Things, stuff, words & whatnot...

1. My friend, Joey, has been discussing healthier living lately & trying to eat more vegetarian food as a part of this. I've never really gone out of my way to try specifically vegetarian stuff before (nothing against it, it's just never been on my list of things to do) but he piqued my interest when he told me that MorningStar Farms' "Chik'n Nuggets" tasted just like the real thing. Last night I was hungry & didn't really feel like cooking, so I opted to hit the store instead so I could try a couple things from the "Healthy Eating" (a.k.a. vegetarian) section. I finally decided on "Chik'n Nuggets" & "Broccoli Cheddar Veggie Bites". I'll try more later, but figured I'd start w/these:
   
   
   • MorningStar's "Chik'n Nuggets"
     
     Joey was right, they did taste just like actual chicken nuggets, didn't even need gobs of ketchup or anything. I'll be getting these again.
   
   
   
   • MorningStar's "Broccoli Cheddar Veggie Bites"
     
     OH.MY.GOD. Let me preface this by saying I kind of have a thing about most things involving green veggies & cheese. THESE were SO good. It was nigh on impossible for me not to eat all the ones in the box in one sitting, seriously. Luckily for me I only baked a little o/ea. o/my choices at a time & saved the rest for later.
   
   
2. I am uncomfortably tired today for some unknown reason & therefore having a Hellish time concentrating on actual work...again. I've really got to do something about this. Maybe taking regular vitamins again would assist?
   
   
3. I am also intensely hungry & vaguely concerned that once my food gets here I might actually try to stuff an entire gyro in my face while planning what to consume next, possibly including office supplies & co-workers. I really need to make it a point to eat breakfast in the morning. This is ridiculous.
   
   
4. I think if you’ve not yet seen 'Hamlet 2' you should really get on that because it's awfully funny & you are missing out.
   
   
5. Speaking of movies, I just saw an ad for the new 'Underworld Number Whatever-The-Hell' that's apparently coming out on Jan.23rd. I had no idea another was in production let alone coming out soon. Is anyone else planning on seeing this? I don't even care if the movie's any good, I'd just go because Kate Beckinsale's gorgeous & I get to see her kicking ass in slick boots, latex, corsets & leather. :)

More later.

~E.

“...an’ what’s mos’ importantly, I ain’t gotta fuck wit’ Ray-Ray’s broke ass no’ mo’...”

Here’s to being gainfully employed. Dude, one of the things about being w/out a steady job for an unHOLY and fully unacceptable period of time (temping most certainly does not count, particularly in this economy) is that even if you do not have any money of which to speak yet, you are excited simply about the upcoming check, even if the first check is only for a few days and still isn’t due for a little bit yet. You still know that it is coming. One needs no longer fuck about mit das Gub’ment for unemployment payouts weekly to obtain the barest means of covering one’s car insurance, gas, any other bill you can sort of squeeze in there and the weekly ration of ramen, frozen veggies and tuna that become creative “casseroles”. Man, it’s a relief. I remember telling someone a while ago that I really missed being able to bitch about my day at the job. Know why? Because doing so is a luxury. It usually means your job isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and you need to vent before going in for another day of work, because it will all be there again for you tomorrow. Correct me if I’m wrong, but people who are sincerely concerned about the stability of their positions don’t bitch so much. They talk about it a lot and they freak out, but all in all they’re too worried about what’s going to happen tomorrow because they don’t know what’s going to happen next. I think for the most part, people who are sincerely concerned don’t bitch. They stress, they get headaches, they obsess, they smoke and/or drink too much, all while on the lookout for a new position. People who are secure enough in their positions bitch because they know they can and still go in the next day. Random thought, there.

Yesterday I left the apt.about 7:20a to get to work. Had one HELL of a long day. Y’know the kind, just one thing after another and even if you wrote everything down that you did all day long, it still doesn’t seem to justify all the time you just spent in the office. Spent a good chunk of the day reprioritizing everyone’s “emergency” projects while calling all over the better part of the eastern seaboard in order to track down all the missing receipts I needed to process the thick stack of expense reports I wanted off my desk with a passion. Right near the end of the time I’m actually supposed to leave the office (4:30p), the president of the company comes up, tells me he needs last-minute reservations for one o/our guys to go to San Diego next week at a reasonable rate (oh, Lord) and that Duder needs an aisle seat and whatever non-stop flights might be available. (This was a difficult task.) In the end I did what I could, finally calling it quits around 9p (yup, that’s another 12hr.day, hooray for OT!), but with a lock on a decent fare, though not quite the right schedule, and only a few expense reports to tackle today. ::sighs:: Hopefully that’ll be enough to work with for the time being.

