she wasn't. It was a scrap with numbers and things on it. I don't know. Odd.
But she got off at Jay Street so I had her seat for the rest of the ride. So she's my buddy. And she had a goofy Anti-Bush Working Families Button on and some granola crunchy self help book in her bag as well. Maybe she was mad at me for reading porn on the train. Though really, Hamilton's Fairy Porn is more porn like than the Anita Blake books. I think. Muffy could back me up if she ever bothered to READ THE BOOK I bought her. Muffy hates me, y'all. Or she hates Fairy Porn. Or both.
Maybe I should spend a week or two writing down what I see people reading on the train. The woman next to me was reading Star Magazine. Lots of photos of topless boys in Star. Should I start reading Star? No. I find those magazines offensive and don't want to encourage them by giving them money. Ah well. I'll bring one of my little notebooks on the train tomorrow and will try it out. Heh.
Help
So, any suggestions on how I go about finding another job? Doing anything but what I'm doing right now? Please, email, call, write me a letter... anything. Just something to get me out of here without taking a $30,000 pay cut. That doesn't involve poo.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
TAXES
I attempted to do my taxes today with Tax Cut. Yes, it is April 14th. Why do you ask? But, like the dumbass we all know I am, I left last year's forms at home. Federal seemed to go well and I apparently will be getting a couple hundred back. State & city are leaving me twitchy. Currently Tax Cut thinks I owe almost two grand. How is that possible? I paid over 5 grand to them already. Dammit. I'll have to check out last year's returns and get back at it I guess. I think I remember being twitchy about one or the other last year as well and then it turned out to be nothing and I didn't owe anything. Let's keep our fingers crossed that when I review it tomorrow morning, all will be right with the world. I really, really don't want to pay two grand to New York tomorrow.
The weather is pissing me off. I'm blowing off the lunch class and going to the 5:30 today because I do NOT want to go outside ever. It's warmer today, but muggy and raining and very April like. But it's not helping my tax/hating April mood. Maybe kicking and punching in class will help. Today I plan to attempted push ups on my toes instead of my knees. I'm sure I will suck, but I can't be on my knees forever (dirty!). And I finally am able to do almost the whole number of pushups in warm up on my knees, so it's time. Watch. We won't do pushups in warm up or something. Just to taunt me.
Fucking April. April made my asparagus quiche from downstairs bad, I know it. That's why I'm eating jelly beans right now and might owe NY two grand. April!
Spellcheck thinks "pushups" should be "busboys". Awesome.
The weather is pissing me off. I'm blowing off the lunch class and going to the 5:30 today because I do NOT want to go outside ever. It's warmer today, but muggy and raining and very April like. But it's not helping my tax/hating April mood. Maybe kicking and punching in class will help. Today I plan to attempted push ups on my toes instead of my knees. I'm sure I will suck, but I can't be on my knees forever (dirty!). And I finally am able to do almost the whole number of pushups in warm up on my knees, so it's time. Watch. We won't do pushups in warm up or something. Just to taunt me.
Fucking April. April made my asparagus quiche from downstairs bad, I know it. That's why I'm eating jelly beans right now and might owe NY two grand. April!
Spellcheck thinks "pushups" should be "busboys". Awesome.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
April Sucks
Well, it's mostly in the high 40s and 50s these days. I guess. So that's something. But it's April. And aside from being evil and my least favorite month and all that, April is a time of rain. Cold (but not freezing) rain that just makes everything damp and unpleasant and it makes the earthworms come out. They crawl out of my backyard and onto the patio and just lay there all gross and then they dry out and die and leave that earthworm smell and it makes me sad. So, today I'm just feeling blah. I can't write anything brilliant and I'm not motivated to do my taxes and I just don't care. I need cocoa.
Aaaaahhhh, cocoa.
Okay, my upstairs neighbor is kinda freaking me out. Only three other folks live in my little brownstone and she is the oddest. At first I thought she was sweet. When I had a housewarming party a million years ago I invited the folks in the building. None of them came, but she wrote me a really sweet little note explaining that she already had plans and thanking me for inviting her. She also seemed very pleasant when I first really met her, despite the fact that we met because our building had been broken into and her apartment robbed. But now I feel weird about her.
