Sucks to be a Californian today.

You've got a loser, a freak, a racist, and a moron for your frontrunners and a pornographer, a midget, a drug addict, and a slut for the also rans. Good luck with that.

Hearing Things

The song that Jimmy Buffett wrote with the full knowledge I was about to be born-- "Changes in Lattitudes, Changes in Attitudes"-- cued up on the radio this morning as I drove into the Graph Paper Paradise today. (One of the cool things about living in Flordia; they actually play Jimmy Buffett on the radio out here.) I was coming in at a very weird time, 10 AM, so of course I had to turn it up and just about cry and take it as A Sign.

I dream about Denver when I'm home, horses-

I wish I could jump on a plane.

So many nights I sit and dream of the mountains

God I wish I were riding again

Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder

So I can't look back for too long

There's just too much to see waiting in front of me

And I know that I just can't go wrong.

I Am So Totally Famous

I am famous. Well, within a 12,000-radius readership of a Florida newspaper, anyway. I participated in a reading this week (not, as one of my coworkers asked, a "tarot card reading") at a local college and my picture wound up splashed all over the features section of the paper. I look fairly stupid. I'm waving one hand in the air as if I'm taking oath of office, which I frankly don't remember doing, and I'm not completely sure but I think my ass looks enormous. The calves look fantastic, though. That's the important thing. Also the photographer was hot. I totally showed him leg when he asked me how to spell my last name.

It was an interesting night, and thrilling be back in my own context. Fey Goateed Art Guy was there, as well as Tori Amos Lesbian Girl. The whole bit. I was thrilled to be doing public speaking again, which I sorely miss.

I had to leave early because it was a long drive back to the Blonde Bachelorette Pad, and outside were a couple of students grabbing a smoke, and as I went by they were all, "Look, look, there she is!" and they told me that I was the best, funniest person there. So I threw my arms around them and complimented their excellent taste.

I sent my mom the picture and she said, "You've come a long way since your fourth grade Living Book Report."

Oh, good times, good times! This was my glorious debut as a public speaker. I'd done a lot of readings before at class Masses, but this was the big time. We had our own assembly in the auditorium and everything. It was truly a big deal. It was a tradition back at St. Jude's: You dressed up as a character from the book and told the story and every single person ended with "And if you want to know what happens next, read...."

My book was The Little Gymnast, that modern classic, and I pranced around in this replica Mary Lou Retton uniform and generally did not want to get off the stage. I rocked, baby. I was money.

I feel great about the reading, but it also left me pacing. It served as another confirmation that this is what I need to be doing, writing and doing readings and lectures, which is a good thing seeing as I'm completely inept in anything else I have ever attempted.

But in the meantime: The engineers. Booooooooooooooo.

'Bout Time Those Tigers Started Fighting Back

In case you haven't heard, Roy of Sigfreid and Roy was attacked by one of their white tigers in Vegas last night. (Tiger-racists. They couldn't get an African-American tiger?) This happened on stage. In front of people. I hope the little freak is okay, but a couple details from the story leapt out at me: Tiger bites him in the neck, Roy starts beating at him with a microphone (Was it one of those super-skinny Bob Barker ones? Oh, I hope so) and Sigfreid jets across the stage screaming, "No! No! No!" Both of which were excellent tactics. Because, you know, attacking wild animals will always respond to a little mic upside the head, and if that doesn't work, "No!" will stop him every time.

I Shall Call Him/Her....

Taufling.

It's German for "child to be baptized." My niece or nephew, that little half-a-banana, has seven generations of German American blood (Obi-Wan Kenobi voice) flowing through him/her on both sides, and this is the best name five minutes and an English-German dictionary site could give me. It's not easy to find something sweet to call a baby in the German language. "Baby" is-- guess what-- "bebe" and "little one" is something like "Gerkafluggalleniduchean." There's nothing cute about forty-seven consonants crammed up together. I'll probably hack it down to Tauffy or Flingy, but for now the little bundle is Taufling. When Taufling arrives, he will be James or she will be Hannah, but while he grows she will be "Taufling."

There's something Colorado in the air today. Then again, anything below 127% humidity feels like the Grand Canyon around here.

Half a Banana

That's how much my niece or nephew weighs-- five or six ounces. (I'm going to have to pick out a non-gender specific name for this kid, so that I can bond with it, and also because I am a lazy broad who is weary of typing "niece or nephew.") BabyCenter.com says that he/she already has fingerprints, and if you push against my sister's stomach, the baby will root around looking for lunch.