For the most part I’m getting my body used to a fairly normal sleep schedule, being about 5 to 6 hrs., depending. I usually get up somewhere between 5a & 6:30a now, depending on whether or not I can afford to sleep in a little. Last night was rough, though. Even going directly home, dropping my bags, changing into pajamas, curling up under warm blankets & watching ‘Tropic Thunder’ I couldn’t seem to get to sleep. Maddening, that. You know damned well you’ve little time left to sleep before you get up, and your mind’s obsessively workin’ the countdown every time you check the nearest timepiece re:how much more time you’ve just lost thinking about it, but you still can’t force yourself to crash out. Urgh. ::sighs again:: I finally decided to just type this entry out, have the last New Castle I’d stashed in the fridge a couple wks.ago & smoke a little before trying again. Eventually it worked, I just wish it’d worked a little earlier. Luckily I am not a surgeon of any sort, so no one shall die or become disfigured even a little on my watch today...they might just end up w/an unexplained über-order of colored Post-Its and rubber bands when next we receive supplies. :)

All right, I’m off to my previously scheduled tasks for the day, but before I finish up do me a favor at some point today, even just for a second or two. Some people reading this have jobs they really dig, some have ones they don’t love but will more than do for the time being, and some people have jobs that blow goats and make them want to drink heavily even before leaving the cube farm behind for the day. Just take a second, though, and remember that no matter how freakin’ frustrating that shit might be at any given moment, you actually *have* a job. It may not be much to speak of, and you might even curse it every day you go in, but you actually HAVE employment. The economy’s fucked, unemployment’s at an all-time high, and honestly even if you’re moppin’ up Slurpie guts and switching out that 5lb.chili bag right now you have *something*, which is one Hell of a lot more than a lot of other people have right now. Just think about that for a brief second at some point today before shoving another pin in the rubber band voodoo doll you made of your boss or co-worker last week. Could be worse.

...then shove another pin in near the head, ‘cuz that guy should *really* learn to chew with his mouth closed. I mean really.

:)

More later.

~E.

Things to do when you’ve a full tank o/gas & nowhere to be, now with pictures!

Last night I was supposed to meet up w/the Wingmen (the catch-all term I mentally use when referring to anyone who makes it out to Reston on Thurs.nights), but ended up staying @ my folks’ house much later than I planned & missing it. Ran an errand or two instead, then came back to the apt.& promptly crashed the Hell out as, for some reason, the minute I walked through the door I was hit w/a wave o/exhaustion.

As tends to be normal regarding my lack of sleep schedule, I was wide awake just a few hours later @ 4a, unable to go back to bed. After tossing & turning a bit I gave up, donned some pants, and decided to do a few chores around the apt. - dishes, trash, gathering laundry for the wash, etc. Could only stretch that out for about an hour and 1/2 before I was left with nothing further to do for the time being. Didn’t want to sit still & didn’t feel like reading, so I decided I would: 1) go get coffee, and; 2) take my camera phone with me in case I wanted to hit the internet with a barrage of superfluous pictures later. I absolutely adore cold weather, and get positively giddy when it’s both cold AND rainy, so this was a good plan. Put on scrubby clothes, grabbed my phone, hoodie, hat, cigarettes & keys, & headed to the car.

Following are a bunch of pictures you may or may not care about. Click on any one of them to see the actual, larger image. :)

Just before I walked to the driver’s side, I looked down on the miniscule length o/grass paralleling the road & realized the first, bright fall leaves I’d noticed this season were laying at my feet. I thought the colors were pretty, so I took a couple quick pictures, then got in the car.



Drove to the grocery store, picked up my coffee, then spent a few minutes over in the bakery, basking in the scent of freshly baked pastries (that smell, first thing in the morning, makes me all warm inside). Then I headed for the exit when I stopped abruptly just before the door, backed up a few steps, and stared. In front of me, for the first time ever, I saw what is apparently called a “TV Kart”. (Yeah, check out the creepy, animated picture behind *that* link.)


I did not know what the Hell this was & had never seen it before, (Has anyone else? Am I alone here?), so I took a couple close pictures & decided to look it up when I got home.