My apartment is the ground floor/basement one. I have a backdoor that opens into a little backyard which I love. It's one of the reasons I wanted the apartment. You can also get to the yard if you go into the actual basement and come up through the cellar type doors there. No idea what they're called, but you know what I'm talking about. And you can get to it from the fire escape too, which is right above my back door. When I signed the lease the landlord told me that the backyard was mine to do with as I chose, it came with my apartment and not the building. I didn't really feel I needed to hog the backyard, but I was glad it was mine.
So, my upstairs neighbor did a little work in it last summer and told me about it and asked if that was a problem. I said of course not. That if she wanted to have big gatherings to let me know as my backdoor is right there (and I hate being clothed and sometimes have windows open and forget about it...) but that I didn't think I'd be hogging the yard. It seemed okay though I did feel weird about it when she was back there. I don't know quite why. Too close to my back door or something. But she weeded some of it (not well though as the weeds came back soon) and put a little table and chairs back there and seemed happy.
Then my folks started visiting lots and we'd go outside and chat and Mom would smoke and we'd be all family like. Not rowdy or anything. But whenever we'd be out there, my neighbor would shut her windows. Usually very firmly. Like she was a thousand years old and we were disturbing her nap with our youngster chatter or something. I don't know. My folks and I found it very odd. Because she did it EVERY TIME. She'd open the windows when we'd go in, slam them when we came back out.
But then, once the wind blew her window down when I was inside and smashed it. And she was very sweet and came to explain the noise to me and to tell me not to go out there until she cleaned it up. And then she cleaned all the glass up the next morning.
Then this Spring she's started doing bigger work on the backyard and I'm kind of annoyed. Now, I haven't done much with it though I want to. And when she was raking branches and debris I thought that was really sweet. But the last time I peeked outside she'd taken out all the brick boarders around the yard and stacked them on the edge of my patio. And there's quite a pile of slate toward the back of the yard. And I'm kinda pissed off. If she wants to slate a section of the yard or do any real alterations on it, I feel like she should ask me about it. I really would rather have some grass or something in the yard. Laying sod or something like that would make me feel a little better than laying slate. And I wouldn't mind paying for some of that or putting in the work. But I don't like her just redoing the whole yard without word one to me. But then I feel like I'm being all pissy about something for no reason when she's actually putting effort into the yard.
I really think I need therapy. This really shouldn't be bothering me so much. The woman who was there before me was apparently a nut and wouldn't let anyone near the yard and I don't want to be like that. My neighbors do seem nice, if a bit quirky. Ah, I don't know. I should just do what work I want to do on the yard, keep an eye one what she's doing and if she actually does look like she's going to poor concrete on the whole thing I should talk to her. I'm just being silly. Am I using this blog for therapy? God, I hope not. Y'all don't need that.
I think I'm going to survey the area and then swing by her apartment some afternoon and ask what's what and what she was thinking of doing and what I'd like to see and maybe we can figure something out. How reasonable that sounds. Which probably means I won't do it.
Maybe I'll write more interesting things when April is over. I hate April. Bad things happen in April. I lost my grandfather last April.
April sucks.
Aaaaahhhh, cocoa.
Okay, my upstairs neighbor is kinda freaking me out. Only three other folks live in my little brownstone and she is the oddest. At first I thought she was sweet. When I had a housewarming party a million years ago I invited the folks in the building. None of them came, but she wrote me a really sweet little note explaining that she already had plans and thanking me for inviting her. She also seemed very pleasant when I first really met her, despite the fact that we met because our building had been broken into and her apartment robbed. But now I feel weird about her.
My apartment is the ground floor/basement one. I have a backdoor that opens into a little backyard which I love. It's one of the reasons I wanted the apartment. You can also get to the yard if you go into the actual basement and come up through the cellar type doors there. No idea what they're called, but you know what I'm talking about. And you can get to it from the fire escape too, which is right above my back door. When I signed the lease the landlord told me that the backyard was mine to do with as I chose, it came with my apartment and not the building. I didn't really feel I needed to hog the backyard, but I was glad it was mine.
