May 7, 2004 It's been a while, you'd think I would have a bunch of stupid things to ramble on about, but no, all I have to bitch about today is the guy that came in this morning and told me that Rush Limbaugh is like a lone voice of sanity in the wilderness. BWWWAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!
March 23, 2004 So I decided to prove just how unexciting I have become by doing my laundry last Friday night, also thinking that everybody else would be out drinking themselves stupid, so I wouldn't have to deal with the laundromat weirdos. Instead, I got to listen to two delightful young spanish gentlemen critique my underwear as it rolled around in the dryer, apparently not realizing that you don't have to know much Spanish to understand "Ay-yi-yiii!!"
March 17, 2004 Yesterday was my niece Aislynn's 13th birthday. Happy birthday, sweetheart! May your future be bright with Port-a-Potties. *uproarious laughter at this inside joke*
February 26, 2004 Once again, it's time for the annual round of madness known as the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. I'm happy to report that I've managed to avoid every place in town where I would be affected by the mass of humanity (little bastard high school kids running around on campus trying to pass themselves off as college students (I know this because I was one at one point), yuppie jazz afficionados, and of course, heaps of actual performers from all over) that surges into Moscow for the week, except of course, for my place of employment, which is just steaming right along at full capacity, much to the delight of my bosses. I myself am pretty damned tired of stupid questions. The theory I came up with while working in Lake Powell (that 90% of tourists leave their brains at home while on vacation) has proved itself to be true over and over again. And that's just today.
So, sometime after midnight last night, I was out taking my dog for the final pee of the day when we came upon his favorite Shittin' Yard at the end of the block, and he's just sniffing right along and pauses on this thing laying in the grass, kind of under a tree. It's dark of course, so I'm standing over it trying to figure out what the hell it is, when it starts making these weird noises and wiggling a little bit and all of a sudden, I realize that I'm looking at a couple of feet (in socks, no shoes). This guy is just laying there (I assume it was a guy at least, I couldn't see anything but feet and legs) completely out cold, with my dog stumbling over him and sniffing his head. Must've been a good night for someone.
February 18, 2004 Yesterday was a damn good day. It started out with me scaring the hell out of the maintenance guy at work, which put me in a pretty good mood, and still makes me giggle uncontrollably today. Then, with a friendly little hint from a friendly tech support guy (which was to do something that the Microsoft troubleshooting thingamajig said absolutely not to do) I finally managed to get the office network up and running, after weeks of beating my head repeatedly against the monitors of every computer in this place. Then, I went home and collected my large black son and went to the dog park, where he was so well-behaved I was thinking there must be something wrong with him. But no, he's just mellowing out a little as he gets older I think, as the puppy fog slowly clears out of his brain. The rest of the day was normal, nothing bad, nothing great, just another evening at la casa de me.
I had a really screwed up dream this morning just before my alarm went off, which you can read about, if you feel the urge, in my log o' dreams.
February 13, 2004 I was going to write something here, but one of my favorite Zeppelin songs just came on the radio, so I have to wait a minute for my brain to come back.......
Okay, to update from last time, I got my wisdom teeth taken out, and everything went better than I'd even hoped, and I was feeling great until four days later, when the hydrocodone made me sick and I had to leave work, and then slept for the rest of the day, then couldn't sleep all that night for all the throbbing, drilling pain that suddenly appeared in my face. So I went to the doctor the next day, who told me that I had a sinus infection and a fever, so I got some antibiotics, that were a bit on the spendy side, but they worked and I'm all better now, and that's all that matters. I'll refrain from describing all the yummy details, like the nasty yellow fluid pouring out of my nose for three days straight that smelled like the abscess my cat had on his foot a few months ago. Mm-mmmmm.
I'm still working on renovations to the various pages of my "web-conglomeration", and things are starting to shape up a little. It's getting a little difficult to contain the sprawl though. This homepage has developed a life of its own and there doesn't seem to be anyway to stop it. Mwaaahahahahahhahahaaaaaaaaa!!!!!
I keep having the urge to start bitching, but I won't. I'll contain my ire and transform it into energy toward something better. I will say, however, that the "joke" of mine about dying an old woman with no one around but my collection of cats seems more and more tangible everyday. The great thing about it is that it doesn't bother me at all.
January 22, 2004 So I went outside last night and there was a mutilated bird frozen to the trunk of my car. Hmmm. How strange. Maybe just a present from one of the cats in my neighborhood. Or an omen of some kind. Or a warning from the Moscow mafia. I just don't know.