I told her to be careful with the music she's listening to. When my cousin's wife was pregnant, she listened to a lot of Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, and very soon after Kaitlyn was born she started kicking and moving around whenever she heard their voices on the radio. I think that's fascinating. Also scary: This means that you're not safe from Faith Hill even in the womb. Julie had better institute a Top 40-free zone around her cubicle at work. I don't want that kid filling up on any Cher in there.

Another Round

It rained yesterday morning. I had to use my umbrella. As I stood waiting for the elevator, shaking it out, the sparkling conversationalist next to me said, "Rainy out there." Oh, thank God someone finally has the nerve to say it.

And for good measure, here's one from the break room:

I was toasting a bagel on a counter bearing a great deal of food left over from a board meeting. Said a passing engineer: "That's a lot of food." And that, sirrah, is why YOU have the company Lexis with the four-window office and I eat toasted bagels for lunch.

My New Boyfriend

Ever since The Incident Of the College-Era Dress That No Longer Fits, I've been working out twice a day-- aerobics or weights in the morning, rollerblading or jogging in the evening. The second workout is more for my mental health than anything else. I was out for over an hour last night, sinking into my mix CD, spinning around and around my own personal roller rink: a middle school across the street from my apartment complex with a big beautiful brand new drop-off circle. I stayed out WAY past what was intelligent or safe, as the streetlamps were well on by the time I headed back into the Bachelorette Pad, but it was so lovely last night, and extremely cool to see my silhouette bending out in front of me as the sun went down. The blading is going so much better than when I first started. Ass has not kissed concrete (knock on cheap particle wood desk) since my second outing and I felt myself taking deep strides, riding it out, speeding along, no engineers to be found.

Sometimes I'll rollerblade with Flipper. When Flipper comes over to play we'll skate around my complex, which, to my shock, is actually much larger than I originally thought. Since I moved in a few months ago I've visited the leasing office, the pool, and my own apartment. Nothing else seems interesting or even palatable. The leasing office, when it's not inhaling 95% of my paycheck or not finding the UPS package from Land's End, sometimes has cookies to offer, emphasis on the "some". I leave the rest to the constantly multiplying, gratingly obnoxious eight-year-olds and their absent parents.

I haven't met anybody else living in the complex. I'm never there. I eat there, I sleep there, I hide there; but I'm never "there" in the sense I was there at the Cape, where I'd trot to the beach for a walk or set off for the library down the street, three or four books hugged against me.

Once last month I was sweeping the steps of my apartment (God help me, I swept the steps of my apartment) and I saw the couple who leases the garage below me loading up the pickup truck I always see parked beneath my staircase. (That truck had always intrigued me, as it had a “Cowgirls Rule” sticker on the back next to a Ron Jon’s logo; and here I thought I was the only one harboring conflicting passions.) There was a Western saddle and a couple bridles in the tailgate, and its been so long since I've seen any tack in person that I almost swept myself right over the railing. Finally I said, "Is that Western tack I see?" and they told me that they stable a couple quarterhorses a mile or so away. These people are now officially my new best friends.

But they are absolutely the only neighbors I've talked to since I moved here, if you exclude the parking lot dog I met who was very soft and huggable and pettable until she started chewing on the tires of my car. She was, however, preferable to the guys Flipper and I encountered one night as we bladed past one of the apartment buildings. One was my father's age and, unequivocalbly, recently paroled; the other leaned over the rail hollering, "Heeeeeyyyyyyy, ladies, when you're done exercising, why don't you come up and have a cold one!" We smiled and waved and rolled away, because they clearly wanted to kill us. Then, as you might expect, we spent the rest of the night arguing over who got the yeller and who got the felon.

That does it.

I just had the worst conversation in the history of the galaxy. Oh God I want out of this place.

I'm working on a grant application, and I just said to one of the engineers (who promised me the information I needed this morning, then was stunned when I appeared in his office at 1:48 PM when nothing was provided) "How are things with the grant?"

He said... he said, "Grant's fired. He doesn't work here anymore."

I hope he bursts into flames sometime real soon.

Arianna Huffington Is Right Out

Glenn Beck: "Aw man, who am I gonna vote for NOW?!"