So, my upstairs neighbor did a little work in it last summer and told me about it and asked if that was a problem. I said of course not. That if she wanted to have big gatherings to let me know as my backdoor is right there (and I hate being clothed and sometimes have windows open and forget about it...) but that I didn't think I'd be hogging the yard. It seemed okay though I did feel weird about it when she was back there. I don't know quite why. Too close to my back door or something. But she weeded some of it (not well though as the weeds came back soon) and put a little table and chairs back there and seemed happy.
Then my folks started visiting lots and we'd go outside and chat and Mom would smoke and we'd be all family like. Not rowdy or anything. But whenever we'd be out there, my neighbor would shut her windows. Usually very firmly. Like she was a thousand years old and we were disturbing her nap with our youngster chatter or something. I don't know. My folks and I found it very odd. Because she did it EVERY TIME. She'd open the windows when we'd go in, slam them when we came back out.
But then, once the wind blew her window down when I was inside and smashed it. And she was very sweet and came to explain the noise to me and to tell me not to go out there until she cleaned it up. And then she cleaned all the glass up the next morning.
Then this Spring she's started doing bigger work on the backyard and I'm kind of annoyed. Now, I haven't done much with it though I want to. And when she was raking branches and debris I thought that was really sweet. But the last time I peeked outside she'd taken out all the brick boarders around the yard and stacked them on the edge of my patio. And there's quite a pile of slate toward the back of the yard. And I'm kinda pissed off. If she wants to slate a section of the yard or do any real alterations on it, I feel like she should ask me about it. I really would rather have some grass or something in the yard. Laying sod or something like that would make me feel a little better than laying slate. And I wouldn't mind paying for some of that or putting in the work. But I don't like her just redoing the whole yard without word one to me. But then I feel like I'm being all pissy about something for no reason when she's actually putting effort into the yard.
I really think I need therapy. This really shouldn't be bothering me so much. The woman who was there before me was apparently a nut and wouldn't let anyone near the yard and I don't want to be like that. My neighbors do seem nice, if a bit quirky. Ah, I don't know. I should just do what work I want to do on the yard, keep an eye one what she's doing and if she actually does look like she's going to poor concrete on the whole thing I should talk to her. I'm just being silly. Am I using this blog for therapy? God, I hope not. Y'all don't need that.
I think I'm going to survey the area and then swing by her apartment some afternoon and ask what's what and what she was thinking of doing and what I'd like to see and maybe we can figure something out. How reasonable that sounds. Which probably means I won't do it.
Maybe I'll write more interesting things when April is over. I hate April. Bad things happen in April. I lost my grandfather last April.
April sucks.
Monday, April 12, 2004
LIES!
Finally, the lies can end. Steph's birthday week is at a close, well, almost at a close. My part in it is done. And now there is no more lying about his various events. I've had to stop myself in here a million times so I wouldn't mention the bar party on the 3rd or xBox shopping or heading to Boston this past weekend for the big party... Muffy has outdone herself on the big 30th Birthday Week for Steph and I am sorta getting scared about the fact that she'll be 30 in 2005 and the madness will begin again.
But yeah. I no longer have to talk about getting a haircut for Easter Weekend (godless wench that I am how was that even believable) as opposed to the party or worry that I might slip and talk about being in Boston on a weekend when I've claimed I'll be sitting at home with my TiVo. Thursday morning (after telling Steph I'd be doing the TiVo weekend) I freaked out at the idea of running into him on the subway platform with all my luggage and the GIANT birthday card. I even called Muffy to see when he was leaving. Then I had to wait long enough to not run into him, making myself late to work. And even then I worked up a story in my head about why I would suddenly need to rush out of town with a big birthday card, just in case there was a train problem and I ran into him anyway.