I'm going in next Friday to get my upper wisdom teeth taken out, and boy, am I excited about that. They told me that the upper ones are a lot easier (for me and for them) than the bottom ones, which, I would just like to note, were no goddamned fun at all. Ah, well. Give it up for hydrocodone!!
January 16, 2004 Just to follow up on the previous entry, after my pipes were frozen solid for three or four days, they finally just broke (just as the temperature started to drag itself out of the single digits). My landlord told me it would be a few days more until the plumbers could get to me, so, finally tired of having to scout out a toilet whenever nature called, and looking forward to a few days of free cable t.v., I was going to occupy a room at my place of employment for a few days. So, after work, I went home to collect the kids and some clothes, and lo, the water in my kitchen sink was running. Needless to say, I was slightly confused until I managed to get ahold of the plumbers, who said they'd gotten some extra time and went ahead and fixed the pipes. So that was nice, although I was kind of looking forward to being only 20 feet away from work in the bitter-ass, early-ass mornings (I was also opening the lobby at the time, since my bosses were out of town).
In other news, after an extended hiatus, I've rediscovered my lifelong obsession with reading. I finally made use of the library card I got last summer and for the last week have been doing almost nothing with my free time except reading, and taking my dog out to pee...and sleeping of course, but that's beside the point. The last two books I read were just exactly what I like, kinda quirky, kinda strange, with a good healthy shot of humor. And both of them made mention of Finnegan's Wake on a regular basis throughout, so I think that might be a hint from the gods to pick it up next time I'm wandering mindlessly through the friendly neighborhood book vault.
And in still other news, I am incredibly happy and contented with everything around me (well, almost everything), and have been for a few days now, for no good reason except that I'm alive. Could this mean I've finally hit the delirious peak of optimistic enlightenment?? Or is it just an extended manic-depressive upswing?? Hmmm....
January 6, 2004 Maybe someday I will stop being surprised when things turn to complete shit right when I think they're starting to look good. The latest (and least) of my problems is my pipes freezing at my house due to the sub-zero temperatures we've had here for the last few days. So, while I have no running water and can't flush the toilet or take a shower, at least I've got electricity for the heaters, and my kids to keep me warm at night. Optimism, Elaina, optimism.
January 1, 2004 As I was reading Garfield this morning, it occurred to me that Jon Arbuckle might be my cartoon doppelganger. He's a hopeless dork that usually ends up staying at home with his dog and cat while everyone else in the world is out partying. If he was real (or I was a cartoon), we would probably really hit it off.
December 31, 2003 I was sitting here at work the other day and realized that if I lift up the front of my labret stud with my thumb and lift the back with my tongue, I can make a slightly bong-like noise by sucking air in through my lip. Oooh, the possibilities!! I've known for a couple years now that I can shoot spit out of it when I take the stud out, but this new discovery just adds a whole different dimension!! But then, I think it was the same day that I found that out, I was getting ready to take my dog outside and he was bouncing around like an idiot and ended up throwing his head into my labret while I was trying to tie my shoes, which made it go kind of sideways (not a pleasant sensation to begin with) causing the edges of the little flat round part on the back to cut the inside of my lip and my gums, and made a horrendous noise against my teeth. Ouch! It probably didn't feel real great on the top of Wyatt's head either.
Speaking of walking my dog, in most every place I've lived since I've had him I've had a place outside to tie him up when he wants to go outside, but in the apartment I just moved into I haven't done that, I've just been walking him whenever he needs to go out, and taking him to the dog park a couple times a week. I figured it would be a good way for both of us to get some exercise, which is good for me since my exercise regimen for the last few years has been "walk from house to car, from car to work, from work to car, from car to house, repeat", which was only made worse when winter set in, because I would basically go into hibernation. Well, this winter is probably one of the worst winters I've seen in the five years that I've lived in this town, lots of snow, it's bitch-ass cold, and I go wandering around in it all the time. I don't particularly enjoy it, mind you, but there is an upshot: I'm getting used to the bitch-ass cold, so it no longer makes me want to light myself on fire. And my dog is learning some being-on-a-leash etiquette, such as not taking a shit on anybody's lawn unless it's dark outside and we're on a darkened street (I tell him, "Good placement, Flog!"). We've also reached a compromise when it comes to him dragging me along instead of me walking him (I got really tired of hearing, "Who's walking who??" all the time. Ha ha. That's so damn funny). He doesn't drag me around anymore, unless he's got to go really bad and has to make it to his favorite shit yard first, but he walks a little bit faster than I normally would if I was by myself, which I usually don't even notice until I walk somewhere without him and find myself wondering why I'm not going very fast. That extra little bit of Flogpower makes quite a bit of difference.
