Biscuit: Tasty Doesn't Get You A Date To The Prom

I have been in the market for a good bed for quite some time. Back in May, I found a bed of which I was really quite fond. I was even willing to overlook the fact that it came from Crate and Barrel, which as far as I am concerned should really just stick to making margarita glasses and grapefruit spoons. I even posted a picture of this beautiful iron, canopy bed here in these pages, but I am far too lazy at the moment to go back and find the entry so as to provide a link for you. Feel free to browse my archives if you like.

(Side note: That sounded awfully dirty. "Hey, baby...wanna browse my archive?")

Sadly, by the time I actually went to purchase this bed, a mere two or three months later, Crate and Barrel had discontinued the damned thing, and left no evidence that it ever existed. I was back to Square One.

(Side note: Does anybody else remember Square One TV? With all those number games? And Mathnet? Kate and George on Mathnet, unravelling mysteries with the help of the Fibonacci Sequence?)

Yesterday, then, I resorted to googling for "iron bed canopy" and the first result...oh, boy. I opened the page and my breath caught in my throat. This bed was meant for me. It was destined to be mine from the very dawn of time! I give you...The Perfect Bed.

Now, seeing this bed and going all squidgy inside inspired me. My bedroom, Royal Bedchamber though it may be, has been in a sorry state of disrepair for quite some time. Ever since I moved in, really. And it only got worse with the addition of piles of clothes and random stacks of CDs lolling about. So last night, with the design assistance of one Taydo, I not only cleaned my room, I rearranged it. Here is Before and After. It finally feels like a real bedroom!

I suppose this could have been helped by the removal of several bags of tchotchkes. It hurt to throw those away, people. You know how I feel about inanimate objects. Damn good thing I had StyleGirl there to physically put things into the trashbag, while I buried my head beneath my down comforter and pretended not to hear the crunching noises.

(Side note: The only way she actually got me to agree to part with things like my keychain with a stuffed lion on the end and my Minnie Mouse doll and my still-in-the-package model of the Enterprise-D and my glittery toy kaleidoscope was to ask the question: "Okay. What would the guys from Queer Eye say if they saw your room looking like this??" "They'd say to throw it away. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh.")

So, to sum up: Room totally revamped. New bed: On order next week. Oh, and One More Thing:

I almost choked on my own tongue when I thought about that bed, my red velvet curtains, matching red flannel sheets, and gold silk duvet cover (all currently in storage for the summer, replaced by lightweight cream-colored cotton, and all coming out of storage when my new bed arrives). That bed is all I really need to finally complete the "Royal" part of "Royal Bedchamber." The cosmos will simply not be able to resist playing this for me every time I enter a room.

(Sidenote: I have always wanted my own personal theme music. Get on that, someone, would you?)

And without further ado, away I go. Off to Colorado to finally meet my little pumpkinheaded nephew. Wish me luck as I once again brave the wilds of Denver, and think fondly of my eventual return to civilization, late Monday night.

Who knew that Conditional Text could be quite so exciting as I am currently finding it?

See if you can follow me, here:

I am using the same block of text (a.k.a., "text inset") in two different chapters, one entitled System Configuration, and the other Users and Groups. Cross-references within that text inset were originally all pointing to the same page, except the first chapter needed them to point to page, say, 20, and the second chapter needed them to point to, for example, page 125.

How to resolve this conundrum? Would I actually be reduced to using two separate blocks of text, individually maintained, just to get different cross-references?

No!

Conditional Text!

Condition 1: I am a text inset, and I live inside Chapter I.iii, System Configuration! I will point to page 20!

Condition 2: I am the exact same text inset, but I currently reside in my summer home, Chapter III.i, Users and Groups! I will point to page 125!

God damn. As much as I hate writing technical manuals, every now and then I will have an epiphany on the level of the one I just experienced, re: Conditional Text, and I feel all right again.

Then, of course, I realize that I just got so excited over the concept of Conditional Text that I actually called my boss over to show it off, and THEN I wrote an entire diary entry praising it, and I get very concerned as to my overall mental well-being.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

Studies have shown that techno-metal-industrial-classical German band "Rammstein" may be the best music for computer programming, ever.

This study, while limited in focus to a single respondent, nevertheless has far-reaching implications in the computer industry. If computer programmers the world over listened to Rammstein as they worked, preferably at volumes at or above 110-115 decibels, code in general would end up being at least 35-50% more hard-core and bad-ass, the study concludes.

