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

My thoughts on snow can probably be encapsulated here, save the desire for a Snow Day, as if I have a snow day I do not get paid and then can not pay my rent and get kicked out of my apartment...into the snow.

I will add, however, that the car stereo installation place on 4th Ave seriously needs to get off its ass and shovel.

I was a very bad monkey last night.

I was supposed to go to school and take a bunch of notes and listen to people and try to do things like math, but by the end of the working day, I could not handle it. Yesterday was kind of intense -- I found out some bad news that means I will almost certainly have to move back to Colorado for a month this summer (yes, only a month, but it is still a big fat pain in the ass) and it will probably be really expensive to do so. I spent my afternoon filling out FAFSAs and calling school officials, and I think if I had to do one more school-related thing yesterday, my brain would have done that thing that happens when you stomp on a ketchup packet. So instead, I trudged (rather guiltily) home, sat on the Klaus, and polished off both book 10 of A Series Of Unfortunate Events, and a bottle of Bailey's.

I passed out about half an hour after getting home, and woke up 'round about 11, drank some tea (English Breakfast, you had me at hello), and watched the first half of The Last Unicorn, god only knows why. The best part of the night came when I was telling Mike about how APPARENTLY stupid horrible ugly Bill Gates is about to be KNIGHTED and I am NOT, which really was just the kicker in making my day craptastic:

Me: So do you want to KNOW what the ICING was on today's big ugly STINK-CAKE??

Patches: ...Stink...cake? When did you eat a stink cake?

Me: PfaaaaaaHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! No, it's not a real...it's just a phrase, you know, icing on the...PAAHAHA!!!

Patches: Shut. Up.

Things have been more than a little hectic around Ye Olde Castle lately, leaving me in the position of wanting very much to write down everything that is happening, but generally far too tired to do so. Aside from the general task of burning my candle not only on both ends but also on several bits of wick sticking out of the sides, never getting any sleep, taking a red-eye (see below) and alternating between trying to doze in the only restful position available to me -- head somehow, improbably, on my own knees -- and singing "No! Sleep! Til Brooklyn!" in my head, the big news of the past week is that I have, very seriously, the awesomest friends that probably ever were.

Well. That is probably not exactly NEWS, as one would imagine that is pretty common knowledge by now. But in this particular case -- well. See, a few weeks ago? I was whining and going on about how I wanted to get out of the city and how I wanted to visit my family in Colorado and plane tickets were expensive so I could not afford to go, etc etc. So Krissa starts a secret email conversation, and within maybe an hour? Hour and a half? The girls have gotten together, pooled the cash that they did not really have in the first place, and hand over the money for a trip back home. It was (and still is) a little much for me to process. It is a rare thing to come across people who are so wonderful and generous and so willing to help their friends, any time they need it. And not only do I count myself incredibly lucky to have them all in my life, it also meant I was on hand to snap this photo of the adorablest nephew in the world.

I begin this entry by quoting myself, circa February 28, 2002:

"Were I a superhero, my fatal weakness might very well be Thin Mint cookies. I have sucked down four tubes of that Girl Scout Goodness in two days. A supervillain might someday be on the rampage, Super Me the only thing between him and total world domination, and I would stop at the store because I heard there was a sale on Thin Mint ice cream -- and all would be lost. Moral: Do not trust me with the task of saving the world from supervillains."

Keep this in mind as I explain to you that I have two boxes of Thin Mints in my house. Unopened. They have been there for over a week, after my mom stuffed them into the interstices of my packed baggage when I was getting ready to come back to New York.

Two boxes of Thin Mints represent a daily temptation, one that regularly requires an almost Herculean effort of will to overcome. I can hear them singing their Siren Song, "One tube won't hurt, one tube won't hurt, come suck down some cookies, just one tube won't hurt," over and over. They have their own demonic pulse, reverberating through my living room like The Tell-Tale Heart.

And yet I resist. Why? What could keep me from those little chocolate-covered discs of pure joy?

