Und der Kittenbox mach ein grobe gehen

www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com. Proving once again that the internet is a wonderful and glorious tool.

Scraping the life back in order after California -- I still have Christmas cards to open and the cousin/roommate has already taken down the tree (Veda liked to climb it and pee on it, so...). I don't think I have clean clothes to wear to work today, which means dressing up in skirts n' junk.

It was a good if busy holiday. Family time is a special time full of anger, disappointment and envy, but travel means being able to finally read some non-school books: Ian Fleming's short stories ... dude ... 3 really good ones and some that just serve to expose Fleming's inner weirdo; Robert Wagner's autobiography, which I read in one day because I couldn't stop -- Barbara Stanwyck, that's all I'm sayin'. Pick it up. Read it now.; and I started Gene Wilder's "My French Whore" which is pretty delightful so far.

Flight Highlights:

- getting to the airport 2 hours before the flight (3:30 am) only to discover that airport employees don't start work until an hour before the flight
- getting docked $25 for my second suitcase after being told by email that it was only $15 and that was because gas prices were high and now that they're low again ... what the?
- sitting for an hour in Portland as they de-ice the plane twice and breathing in that toxic nastiness while the autistic woman next to me repeated random phrases like "Windows," "Posted Placards" and "Bathroom"
- oh yeah, she would repeat them by leaning over into my personal space to make sure I heard her
- coming back next to the extra-large man who wouldn't put down the arm rest and then proceed to try to sleep with his head on the tray table

But my luggage got to the carousel without underpants falling out, so all-in-all a successful journey.

Now I just really, really want to sleep.

Merry Xbox

The last card has been sent. Santa has already come to the house (and left a lovely King Size KitKat bar) and Netflix has sent Kal Ho Naa Ho just in time to take it on the plane to California. Dear person who will sit next to me, I'll try not to dance to this in my seat, but I can't promise anything.

I don't like Christmas in general because I don't think you should be nice to people only one day a year, so pretend this is just like any other day ... oh, except that it's also D.W.'s birthday.

And that makes it special.

See you all in a few days.

How do you NOT dance to it?

Snap

It's freezing here. No. Really. I know, that sounds wussy to my friends "back East" but we don't usually get down to 10 degrees here in Eugene. It just ain't fittin'. I was kicking icicles off the bumper of the car yesterday. That ain't right. That ain't Oregon.

But the Christmas cards are done and I shipped off the wee brother's presents yesterday, so I feel I'm ahead of the game holiday-wise. Sure I've still got to come up with gambling money for next week and it's going to be freezing rain and snow today which kiboshes shopping for in-town family, but that doesn't mean I can't keep changing my avatar on Rock Band, right? I need to figure out how to screen shot it for the blog. She's all cuted up -- although I don't remember opting in on the tongue piercing ... that's troubling.

Grindhouse now rocks most of Western Europe (Dublin was particularly receptive to our panicky sight-reading of "Alex Chilton") and once we win that plane in Madrid ... dude ...

It's a little bit of a concern that we only just bought this thing on Saturday. I'm afraid the early obsession will quickly turn into boredom and then resentment. Are there help groups, therapy sessions, for people who have lost the love for Rock Band 2? Or am I anticipating all of this disappointment simply to keep off the depression that will come with failure once we stop playing on the Easy level?

It's 12 degrees outside and Christmas is next week.

How the hell did this happen?

You Only Christmas Twice

Friday I got the report that the platelets were down again (42), and the doctor doesn't seem too concerned that they're going the wrong way, although we just watched an episode of House where there was fictional concern that a patient's platelets were down to 35, but anyway... not happy.

Saturday the cousin/roommate's parents left town and I shopped for other people n' junk and then ran across town and went to the company Christmas party where the boss kept asking cousin/roommate/coworker and me to sit at the big table, but since we were kind of cheating on the one free drink (I gave mine to the c/r/c) ... it just wouldn't be fittin' to do that in front of the guy who was paying, ya know?

And throughout all of this we keep hearing about STORM WATCH with the worst snow in 10 years on the way, and me with no paper to write and no story to cover in other towns, decided we needed a stay-in day. So with everything taken care of Saturday afternoon, Saturday night we bought Rock Band 2.

This is the bestest Christmas present EVER.

MPH on drums and Veda Vacant on guitar (and some other people who fill in, like the female vocalist who sings like Beck) ... ladies and gentlemen, presenting ... GRINDHOUSE.

We've already won a van and traveled from our hometown of Stockholm to Amsterdam. We've rocked out enough for me to buy the combat shorts I'd had my eye on. I toyed with piercings, but I've got this librarian look going and I'm not sure yet where I want to go with the face jewelry.

We'll see.

I love Christmas.

Debtors ring, are ya listenin'...

End of term, time to sleep and reassess the meaning of it all, and buy a bunch of stuff I can't afford.

Actually, the cousin/roommate's been spending the most $$ lately, but he can afford it since he ain't got none credit card debt.

Really, that's our house n' stuff. We live with this beautiful oak bit of loveliness. The decorations are by the cousin/roommate's mom. Isn't that a sweet buffet? I envision having decanters of scotch on top so I can invite people in and offer them a drink. Or, on our hunting party weekends we'll put out the samovar and the heated pans of eggs and Irish bacon. "Have you breakfasted yet, Sir Henry?"

Or we'll store tea things and playing cards in it.

This is the cousin/roommate's bed.

Yeah ... I don't want to talk smack about Ikea, but you can see why I feel a little ashame'd to be sharing a house with this across the hall from my rounded pine Schuflenfurger.

Thank you all for your nice comments on the story -- it helped me rate an A+ in Reporting II. Do I still want to give up on reporting? ... ... eeeyeah, kinda. It's fun and all, but the chances of scoring a job right now are really slim. And, honestly, I just want Ebert's gig at the Sun. The name dropping and reminiscing that fills the reviews now ... dude. Gimme da keys.

okay okay

School meeting story here.

This week's city council story should be up later ... although he was doing a lot of editing. It was late. I'd been up since 3:30 am, so I don't expect front page this time. After the high comes the low low.

DUDE!

Not only did I make the paper, my story was front page at the top.
Front.
Page.
Top Story.

As God as my witness, I'll never be humble again.

Ladies and Gentleman, I'm a Cook!

Saw my name in print yesterday. I like the taste of it.

Reporting is still an irritating job, but so is answering questions about erasers, so maybe I'll do both one day. Can't quit the cash cow in favor of a dying medium. But there's something really satisfying about telling someone "I'm Li'l Hateful from the Sentinel -- did you mean what you said about the governor being a big fat liar?" and then seeing "xxx says the governor is 'a big fat liar'" in the paper.

Not that my story included that line ... because it didn't fit and she just said he was "inaccurate" not a liar, but still...

Watched Harold and Maude for class last week. I've seen it about 40 times and it makes me cry every time. Our little Harold ...

I don't think he's a nihilist.

I'm just sayin'.

One more day and then finals and then I can concentrate on important things like blogging. Sweah.