The problems with today, in order of suckiness:

1. Rainiest, coldest, most minging day in recent history

2. Leaving magnificent bag of Manchego cheese, mortadella and fresh Medjool dates--purchased from the swank deli down the street expressly for my gastronomic pleasure since I knew I'd be dining solo tonight--in the fridge at work

3. Gym closed for "renovations" which, most likely, will not include the chiseling of six months' buildup of encrusted body fluids from the surfaces of the equipment

4. Perky, adorable and innovative personal trainer who thinks it would be a GREAT IDEA to do circuit training in the adjoining field in full view of the junior high rugby team (because nobody is more courteous and able to keep their opinions to themselves than thirteen year-old boys)

5. An hour and a half of progressively gustier winds and sandblastier rain whilst jumping through the mud trying to negotiate said circuit

6. The kind offer of the gym-renovation staff to let me use the stankiest toilets in the history of stank toilets to briefly mop my hair and "waterproof" mascara-streaked face with .0005-ply toilet paper before venturing back out into the monsoon to wait a further 30 minutes for the bus.




Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow...cannot possibly suck so much.

Avoid Boring People (elementary, my dear Watson)

You never stop outgrowing shit. Sometimes it matters and sometimes it just fades out like a radio signal. There’s no heady, explosive epiphany that gets burnt into the pages of your encyclopaedia, no birth, no death, no sirens, no Hallelujah chorus. I couldn’t tell you the precise moment I stopped rapturously sprinting down the Barbie aisle at Toys ‘r’ Us, or thinking that Top 40 radio was worth listening to. Those things were there, and then they weren’t. When you’re a kid, though, you can zip through a rapid-fire succession of dizzy phases and nobody so much as blinks an eye. It’s a lot harder to let go of something that has long outlived its usefulness to you when you’re in your thirties. Eyebrows are raised. You feel obligated to explain yourself. You don’t want to confuse or inconvenience anyone.

I miss the old days. I miss announcing that I now wished to marry Ralph Macchio instead of John Schneider, taping a new Tiger Beat centerfold to my bedroom ceiling, and just assuming that everyone around me would figure out a way to deal with it. I long for that kind of freedom again.

Good manners can feel like a prison sentence.

Sam's Creek Blues

I never used to drink beer. I preferred the far more efficient (if less sociable) gin approach. I kept bottles of Fosters in the fridge anyway, though, because my co-workers tended to drop by a lot, and they were beer guys, back-slappin' Southerners in flip flops, and we'd sit out on my balcony in plastic chairs and I'd chain smoke and they'd take long, cold draws and make me laugh about whatever was upsetting me, if there happened to be something upsetting me, which there usually was. I never drank it myself, though. Then, one time, totally out of the blue, and for no reason apart from Jerry Douglas's dobro, the inkling took hold of me and I sat out in the plastic chairs alone, taking long, cold draws and watching the sun go down over the Atlanta Highway.

I remember flying down Vaughn Road with the windows down and Bruno’s bags full of Healthy Choice turkey dinners defrosting in the back seat with this blasting, blasting, blasting so loudly that I could feel it in the backs of my thighs. And it’s acoustic.

Little pockets of happiness filled with fairy dust and zing. Frozen forever in suspended, rose-colored animation, just how I like it.

I can't help missing the days when I didn't really have a mindset.

Now, I’m overtaken with homicidal rage the second I set foot inside a grocery store. Screaming hellions ripping things from the shelves while their corpulent mothers jiggle ineffectually after them. Overpriced slop, rotting vegetables. Mushy, brown apples.

Lettuce used to taste as luxuriously symphonic as raw honeycomb and cream cheese.

This must be one of the crappiest places in the western world.

Ah, songs.

Someone needs a nap.

I never cease to be amazed at how busy I am. I keep stepping back, trying to re-asses, economize, work out where corners can be cut and time can be saved. I’m a bare-minimum gal, after all. I always have been. I’ve never subscribed to the philosophy of overachievement. Even "achievement" is a bit of a stretch for me. I mean, sure, I complain about being a thirty-two year-old minion and blah blah blah no respect and blee blee blee waste of college degree and bloo bloo bloo no intellectual stimulation whatsoever but I suppose the flat truth of the matter is that if I really wanted to be the Senior Commissioning Editor and BFFs with all of the Lord Snotburies and Professor Sir Dookiepantses in this entire town, I could be. It would require a whole lot more effort at work, though, and a lot less watching of humorous talking-dog videos on YouTube when I’m supposed to be attending departmental briefings, so at the end of the day, I'm not sure how worth the effort it would be. Not that the Senior Commissioning Editors don’t do more jerking off under their desks than I could ever hope to dream about, but then of course I don’t have a misleadingly prestigious-sounding degree and practicable oral sex skills.

Why are so many people so anxious to entrust so many things to a person with this much apathy? I think that says more about them than it does about me.

Weirdos.