The weekend was good though. I got to town on Thursday and we were all just pooped so it was an early to bed sorta night. Friday, Pumpkin woke me up by sicing the dog on me and we started on cleaning and list making and the like. Gane popped by to drop off some excellent photos of Steph that she'd blown up. We put those up in the dining room/Steph Shrine Room and then chatted for an hour or two. It was great to talk with her, but it put us way behind on our tasks. So then lots of shopping and cleaning until Fish got home and we all went to the infamous Chunky's I've been hearing about forever and have yet to see. Saw Hell Boy and had a great time. Though I was the jackass who forgot to turn off her phone (I never forget to turn off my phone, honest!) and it rang midway through. Muffy was freaking out while waiting for Steph to get home and needed to vent. Luckily my voicemail was there for her since I was busy with nachos and Hell Boy. Then home for cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. And sangria making. At one point Pumpkin was mopping and I was scrubbing a toilet and Fish was doing something with paper towels and cleaning products. The 80's music is blaring and Fish comes in to inform me that with the particular 80s song playing we were actually in the cleaning 'montage' part of the movie. It was actually kinda true. And, um, y'all really don't need to be reading all the details do you? No, it's not that important.
Friday and Saturday were all about cleaning and brunch and Chunky's and cooking and shopping and Steph's family bringing photos and slide shows and it was fun. But exhausting. And then the people came. And there was merriment. And then the Steph came, with family and friends. And there was merriment. And there was the band. And there was the cake. And the drinking. And the really drunk Steph. And it was good. And then the cleaning. And the bed. And the brunch. And the train. And the TiVo.
And today will be my day of rest. I'm fleeing work as soon as I can and am going to go home, put on comfy pants, curl up on my couch with tea and a book and a journal and a kitty and just bond with my TiVo and my apartment and my quiet time. And it will be almost as awesome as Steph's birthday week.
But yeah. I no longer have to talk about getting a haircut for Easter Weekend (godless wench that I am how was that even believable) as opposed to the party or worry that I might slip and talk about being in Boston on a weekend when I've claimed I'll be sitting at home with my TiVo. Thursday morning (after telling Steph I'd be doing the TiVo weekend) I freaked out at the idea of running into him on the subway platform with all my luggage and the GIANT birthday card. I even called Muffy to see when he was leaving. Then I had to wait long enough to not run into him, making myself late to work. And even then I worked up a story in my head about why I would suddenly need to rush out of town with a big birthday card, just in case there was a train problem and I ran into him anyway.
The weekend was good though. I got to town on Thursday and we were all just pooped so it was an early to bed sorta night. Friday, Pumpkin woke me up by sicing the dog on me and we started on cleaning and list making and the like. Gane popped by to drop off some excellent photos of Steph that she'd blown up. We put those up in the dining room/Steph Shrine Room and then chatted for an hour or two. It was great to talk with her, but it put us way behind on our tasks. So then lots of shopping and cleaning until Fish got home and we all went to the infamous Chunky's I've been hearing about forever and have yet to see. Saw Hell Boy and had a great time. Though I was the jackass who forgot to turn off her phone (I never forget to turn off my phone, honest!) and it rang midway through. Muffy was freaking out while waiting for Steph to get home and needed to vent. Luckily my voicemail was there for her since I was busy with nachos and Hell Boy. Then home for cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. And sangria making. At one point Pumpkin was mopping and I was scrubbing a toilet and Fish was doing something with paper towels and cleaning products. The 80's music is blaring and Fish comes in to inform me that with the particular 80s song playing we were actually in the cleaning 'montage' part of the movie. It was actually kinda true. And, um, y'all really don't need to be reading all the details do you? No, it's not that important.
Friday and Saturday were all about cleaning and brunch and Chunky's and cooking and shopping and Steph's family bringing photos and slide shows and it was fun. But exhausting. And then the people came. And there was merriment. And then the Steph came, with family and friends. And there was merriment. And there was the band. And there was the cake. And the drinking. And the really drunk Steph. And it was good. And then the cleaning. And the bed. And the brunch. And the train. And the TiVo.
And today will be my day of rest. I'm fleeing work as soon as I can and am going to go home, put on comfy pants, curl up on my couch with tea and a book and a journal and a kitty and just bond with my TiVo and my apartment and my quiet time. And it will be almost as awesome as Steph's birthday week.
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