February 2004 Archives

Last week, we lost another friend to cancer. Vona Pumphrey was 64. She lived healthy--really healthy. If anybody could live to a ripe old age through meticulous attention to diet, and holistic regimens, it should have been her. But it doesn't work that way.

About a week before that, another good friend, Jon, lost his Dad. He was scheduled to have brain surgery to remove a mass, something went wrong, he suffered a perforated aneurysm and died a few days later.

It feels like cancer is everywhere, in everybody, snarling and pacing, just waiting for somebody to leave the latch on the cage undone. Really, I'm sure it seems so prevalent mostly because people don't die as often of flu, consumption and gangrene in their 20s and 30s anymore. So we just get better opportunity to watch the flaws in our genetic code in painful slow motion. I fretted over the big-C since I was a little kid when my grandfather died of it. Now I think about it and find myself touching the lump behind my collarbone, wondering if the old scar tissue has changed size any. Worrying doesn't do any good, as they say. It just makes things worse. Yeah, yeah. I'd need shock therapy to wipe out that little self-destructive thought process. I just have to convert it to sassiness on a regular basis.

Alrighty, a couple progress notes:

1. Dvorak typing speed is up to 49 wpm @ 98% accuracy. :: golf clap ::

2. As of this weekend, I've lost 21 lbs. since October.

Now, first thing in the morning when I get out of bed, I have to be careful lest I float up and crack my head on the ceiling. And when I leave the house, I can cross a patch of freshly fallen snow, lithe and nimble as the wind, leaving nary a mark of my passing. I am like Christopher Walken in the Weapon of Choice video. The gravity boots are really coming in handy.

3. Still not sporting a six-pack.

Also, a couple touching search queries that lead to my site recently:
1. will a DUI get me fired
2. what do nictating women do to men

Been dealing with bad breath lately. Other people's bad breath. Heck, maybe mine too, but I can't tell. It seems like February has been really bad for halitosis. And it's from people I haven't noticed it from before. A couple folks here at work in fact, among others. I'm not talking fresh weepy onion breath, or 'I just had a saurkraut on aged rye' breath, or even nasty bitter coffee breath. I'm talking about 'the fruit bowl went bad last week' breath, and 'turn ye aside for here thar be hot dogs days old' breath, and 'I ate the cigar while it was still lit' breath. I'm trying to get you to picture kitty yawns, and blue mold on green chicken leftovers, and Mommmm, the dog's been eating you-know-what again. I'm saying it's really not easy to continuously exhale slowly through your nose while listening to a long, close-quarters conversation. This is one of the reasons personal space bubbles were invented. I may start carrying my Eclipse gum at all times and handing out free samples. "Oh goodness! Is my breath bad?"..."A tad. Just a tad. Also less closeness."

Harrison was a huge crab this morning. Everything set him off. Especially being called Grouchbutt. I remember Grandma used to try and get me to drink coffee when I was a kid. Might not be such a bad idea.

Well, I finally succumbed and fired an email off to our building maintenance guy yesterday asking if he would check our vents and maybe nudge the office temperature up a little bit. A couple hours after I sent the message, one of the raw materials guys pops in to drop off some samples for color approval and as he steps in the room he says, "Dang, it's hot in here!" Funny guy. I'm chafing a couple holes in my shirt as we speak. So now all the gruffs back in the warehouse know me for the whiny princess that I am. No pretenses. Way to be.

Yesterday, for no apparent reason, Giselle asked me how people who speak sign language scream. For a split second I was stumped. But then I just explained that they cup their hands on either side of their face while making their mouth into a big 'O' and then they hop around and try to get everybody to see them.

No. I didn't really tell her that. Not that I wasn't tempted. But I did make it clear that the deaf can scream just as well, if not better than anyone else. Except for her. Nobody can scream better than her.

We shampooed the living room and hallway carpets this weekend. The heiroglyphic stain patterns are now artistically muted. Faux aging with an Orek Steemer. It works.

Today's to-do list sits before me like a bucket of odds & ends Legos. I know they're not going to fit together the way I want (too many flat pieces), and there's a fair share of cat hair, lint and Playdough mixed in to boot. Not a pretty mortar. But I have an audience, and I must build this raggedy fort no matter the aesthetics.