I saw an ab. I saw an ab, and it was attached to me. Hidden in my very own stomach is a real, honest to goodness ab. I have been exercising almost every day: both my muscles, and my restraint. Recently there has been the slightest hint of a line running down my midsection, just a bare division between one half of my tummy and the other. Just at the top, mind you, right up next to my ribs, before it shades down into the rounder part of my tum-tum that I still need to shed. But I have never seen an ab on me before, and by god, I want to see more than one. I want to see, like, six. Six abs. Before summer.

I am going to save all four extant tubes of Thin Mints until then. They will live with me, under my roof, sheltered from the elements and my own ravening hunger. Each day that I resist them I will grow stronger! And on the day that I have six full-fledged abs, I will have conquered the Thin Mints. They will be broken and defeated, and I will no longer need to prove myself.

And then I can suck them all down in one wild, celebratory sitting.

I have been trying to write an entry all damned day but I have been sidetracked by any number of bureaucratic (man it takes me a while to remember how to spell that sometimes) issues including overnighted tuition deposit checks combined with the fun of my employer's bank not actually paying me my paycheck because it has, and I quote, "something wrong with it." The two together do not make for a very enjoyable afternoon.

At least I found out that after my second exam next Tuesday, I get a whole week off school! I am now taking suggestions for how I should spend all that free time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LOVELY, WONDERFUL, TALENTED, GORGEOUS, AMAZING, GLITTERY, ANGELIC, DEMONIC, VIVACIOUS, LOQUACIOUS, INCREDIBLE, TOO-COOL-FOR-SCHOOL, FANTABULOTASTIC SHIV!!!

Incredibly sadly, I cannot make it to The Shivs' show tonight (and yes that apostrophe is exactly where I want it to be) because of thrice-bedratted school, but!! If you are on the lookout for a kick-ASS rockshow to kick off your St. Patrick's Night, head on over to the C-Note tonight (10th and C) at 7 pm sharp. There is no cover, the drinks are great, and the music is even better. Be sure to scream a few "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"s on my behalf. And Shivvybugfacehoneylove? I will be seeing YOU for birthday drinks after!

I like to think of myself as a very skilled multitasker. I can balance any number of projects at once, doing any number of different things.

Apparently, I am not so hot at talking and typing at the same time.

See. I was just chatting online with this one, at the same time that I was trying to negotiate one of those fucking dreadful voice-activated robotic receptionists over at the bill payment center at Cingular. In my IM window, I was discussing things like my wheat-free vegan cookie that was disappointingly good, and the fact that the maintenance guy drilling holes in something down the hall made me feel like I was in a dentist's office. On the phone, I was discussing things like "Pay my bill. No. Bill. Pay my bill. Yes. Now. (sigh) PAY MY BILL NOW. Yes."

All was fine until my IM-partner asked if I had, as a means of coping with the drilling noises, "tried plugging your ears and shouting LA LA LA LA LA?" I typed back, "Not yet. I'm close." At the same time, Roboceptionist over there asked me for my five-digit billing zip code, to which I replied, rather loudly to be sure she understood each and every digit, "I'M CLOSE."

Cell phone: $100. March cell phone bill: $80. Instant messenger program: free download. Suddenly feeling like you are having loud, public phone sex with the Roboceptionist: priceless.

There have been people talking about not writing and people talking about people talking about not writing and now I am talking about people talking about people talking about not writing. Now someone just needs to reference me, and the entire world will collapse into one big self-referential black hole.

I would say something about how the past week has been rough, but most of my past weeks have been rough. Nothing terribly bad, just sort too many things happening at once for me to keep my brain entirely on-track. At least after ages of tracking applications and making phone calls and overnighting deposit checks, I am officially enrolled in my summer classes at Boulder. A month-long vacation in Colorado in the summer does not suck. I am very probably going to be the oldest person to ever live in a dorm, and it has been pointed out to me that I should use this opportunity to cultivate a new persona. I think I might have the most fun sauntering around like Ian Somerhalder in "The Rules of Attraction." I think that may require a new wardrobe. I think I am okay with that.

Speaking of new wardrobes, if any rich people feel like buying me presents, they may start with this.

She is not embroidering the truth here; we really did have this conversation.