I kind of figured it had to be *something* child-oriented from the Playskool color scheme & rounded, plastic edges here & there, but after a little research once I got home, I found out that you apparently toss $1 in the machine, and if you’ve a kid w/you, they can watch a video of one of their favorite characters while you’re picking things up.

o_O - Okay, seriously? Maybe it’s just me thinking that’s *way* over the top, but whatever happened that classic child-in-grocery-store scenario? No, not the one where they scream. I’m talking about that game the weeyun gets to play while they sit in the front seat of the shopping cart (y’know, the one you use to hold your bag &/all your small things if you don’t have children), legs dangling out of the plastic kid holes, pointing & asking for all the sugary crap Mom & Dad won’t buy for them, and making weird faces @ all the surrounding shoppers. When you have children with you, how long are you *possibly* thinking of spending in that grocery store? I mean, do you *really* need to put on Bob the Builder while you’re getting milk & hamburger? Just seems silly to me. ::shrugs::

Left there, then drove around for a bit when I saw this:


...over by Best Buy. The place was completely barren, with the exception of this one, car-shaped cart. I thought it was cute that something not actually an automobile was parked in a space, very neatly, way out in the middle of the empty parking lot. I like to imagine there was an inebriated toddler roaming about last night, getting rowdy with some friends, who had to leave his cart in the lot & catch a ride home because he couldn’t drive.

Headed over to Wal-Mart to grab a shirt & something else when I passed this in the aisle:


Was anyone else aware that someone out there is now making “gourmet” spray cheese? I...I don’t know what to say about that, really. I am both disgusted & oddly tempted to try it, though not enough to spend my own money on it. ::shudders:: Oh, America! ::shakes head::

Finished up & headed back to the car. The car to my left was just pulling out of their spot when I heard a crunch on the ground before they drove away. I looked down as they pulled off and saw...


...a now broken, mutilated, Lego Batmobile. Its driver was nowhere to be found. Poor Lego Batman. You could not combat the might burgundy Corolla. We can only hope it was a quick death & construct a 586-piece monument on your behalf (now on sale @ Wal-Mart, 50% off, complete with working gears).

On the way out of the lot I remembered the circus was in town (no, really), and decided to try & find the grounds to see if anyone was roaming about. I did, there wasn’t, so I took pictures anyway. I’ve never been to a circus (seriously), so I looked around the outside. This is not a real circus, mind you, it’s just a parking lot circus. Still & all, it was there, so I checked it out.

I didn’t realize it ‘til I reviewed the pictures later, but with no one around, against the grey background & half-light of the early morning, my pictures of the circus look a little daunting.

Dun dun DUN!


I mean really, does this look like a picture you would use to advertise a place to voluntarily bring children? Doesn’t it look like something from the cover of a B-grade horror flick?


Even *this* picture was a little off-putting.


Oh, and in case THAT wasn’t bad enough, check out their idea of “cheerful advertisement” (Linda & anyone else bothered by clowns DO NOT look @ this):


!!! Really?! Now obviously it’s a terribly creepy sign. What is WORSE is that I took this picture on the edge o/the grounds, in the middle of the drizzle. That rain has accumulated on the sign and it looks like horrifying Grampa clown IS SWEATING. Dude, I’m not even bothered by clowns & *I* thought that was terrible.

After that, I left & headed to the dollar store, remembering I came across something previously that I should’ve posted a pic o/then, which cracks me up:


This is the Dollar Store’s “AXE” knock-off. I love the fact that it’s completely blunt w/the name. “Use this and you shall reach an important base!” It *claims* to be the scent of “Cool Excitement”, which brings to mind...well, never mind, that’s just silly. What it ACTUALLY smells like is Irish Spring ground into burnt carpet. It’s kinda terrible, but then again it’s the dollar store.

After this I left & headed home to actually *do* my laundry when I remembered something else I needed to show you guys. See, this apt.complex is a classy joint. Know how I know this? Art in the laundry room. By laundry room I mean single-washer-&-dryer-on-ea.level-stuffed-in-a-barely-closet-sized-room. By artwork I mean...well...


(ahem)


That’s right, inside the laundry closet, over the pay washing machine, mounted haphazardly lovingly on the cinder block wall, just to the right o/the pipe work there hangs a faux gilt-framed painting of a freaking.FOX.HUNT...because we are full of class...and also apparently on a country estate. ::shakes head:: I had to share, it was just too fucking funny.

All righty, I’m off to handle a couple more things. If I were Jon Stewart, I would now sign off by prepping an image (say, like Zena Saunders’ painting, “Playing House”) and saying, “And now, your moment of Zen.”


:)

More later.

~E.

Insomnia...

