Overly Verbal

So a very long time ago, I joined the Internet age when I got an Earthlink e-mail address, and had dial-up access in my home.* And I’ve had it on my list of things to do for a very long time to cancel that e-mail address, for which I have actually been paying my hard-earned money, monthly, automatically, without considering that $9.99 a month for a service I never, ever use adds up to nearly $120 a year, which sum could be better used for cab fare. Finally, today I called and did it.

The woman I talked to claimed her name was Allura. I didn’t ask her how to spell it, though I was tempted to, because we were having a conversation that was way too long to begin with. In any event, that’s a fine name if I’ve ever heard one.** And she tried valiantly to convince me that I should pay $3.00 a month to keep the e-mail address, and I equally as valiantly explained to her that I was 100 percent convinced that no one believes that that is my e-mail address anymore, except for people who want me to finally experience sexual satisfaction by dramatically increasing the girth of my member. Then we shared some more: I told her about how fiber optic cables deliver the Internet to my home blazingly fast, and that while I have experienced DSL in the past, I really don’t want to again.*** I told her further about how I use a free virus protection program, and a free e-mail address that has a chat function integrated, etc., etc., and she finally agreed that all we could do was cancel my account. I think I made her sad, but she made me sad too, by speaking from a script that included the words “necessarily” and “properly” at a frequency that was entirely inappropriate. (I was tempted to ask her about that too, but, again, our conversation was rather lengthy as it was.)

So the way I see it, I just earned $9.95, and I should blow it all on cab fare immediately, to keep the economy robust or something. I think I’ll do that tomorrow night.

In other news, well, there is no other news, but that’s okay, for now, because this entry has nearly as many words in the footnotes as it has in the body. I do have to do some laundry later, which might lead to an interesting neighbor encounter, but I’m really tempted to just leave it until tomorrow, when there’s enough light to deter the drunk guy from hanging out in the laundry room. (You know, I tell people that story a lot, and I think I’m forgetting the cardinal rule of telling stories, which is that you should make other people feel as if they have something in common with you when you storytell. **** Instead, whenever I tell a story about where I live (oh, how innocent are the people who ask “So, you live in Virginia? Where?”), people wind up feeling superior to me, or some other emotion that leads to smugness. That‘s just not right.)

Anyway, if you wanted to save some money, you should really take a look at the things that come out of your bank account every month, automatically, without your even thinking about it. And then you should cancel those things.

That is all.
_____
* My “account information” suggests that I have been a customer since January 2, 1997, but there was a complicated thing at the beginning where someone else was paying for my e-mail, so it might have been earlier than that. I honestly don’t remember, which is not surprising, considering that that was well over ten years ago.

** I had a friend in New York who was from the Ukraine, or somewhere equally foreign, and her name was Alla. Also a fine name, but if you were calling out to her in a crowded bar it could be a little awkward. And the other day it occurred to me that I should have named Molly Theodora instead, because she sort of looks like a Theo, and if I had only thought of that female name that shortens to a male nickname when I wrote the ever-so-interesting entry about what I should name my new cat, well, everything would be different now, wouldn’t it? Damn it all to hell.

*** Interestingly, Verizon FIOS is not available in the District of Columbia, and I’m told their customer service agents won’t even reveal when it might be available there. If I move into the city, as I intend to do, I will have to revert to less-quick Internet service, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Heck, I might return to Earthlink as a customer at that point, if they can give me DSL then. Allura assured me that I would be welcome as an Earthlink customer at whatever point in the future I might find their services “necessary”.

**** Fuck you, Microsoft dictionary. Storytell is a word. Storytellers are people who storytell, storytelling is the act of a person who storytells. Don’t make me stop this blog.

So looking at the past six weeks, one would think that I have seasonal affective disorder.