I've been trying to think of some New Year's resolutions that would be worthwhile if I could manage to actually do them, and all I've got so far is "Get to work on time" and (as always) improving my optimism. I'm sure I'll think of something else in the last ten hours left in good old 2003. See you freaks next year!!
December 22, 2003 I was going to start reworking my links page, but then I realized that I still haven't completely finished the pictures pages, so I'm going to finish that before I forget, and then start in on the links. So if you're interested in what I'm interested in, you might want to come back in a week or so and check out the various links that will be popping up in a neat and organized fashion.
I listen to the radio while I'm at work, usually the University of Idaho student radio station (KUOI 89.3 for those of you lucky enough to be within a 10 mile radius of Moscow) which has a tendency to play damn near everything that's not mainstream, or the classic rock station out of Colfax, WA (KRAO 102.5) which plays enough Led Zeppelin on a daily basis to keep my raging Zeppelin demons at bay (on New Year's Eve, they're going to play every Led Zeppelin song ever produced, from A to Z! Oooohhh hooo hoooo!!!!!). Today, however, neither of those stations are coming in so I've been reduced to listening to one of the many top 40 stations in the area, which reaffirms my suspicion that top 40 really sucks. I think I might be better off with silence.
December 18, 2003 I finally got that huge stack of pictures scanned that have been sitting around waiting for over a year and a half now. Most of them were pictures from Lake Powell, the general index for them can be seen here. I'm in the process of organizing them, and that page is here.
Other than that, everything is good I suppose, all things considered. It could be much better (and it really wouldn't break my heart if they would just get a little better), but it could be much, much worse. I'm still trying to work on my optimism, which so far is a bitter and thankless task.
In other news, it's been extremely busy around my place of employment for our friendly neighborhood police officers. So much for the season of love and good tidings. At least it's never boring.
December 4, 2003 I'm going to be adding another item to the list of things that drive me crazy: Verizon. Yep, the lovely bunch of bastards. So I have a huge bill with them leftover from the last house I lived in that there is no way I'll be able to pay, and since none of the former roommates can pay it, or have any kind of an interest in paying it, I called Verizon to make some arrangements so I could make some kind of an effort to pay it. This was on November 13, and I was hoping I could get the due date pushed back like a week or two, and the lady I talked to was like, "Oh, well, the farthest I can push it back to would be December 13, a month from now," which was completely great by me, so she said she'd go ahead and do that. So on Monday, I got a letter from them saying that I had to pay the whole thing in full by Tuesday or they'd shut my phone off. So I called them up to remind them that I had made arrangements to not pay it until the 13th, and the chick I talked to that time was like, "There is no way we could have done that. No one told you that. It says right here, 'due on the 2nd'", blah blah blah. So my phone is going to get shut off I guess. On another note though, I've been using the AOL free trial thing at my house (yes, it sucks, but the key word here is "free"), which was supposed to be up on the 3rd, so I called them right after I talked to my good friends at Verizon, and the lady I got that there said, "Oh, well, it looks like when you signed up, you signed up for the three month free trial, so you still have another month." Okay. That's fine by me. But didn't they tell me just two weeks ago that I signed up for the two month free trial?? Odd how that happens. But I'm not going to question the way the universe works. So that's a positive, not that it really makes any difference what kind of a free trial plan I have if I don't have a phone. At least it's just my phone though, not like I'll be sitting in my house in the dark in the middle of the winter like we were last year when Avista shut our power off, and then required us to pay the original bill, plus a deposit that was equal to the original bill before we could get it turned back on. How much sense does that make?? Somebody can't pay their bill in the first place, so let's double it!!! Oddly enough, when I called Avista the other day (right after Verizon and AOL) they were actually very nice to me, which, I have to say is a pleasant change of pace.
Not much else going on of any kind of interest. It's cold outside. I'm cold inside. And I haven't won the lottery yet.