Why so bad-ass? The subject (and author, truth be told) of this study claims to reap the benefits of increased energy and feelings of rockness while listening to the screaming sextet. "It's like," he says, "It's like I'm in a movie about computer programmers, and I'm the main programmer guy, and I'm in the middle of my montage sequence, right? Where I have to code something really hard or really important and I have to do it really fast and maybe there are a few cuts to me scribbling something with a lot of arrows onto a yellow legal pad or a large chalkboard, and then back to my fingers flying over the keyboard, and then maybe cutting back to me crossing everything out that I just scribbled, and of course a lot of me spinning around dramatically and rolling across a dark room in a wheely-chair to get to another computer, and every once in a while you see me down another shot of vodka and there's some sweat beading on my forehead and a lot of shots of my various computer monitors where highly-unrealistic computer interfaces are flashing very fancy computer graphics at me, and then at the end I pump my fists in the air and spin around in the chair and take a swig right out of the bottle because I just coded what I had to get done in time. And the Rammstein is, like, totally my personal, loud, screamy, Germanic soundtrack. Like Hugh Jackman did? In that movie where he had to break into some government computer while some girl was going down on him so he couldn't concentrate and John Travolta had a gun to his head? Except later in the movie. Not the part with the girl and the sex, though. The montage-y bit. You know the one."

The study also notes that the subject then hung his head, sighed, and added, "Even when all I'm doing is creating an auto-generating table of contents for a technical manual, and not, say, hacking into an evil spy network and saving the world." Further applications of Rammstein were effective in restoring his earlier ebullient mood.

I am grumpy and sad and tired and hungry and bored and sick and if I do not leave work right now I am either going to throw up or cry or both.

Just one of those days.

Another very short and pointless entry in which I complain about something stupid:

Adobe FrameMaker can just go fucking suck it. I swear to god, if they had set out with the express goal of making conversion to HTML as difficult as humanly possible, they would have come up with an easier-to-use method than that with which they have left me.

And I am trying to type a scream here that effectively expresses my frustration, and nothing is good enough. So just imagine one on my behalf.

Also, I apologize for being a big stupid lump lately. I will try to be more fun soon. Maybe once Mercury comes out of retrograde. Ha.

In an effort to cancel all the negativity I've been blathering about lately (when I could be bothered to blather at all), here is a catalog of exciting fun activities:

On Saturday, I went to a Howard Dean fundraiser, with special guests Whoopi Goldberg, Al Franken, Gloria Gaynor, and special surprise guest Janeane Garofalo! It was in a big ol' gay dance club, so it was very strange seeing a bunch of middle-aged people in button-ups dancing awkwardly to "I Will Survive," in a place where I have previously only seen a bunch of sweaty drugged-out shirtless homos...dancing awkwardly to "I Will Survive."

(Sidenote: I used to find it very difficult to spell Janeane Garofalo's name, until I realized it followed the same pattern as chihuahua. Chi-hua-hua, J-ane-ane. Simple!)

On Monday night I went to Monday Night Magic, a show at the Soho Playhouse featuring a rotating crew of traveling magicians. It is absolutely impossible to be in a bad mood after a good magic show, and this was one of the best, and funniest, ones I have ever seen. Plus, I actually saw someone get proposed to during the magic show (no, that part was real) and the whole theater erupted in huge big loud cheering and it might have been the cutest thing ever.

Tonight is a Shiv show, which is always big bouncy fun! I have not been to one in what seems like ninety years!

And now, I am heading out to lunch -- I just faxed in my order for a burrito. Yes, that burrito. I have to go pick it up! And eat it!

Someday soon, I will be fun and interesting again. I know I keep saying that. But this time I really mean it. One and a half more weeks of this crap at work, and then I get to return to normal!

Oh! And a VERY special and VERY heartfelt thank you goes here: Ramanda, you saved my sanity and my life when you reminded me of the existence of WebWorks Publisher, for all my HTML conversion needs. I seriously almost kicked my own ass off when I realized I had completely forgotten about it. You rule and I love you.

Also, who wants to come to my house for Thanksgiving? I'm starting to put together the menu. What do you want to bring?

I smell like a dentist's office right now. The kind of dentist's office containing someone who has just had his teeth drilled off.