One of the symptoms is not having enough energy to complete your day-to-day tasks, and I have literally accomplished nothing in a long while, unless you count baking brownies, knitting, and reading as accomplishments. My house is a pigsty. I can’t remember the last time I worked an entire 40 hours in one week - the beautiful thing about being a temp is that you can just go home early (heck, take an entire day off) if you’re bored. But I wouldn’t say I don’t have enough energy to vacuum, or go dancing, or balance my checkbook, or go to the grocery store, or write e-mail to the very many people to whom I owe e-mail. I would just say that I choose to apply what energy I do have in the winter to different, less urgent tasks (see above), or such important accomplishments as watching three episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in a row. (Christopher Meloni is, in a word, hot.)

Another symptom is sleep disturbances, or sleeping too much. While I sometimes am sleeping way more hours in a row than is normal, that can usually be chalked up to the fact that I wake up, find two sleepy cats in my warm bed with me, remember that it’s 25 degrees outside, and decide that staying in bed seems like a good idea. And when I’m not sleeping more than normal, I am, in fact, sleeping less than normal, but that can usually be chalked up to the fact that I sometimes go dancing, have fun, and stay out way past my bedtime, then wake up at my regular time because I have things to do. (Like rearranging my furniture.)

But “seasonal affective disorder” suggests to me a problem with my affect, and my affect is just fine. When I stay at home for eleventy-eight days in a row, I don’t feel lonely, or wish I was out having fun like everyone else is. (I really don’t believe people are having that much fun. You’re all acting like it, but let’s be honest for a minute, eh?) And I don’t get bored - there is a ton of stuff to do inside my house. I’m not even remotely depressed - I’ve just adjusted my social life to the point where you can’t really call it a social life at all. The weird thing about the blog is that because it is inherently social, I was starting to resent it, wishing it wasn’t there because it was making me feel guilty, as if someone was expecting something from me and I wasn’t living up to expectations. But then I realized I was just being silly, and no one actually looks forward to me writing here at all, they just like giving me shit when I don’t.

In any event, somehow I’ve stopped slowing down and started speeding up. Today I worked more than eight hours, and I likely will tomorrow too. I’m going to vacuum after I finish writing this (before the carpet starts moving of its own accord), and then make chicken salad - I poached some chicken Saturday but then lost my train of thought before I did anything else with it. So I think it’s safe to say that you can expect more frequent posting from here on out, particularly after March 9th (when we lose an hour but get more daylight, which is a silly thing to do, but it works out).

And I’ve got something else to write about, even! I think it will come as no great surprise that even though I bought a fancy English degree, I sometimes horribly misuse the language. There are a couple of usages I’m pretty militant about. Saying “hopefully” when you mean “I hope” is one of them, but I do catch myself doing that every once in a while. Worse yet is a sentence like this:

“Three were green, and two were blue, and the ones that were blue were also round.”

“Ones” is perfectly clear. Everyone knows what you mean, but it just sounds horribly boorish to me. Saying “those that were blue” is pretentious, but I do it anyway, because I think it’s more elegant. Anyway, I never, ever, use the word “ones” like that. But today I was guilty of writing this sentence:

“I was reading the other day about how they’re putting that quarterlife show on television this week . . .”

Ugh. I wasn’t reading about how they’re putting that show on TV, I was reading about the fact that they are putting that show on TV. I hate to sound stupid, and that construction sounds really stupid.

Anyway, is anyone watching quarterlife? I think it’s a neat idea to make a show and release it on the Internet in eight-minute episodes, because I have a short attention span. Eight minutes is lovely. (I also was totally addicted to thirtysomething when it was aired originally - I’ve been a dork just about as long as I can remember.*) So I started watching quarterlife a long time ago, got up to episode 12, and then found my attention shifted elsewhere. Now it’ll be on TV tomorrow, and it’s a damned good thing that my TV records things for me, because there is no way I’m going to catch up before then. So if you are watching quarterlife, don’t tell me what happens on TV tomorrow, okay?

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter.