November 25, 2003 I went to Hastings tonight to rent some movies, and while I was standing there, staring blankly at the thousands of selections before me, I could hear this girl talking loudly on her cell phone a few aisles away. I wasn't trying to listen to what she was saying but there was really no way to not listen, so whoever she was talking to was trying to decide what they wanted her to rent, and once they figured that out, she said she was going to stop at some fast food place and did they want anything from there? Then there was a pause and she says, "A flurry?!?!? Uh, have you, like, looked outside?" And then she comes walking around the corner and she's wearing some little shirt, capris and high-heeled strappy sandals. Sweet jesus, lady, have you looked outside??? You're giving somebody shit for craving a tasty ice cream treat when there's six inches of snow on the ground, and you're dressed like you just stepped out of MTV Spring Break. I try to hold hope for the human race, but it just keeps deserting me.
November 24, 2003 I don't know if there's a technical term for a constant sensation that you really aren't anything more than a complete idiot, and everyone would be better off without your negative energy polluting their environment, but whatever it is, I think I'll permanently stick it to the end of my name: "Elaina Chronic Moperitis". And while I'm on that particular subject, here's the results of a personality test I took a while back. And, since it seems like useful information to have, here's where I'll be spending eternity.
November 13, 2003 I got moved into my new home, and it's great. But I'm still pissed, because people are stupid. Specifically me, I guess, since I have this problem with assuming that everyone else has this little thing called responsibility, and I just continuously get screwed because of it.
November 5, 2003 Well, this year's Halloween was a good one. We had a party at my house, a Halloween/moving out sort of deal, complete with a keg and me scaring people as a psuedo-70's drag queen drug addict conglomeration of some sort. It was fun, and we're still working on the keg.
So on Friday, I managed to convince my roommate that he wanted to give me his cat, and not five minutes after that, the cat, Jerby, came in from outside with another cat's claw in his paw. That's just a classic example of my luck. So I took him to the vet on Monday, and since they had to knock him out to work on his foot, they cut his balls off at the same time. I brought him home yesterday and he's really not very happy with me. I kind of feel bad that I basically took his entire life away (no more huge raging cat brawls, no more one night stands with every other cat within a two mile radius), but at the same time, I get a sick sort of satisfaction from the knowledge that I commissioned the removal a male creature's testicles. Hee hee!! Such a dilemma I'm in.
October 29, 2003 Only two more days to get the fake spider webs strung and pumpkins massacred and those apples loaded with razor blades. Aaah, my favorite holiday!! Is anyone else as excited as I am?? I just had a slightly disturbing memory pop into my head: A few weeks ago I braved the blood-sucking vileness that is Walmart so I could stock up on cheaply-priced dog food (with mini crunchy bits) and found myself standing in the Halloween aisle, listening to Christmas music. Am I the only person here that thinks the bastards need to be stopped before the entire year becomes one big holiday smear??
October 23, 2003 I just realized that I seem to really enjoy making up new words, like "computicide", which I used in the previous entry. And I was just about to make a reference to "weedwhackericide", as in, I was trying to whack the weeds in my yard last night with a very tempermental weed whacker and almost committed weedwhackericide. Maybe I just have a fixation on the "-icide" part. Hmm....
I'm going to Strangeville tonight so I can play Halloween bingo with my mom tomorrow. Fun stuff.
And in other news: I JUST DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 15, 2003 I've been trying to write an email to my mom for about a half hour now, and every single time I get about 2 paragraphs into it, Internet Explorer decides it wants a nap and shuts down. I no longer have the patience for it right now, so, Mom, if you should happen to be reading this, I'm sorry, I'm too busy committing computicide to write to you right now. I'll try again in a little while.
October 7, 2003 I was discussing with SA the other day our options for getting the internet at our house for a month (since that's how much longer we're going to be living there) which led to the bright idea of using one of those goddamned AOL disks. So I managed to find one (on the floor at the bottom of the stairway in my friend's apartment building) and loaded it up and now we have the internet at my house. Yay!! It's still a slowass dial-up, but better than being completely disconnected like we have been. Presumably, I should be able to get a lot more done on my homepage, but so far, all I've done is reawaken my burgeoning chat addiction.