See, I have this friend. And once, he was wearing a sweater. And he kept touching his lit Zippo to the sweater, despite me sucking in my breath through my teeth every time because I was sure he was about to burst into flames. Apparently, it's a very good trick for eliminating sweater fuzzies, and it seemed to be doing a bang-up job on him.

Since I am wearing my first sweater of the season today, I decided to be brave. I decided to try the trick.

It did not work. I have burned off no fuzzies at all. And instead, I think I just charred bits of my sweater. I smell burny, but that particular burny that is the smell of drilled teeth. I find that scent to be less than alluring.

Also, last night someone locked my cat in my bedroom. Apparently, she really needed to get to her little kitty litter box, and could not. In lieu of that, she used the very exact middle of my down comforter. The very. Exact. Middle. And at risk of being far too graphic (I cannot even begin to cope with the word for poo, much less the concept in actuality) it seems as if she had had to go for quite some time. I ended up throwing away both my duvet cover and my sheets, across which my incontinent kitty had tracked her...leavings.

It is a tremendously good thing that I was just about to make the switch from cream-colored cotton to maroon flannel -- my fall change-up just came a few days early. When I get home tonight, I am putting up the velvet curtains again, too.

Upshot: I am not having fun with smells lately.

The following one-sided AIM conversation is an example of how one's brain can jump the tracks from thinking of something positive and suddenly lurch into being freaked out about something almost completely unrelated.

Ful: I rock.

Ful: I just created a new plan

Ful: to repay all of my student loan

Ful: using automatic withdrawal on the 15th of every month

Ful: so I can't forget about it

Ful: and at the end of 12 months,

Ful: they will cancel my late-payment penalty fees

Ful: and remove any and all negative listings on my Official Credit Report about it

Ful: and my credit report will smell sweet and lovely

Ful: and I will have paid off my student loan

Ful: and there will be

Ful: absolutely NOTHING AT ALL

Ful: standing in my way

Ful: of getting a NEW LOAN

Ful: for FCI

Ful: in ONE YEAR

Ful: and it's a long-term goal

Ful: but still a visible one

Ful: and I will be only 27

Ful: and so I will finish the program in ANOTHER year so I will be 28

Ful: and start working in a kitchen and thereby become a famous chef by the time I'm 30.

Ful: THIRTY.

Ful: I'm going to be THIRTY.

Ful: Oh holy jesus fucking fuck, I'm going to be 30.

Ful: That wasn't the POINT of all this rambling that you're not even there to see,

Ful: but FUCKING HOLY JUMPING CHRIST

Ful: I'm going to be 30.

Ful: That is all.

There is a scene in a play, or maybe it is just a one-act, or maybe it is just a single scene sitting all by itself somewhere. In it, a man and a woman are having a conversation, and whenever one of them says something wrong or inappropriate or just something the other one plain does not like, they hit a little bell and the dialogue backs up a line, and they keep hitting the bell until the other person gets it right.

There are times in my life when I really wish I had that bell.

Let us say, for example, that the two people in the aforementioned scene were having this conversation:

"He sure has been sending you a lot of messages."

"Yeah."

"Hey, next time you write him, tell him to stop flirtin' wit' my man. Ha ha!"

"He's not flirting."

"Of course he's flirting with you."

"No, he's not flirting."

"Yes, he is. He's totally flirting."

"Well, fine. YOU can doubt his motivations all you like. Although...I suppose I kind of doubt his motivations too."

"Right. Because he's flirting."

(Now, after the next line would be when the bell begins ringing. Ringing in vain, I might add.)

"Okay, fine. He's flirting with me. But sometimes it's really fun when someone flirts with you."

(BING BING BING BING BING -- but you might notice, the conversation does NOT, in fact, back up, much to my...err, the imaginary protagonist's...chagrin.)

"Oh, it is, is it?"

"Relax. I mean, it's not like anything's going to COME of it. Because he's only nineteen."

(BING BING BING BING BING -- the bell chimes, in a futile attempt to make the other person realize that, first, please do not tell the person you are dating that you enjoy flirting with strangers, and second, please do not attempt to reassure him that everything will be okay because the other flirter is only nineteen, rather than saying "Nothing would possibly ever come of it because I am far too much in love with you.")

The curse of being a touchy, possessive, proud Leo. Bing.