_____
* Also? Ken Olin? Hot.

So I still exist, but I don’t have anything interesting to write about. In fact, I don’t have anything to write about at all. (If my camera wasn’t still refusing to work, I’d take a picture of the cats. Oh well.)

Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow, maybe I won’t.

So I had this great idea for a Valentine’s Day entry. Last year on the day after, I went to my local 7-11, to buy half-price candy, and the only candy hearts they had were in the Spanish language. I didn’t write about them then, however, because I was in a bus accident the same day, and a bus accident is higher on the scale of things that are interesting to read about than are Spanish-language candy hearts, at least in my estimation.

So all day today, I was looking forward to stopping by 7-11 on the way home to buy some Spanish-language candy hearts, and then coming home and writing a truly hilarious entry about them. Alas, the only candy hearts in my 7-11 this evening were in English. Damn it all to hell. Now I don’t have anything funny to write about at all.*

And if I write about my real life, you’ll get bored. Here goes anyway:

Mouse showed his love for me this morning by attempting to leave a hairball on the bed, while I was still in it. In spite of the fact that I had not yet had enough coffee, I did manage to pick him up and put him on the floor before he got anything out. Molly has not yet attempted to display her love for me, but when she does, it will likely include her poking me to remind me that she needs her claws trimmed. After having a cat without front claws for ten years, I’m flabbergasted at how often one has to trim the claws of a cat with front claws. I think de-clawing is inhumane (infeline, I suppose), but it’s not that hard to understand why someone would do it. Molly is really very good about the scratching, only does it on things designed for cats to scratch on (except for occasional scratching on the hideous ragrug in the kitchen), but I don’t trust that she wouldn’t totally destroy a new chair if I was to buy one. I love these little ones beyond all measure, but boy are they a lot of work sometimes.

In other news, the best (and, um, only) gift I got for Valentine’s Day this year is a McDonald’s giftcard. Sure, it’s only worth $10, but $10 at McDonald’s is easily two meals. At McDonald’s! I’d go now, in fact, but I have to make some cupcakes. (With pink mint icing. I always experience a little cognitive dissonance when I eat pink frosting that is minty, but they’re my Valentine’s Day cupcakes and I’ll make the frosting mint if I want.)

Maybe I should make a solemn vow to rearrange my life so that next year on Valentine’s Day I have someone to share my pink-(mint-)frosted cupcakes with.

That seems like a bad idea, making a vow to do something I can’t necessarily (and might not actually want to) do, however, so I think I’ll refrain. Let’s just hope that I don’t get into a bus accident tomorrow. That seems almost doable.

On that note, Happy Valentine’s Day, you people who are different than I am!
_____

* Lest you think I made them up just to have something to complain about today, I present a link.

Actually, it’s not windy at all, but I couldn’t find an animated image of an American flag covered in freezing rain.

I’m totally late on my standard Ash Wednesday e-mail this year, because I am dying, but I’m glad I recounted the joke last year, because it remains as funny as ever.

And just for the record:

Vodka does not count as hard liquor, because it’s clear. (Truly hard liquor is amber.)

And bacon is not meat. It’s bacon.

Tell the Pope that if he has a problem with that, he can take it up with me.

So someone asked me recently whether I have any irrational fears. I don’t believe I do, or at least I didn’t then. Now, however, watching the Grammys, I’m pretty sure that my fear of Tina Turner is slightly irrational. I mean, she’s likely harmless, but when the hell did she get so scary-looking?

The only appropriate music to play at my memorial service is Red River Valley. (If someone can explain to me why the only audio I can find of Arlo Guthrie singing it is on this website, that would be keen.)

And you need to either find a fifth-grade honor choir to perform it, or these guys.*

As it happens, reports of my demise may be premature. I’m feeling much better today than I did yesterday, but I still don’t feel well at all. I might just live to see another day.
______

* I don’t know who’s going to be in charge of the invitations, but whoever it is should make sure they read “Cowboy hats encouraged.”