In other news, I was being dragged around downtown one night last week by my petite young pup, followed closely behind by my friends Gavin and Phore, both of which have a tendency to frighten small children and make old people shake their heads. So they look a little freaky. I personally have no problem with that, obviously, since I'm hanging out with them. Anyway, while we're walking, this chick (who I will, for no reason at all, politely refrain from calling a skanky sorority ho) and her vacant-looking moose of a frat boy boyfriend passed me going the other way, and my spidey-sense told me that there was going to be some trouble when they passed my friends, so I turned around to watch just as Phore bumped right into this chick. [A bit of background info: Phore is night blind, and his strategy for walking anywhere at night is to just go straight and hope not to run into anything, like drama queens] She started screeching at him, "Come back here! What was that shit? COME BACK HERE!" while her boyfriend was getting all fluffed up like he thought he was going to kick Phore's ass. She grabbed his arm (her boyfriend) and pulled him back and was like, "No, I got this! I got this!!" and then got right up in Phore's face and started screaming, "Why are you so rude?? I smiled at you! And you just kept walking and you bump into me like that!!??!" I can understand how a cute little lady would get offended when she smiles at a blind man on a dark street and instead of returning her cute little smile and falling into a state of shock that such a stunningly gorgeous and obviously highly intellectual woman would be acknowledging the existence of such a lowly freak, he runs into her without even looking at her. And then, has the audacity to apologize?? Although I think she was too busy throwing a hissy fit to hear him apologize, which he did immediately after running into her. But Phore stood there, quietly, and let her scream at him for a minute, until she paused to take a breath and he managed to break in with, "I'm night blind! I can't see you!" She just looked completely deflated, and said, "Well, you don't have to be so rude!" and then stomped off. Eeerrrrr!!!!!
October 3, 2003 I just got an email from my mom, telling me that my niece, Stephanie (who just turned 11 on October 1st. Happy bithday, kid!!) became the second girl in the history of her school to join wrestling. And I just have to say that that's about the coolest thing I've ever heard. :-)
September 24, 2003 Well, I really don't know what I'm doing here. I'm just bored, I guess. There's not really anything interesting going on in my life right now. Maybe that's why I'm bored. Uuuuhhhhhh.....I've been playing the guitar. Or trying to play the guitar. I know parts of a couple Led Zeppelin songs (not that they actually sound like Led Zeppelin when I play them) and my fingertips have gotten tough enough to no longer be numb and tingly. The only problem I really have with that right now (aside from my depressing lack of coordination) is that I apparently go tone deaf everytime I try to tune the damned thing.
Okay, I give up. There's absolutely nothing remotely interesting for me to talk about right now.
September 23, 2003 -- a little later I'm taking a quick moment to make a comment on a call I just received here at work. This lady just called to ask if we had rooms available for a particular weekend, and I said, yes, we do, but all the ones we've got open are smoking rooms. There was a pause and then she said, "And are your smoking rooms truly smoking rooms?" Uuhh. No, they're non-smoking rooms really. We just like to mess with people's minds, specifically yours.
September 23, 2003 Yesterday I took the first baby steps toward a major renovation of this site. I started adding links to the music links section, and updated a few other various pages. There's a lot to be done, so I guess it's good that I enjoy doing it, I just wish I could spend more time on it. Sporadically doing a little bit here and there whenever I'm at work doesn't make for much progress. Someday, maybe, I'll go all super high tech and get the internet at my house!!
September 22, 2002 Yesterday was SA's 21st birthday. He looked like he was having fun, I wonder if he'll still be having fun when he wakes up today. :-)
Have you ever gotten the distinct impression that, despite your best efforts to the contrary, you're just setting yourself up for a large and painful fall. That's how I feel right now, and it's really not a very good sensation.
September 3, 2003 Well, I'm bored, and my news page was getting out of hand again, so here's a new and completely empty page to corrupt.
Last Saturday morning, I was just snoozing away in my nice comfy bed, lying on my back with my arms flung out to the sides, and I was having this really messed up dream that I can't really remember, but something kept tickling my arm right next to my armpit, a really weird kind of something (maybe it's a good thing I can't remember), but all of a sudden I woke up and there was something still tickling my arm. I was instantly wide awake and threw my arm up and a HUGE FREAKING SPIDER ran out from under me and disappeared over the edge of my bed. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! I get all crawly inside just thinking about it. Then yesterday or the day before I walked into my bathroom and there was another HUGE FREAKING SPIDER (or maybe the same one) in the corner next to my toilet. So I chased it out with hairspray (after running to the other bathroom because I had to pee and was not about to do it with that damned thing beside me) and flushed it down the toilet. Now I tear my bed completely apart before I get in it, and look in all the corners before I sit on the toilet, and spend the rest of my time when I'm not doing that trying to come to terms with the fact that I really am just a silly skittish girl. I just can't handle spiders, man. Snakes are fine, mice are fine, any other insect is fine (except earwigs, those are kinda creepy too), but spiders are not my friends. Little bastards.

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