“It's at night, when perhaps we should be dreaming, that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull. I don't know if anyone has ever pointed out that great attraction of insomnia before, but it is so; the night seems to release a little more of our vast backward inheritance of instincts and feelings; as with the dawn, a little honey is allowed to ooze between the lips of the sandwich, a little of the stuff of dreams to drip into the waking mind. I wish I believed, as J. B. Priestley did, that consciousness continues after disembodiment or death, not forever, but for a long while. Three score years and ten is such a stingy ration of time, when there is so much time around. Perhaps that's why some of us are insomniacs; night is so precious that it would be pusillanimous to sleep all through it! A "bad night" is not always a bad thing." ~Brian W. Aldiss

Hm. ::smiles:: What a lovely way to put it. I think this has just become one of my favorite reflections on one of my most common, and least favorite, afflictions.

I really dig the second to last sentence.

More later.

~E.

7 random things I'm thinking about at the moment...

1. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m going to again: The Brad Sucks album has become one of my absolute favorite driving-home-late pieces of music. If I don’t hit too many lights on the drive & there’s not much traffic, it runs the perfect length o/time to drive from 509 to Vienna, walk from the car to the house, and *just* cross the threshold without skipping a single song. Sometimes this feels a little bit magical.


2. The Lifetime channel is showing Christmas movies in July. This is both ridiculous & fired. Lifetime was likely created for those who simply can’t get enough terrible daytime TV, and is really just a cross between truly awful soap operas & after-school specials for adults. For people with those kinds of needs, however, there is now a whole channel that shows outdated, poorly written shows all day long, all the time, forever. Pfft.
   
   ...having said this, I freely admit that I *still* check it regularly while channel surfing.


3. I’ve had a grand total of 5.5 hours sleep in the last 2 days. Night before last this was due to an inability to stay asleep past 3.5 hours. Last night it was my own damned fault because I stayed up @ 509, then got up early on purpose. Was invited to watch a movie back at the Reston apt.w/Katie & Nicholas last night, but I didn’t feel okay driving yet considering the alcohol & my severe lack of sleep lately. Decided to take a nap for a couple hours before going home to be on the safe side (worked like a charm), then got up at 5a, loaded my stuff into the car, & helped Maam pick up a metric fuck-ton of fireworks refuse left in the road of the cul-de-sac. It’d be way more impressive if I said something like, “Keeping the streets clean...for AMERICA!” but really it was just me in yesterday’s clothes, sweeping the street with a broom, & Maam in a nightgown with a plastic bag, putting away whatever I was able to shuffle over to the curb.
   
   After over an hour of this we decided things were good enough. She gave me a hug before I left, but both of us were so gross & sticky from being out in the hot, lightly raining weather for so long that it was sort of an “Aw!” moment, immediately followed by an, “Ew, gih!” moment as ea.o/us quickly pulling back & shared mutual, albeit amused, disgust with our yucktacular states.


4. Last night Debbie said she referenced our last 3 hr., multi-store grocery excursion & my love for all things culinary by telling someone, “E. shops for groceries like other women shop for shoes!”
   
   I thought the way she put it was pretty keen. Also it makes me sound like a little less of a complete fattie than saying something like, “Oh my God, she spends *hours* in food stores. HOURS I tell you!” ::laughs::


5. (This is a girly complaint you can totally skip if you like...) I am not friends with my ovaries right now. They are terrible, wretched little monsters that hurt me in my hurting place for no good reason. If they continue to misbehave so atrociously & wreak havoc on me in this fashion, I’m going to divorce them due to irreconcilable differences & an abusive relationship. ::looks in direction of said organs:: Did you hear that you little jerks? Keep this up & we’re going to have a very specific conversation involving a knife and an ice cream scoop. I feel kind of like I’m stuck babysitting someone else’s ill-raised, very poorly behaved toddlers, and I can’t kick them out, and I don’t know when they’re going home.


6. It is raining & dreary & beautiful outside right now. I think it’s lovely, and if it weren’t for the fact that it’s so humid and warm, I’d be out in the rain. Instead, I believe I’ll try to spend as much of the day as possible in pajamas, looking out the window on occasion, watching movies, & getting lost in other people’s fictitious lives.


7. In keeping with the tangent theme of this post, whenever you’re having a rough time of things & find yourself grasping at straws to keep your hopes up, try to remind yourself that things could likely be worse. You could be:
   
   
   • On fire.
   
   
   • Afflicted with some terrible sort of crotch-rot.
   
   
   • This guy. I mean...damn.