I have a cold. A miserable, persistent cold that is likely to kill me. So I thought I better go over a couple of things here before I take to my bed for what may be the last time.

First, my body should go to science. (They probably won’t want most of it, except maybe as an example of ways science can go horribly wrong, so I want the rest to be cremated - I think it’s really, really gross that the earth is filled with dead bodies.)

Second, if you’re going to hold a memorial service, I’d really like it better if it was raining that day. That way, everyone can carry a black umbrella. Somber. But one person should carry a bright yellow umbrella, with white polka dots, because I don’t want the whole thing to be totally depressing.

Third, at this memorial service, if there’s going to be music, somebody really needs to make sure you all listen to “Seasons in the Sun”. You’ll find a copy on my iPod. (”Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is also good, but if anyone were to make anyone else hear “Amazing Grace” just because I’m dead, that would make me sad. There should be no cliches.)

Finally, and most importantly, Mouse and Molly will need a new home. They haven’t known each other very long, but they’ll need to stay together. There will need to be plenty of windows in their new home, homegrown catnip and grass, and empty cardboard boxes to sleep in. Otherwise, they just need some food (seafood flavors only, please - chicken is so boring), and occasional brushing. If I had any extra money, I’d leave a fund for them, but I can assure you that the joy of their companionship will make up for whatever capital outlay is involved in their upkeep at least a thousand-fold.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter.

Today I was late to work because I did not know before I left for work that the National Prayer Breakfast was being held across the street from my soon to be permanent workplace. While I was walking from the Metro to the bus, I noticed a number of police cars, but I figured it would just be a motorcade - I’m totally inured* to those now. Then when I got on the bus, I noticed even more police - I stopped counting cars after 17, when they started showing up in batches of 3 at each intersection. Needless to say, traffic slows when there are cops everywhere you look, and then when I arrived at my destination I noticed a number of people standing in front of my building, with signs and whatnot, and decided to use the back door instead. It’s somewhat further, but that worked out just fine, and although the breakfast ended shortly after I arrived, I did have the pleasure of blaming my late arrival to work on the President.

And I also overheard a funny thing:

“What’s going on out there?”

“I think it’s the National Prayer Breakfast.”

“Well, they need it.”

I gotta follow politics more closely, I guess, in order to better plan my commute.

In other news, I woke up this morning nearly completely incapable of breathing. I’d like to believe it’s allergies, and not another winter cold, because I’ve already had one, and I didn’t do anything to deserve that one, let alone another. So I check pollen.com, and find that cedar and juniper pollen are nearly to the low-medium point on the scale, and I have been known to suffer from inhaling allergens in the low-medium range, but then I got REM’s “Find the River” stuck in my head. Not so much the “I have got to leave to find my way” bit, because that would totally go against my new making DC an okay place to live thing, but this:

“There is nothing left to throw
of ginger, lemon, indigo,
coriander stem, and rose of hay.”

I only like four REM songs, I think, fully half of them from that album, which I spent one very long, lonely California roadtrip listening to over and over again when it had just appeared.

Anyway, you know how the first crocus buds are supposed to make you think of the advent of spring? I think instead of my sometimes rather severe nasal allergies. Why’s it gotta be so hard to be me?

Also, if you’re gonna get an REM song stuck in your head first thing in the morning, I think it should be “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite.” (Nothing is going my way.) It’s got laughing in it, which is one of my very most favorite things in a song.

I guess the burning question now is whether we ever really liked REM, or if we only liked them because we had to. Thank goodness there’s a comment section: discuss amongst yourselves. I’m going to go take an antihistamine.**

_____
* Jesus. Did I just use the word inured? I’m sorry, but that’s the word that came to mind. I know I am a dork, but I do not approve, and I am not resigned.

** Speaking of which, would it be totally hilarious to wear this shirt, or totally lame? I can’t decide. I mean, it would be better if it was a diagram of a histamine with a red “no” sign through it, but I can’t do everything!