I got a letter this afternoon from Yale Rheumatology with my appointment information. This should be a cause for celebration, but the date of the appointment? Is in April. April 18th, to be exact — nearly five months from now.
Fine. I didn’t want to drive all the way to New Haven, anyway.
Right before I called my insurance company to get a list of rheumatologists at Yale, my mom found another rheumatologist in my city. At the time, I was fed up with every doctor in this city, so I took the envelope she’d written the information on, thanked her, and put it aside where it sat… until now. I tried calling my doctor’s office to get a referral for this guy, but their line is busy. So, in the meantime, I thought I’d make a list of things that are faster than getting in to see a rheumatologist when you’re on the medical merry-go-round.
I just have one question for you today, my friends: When Twitter goes down, and you want to tweet about it, what do you do? I think you need to sign up for rehab. And yes, I’m actually talking about myself.
I forgot to set goals for this month. Yes, I set New Year’s resolutions, but in the grand scheme of things, the little goals are what will carry me through and help me accomplish the bigger goals. Or at least make me feel like I’m accomplishing them.
The problem is that we’re already almost halfway through January. RATS! So I’ll just have to settle for even smaller small goals:
Finish the Kirk section of Secondhand Mom. This is a section that flashes back to my main character’s second most important past romantic relationship and accounts for who she is in the present. It also sets up one of the most important subplots in the book: The Love Triangle. I grew up loathing love triangles, but it’s pretty integral to this story. (While we’re talking about writing, could you please give me some advice?)
Code WordPress theme for Perpetual Smile. I seriously need to JUST DO IT. Hopefully, this week will bring the end of a HUGE client project, which will give me the free time necessary to do this.
Code “Super Secret and Exciting Web Project” and release into the wild. This should literally take me a day to do, and it’s going to be a great piece for my portfolio, so I need to JUST DO IT, too.
Meanwhile, I also need to not lose my mind. There is so much going on that I don’t even know how to begin writing about it. I really wish life would give me a break.
Merely want to say your article is striking. The clearness in your post is simply spectacular and i can assume you are an expert on this subject. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with incoming post. Thanks a million and please keep up the effective work.
This is what spectacular looks like in the morning.
In short: my writing is striking, spectacular, and I am an effective expert. Thank you, spambot.
The problem with this title scheme, guys, is that there are only so many Z words. The only Z word I can think of is zebra. This is where you come in.
I need you to leave me comments with your favorite Z words. I’m especially counting on the spambots, since they are getting pretty damn smart. Not that you humans aren’t smart. I’m just saying that the spambots tend to spit stuff out depending on what they see. So if they see the letter Z, they are going to go crazy and leave all kinds of Z words.
In fact, I think that spambots are the next superior race on planet Earth.
What spambots will be saying about us in the future on their spambot oatmeal packets.
They will be so much more advanced than us, in ways that I — in all of my spambot-blessed expertise — cannot ever imagine. I mean, they’re already ahead of us. They are INVISIBLE, for crying out loud! If a spambot was here in my house right now, looking over my shoulder as I type this, I wouldn’t know it.
So maybe Allie can one-up the spambots. I’m not sure. But I do know that they are going to be the next superior race, and before this happens I need to write as many L-I-Z acronym posts as possible. (My apologies to those of you who thought this one was gonna be about lesbians in sexy zebra stripe underwear.) So give me your best Z words, or the Fun-Size Kitty of DOOM will eat you!
The glowing eyes mean that she is charging up for ATTACK!
Donated Z Words: Please note that Z words are rare and endangered. Donating a Z word to my blog will keep them safe from spambots and Fun-Size kitties.
And then @BookGeekGal kicked some major Z ass (01/10/2010, 12:49am):
Spambots, you are letting me down! Are you really going to let a bunch of humans out-Z you?
Update 01/10/2010, 12:56am: The spambots are fighting back, but instead of Z words, they’re insulting me!
This means war!!
Update 01/10/2010, 1:34am:
They're going to overtake us!!
Update 01/10/2010, 2:34am: It’s totally fucking weird that I’m updating EXACTLY AN HOUR LATER, but it’s even weirder that the spambots are now kicking our asses. They can speak an assload of Russian, so they win this battle 3-2. I am too lazy to take and post a screenshot, but believe me, they dumped a whole mess of Russian into my blog comments. (Thank goodness for Akismet, or they would have taken over my blog!)
Their hefty block of Cyrillic smack-talking translates to:
Listen up, puny Earthlings. We are INVISIBLE, have no need for Z words, and can DESTROY your bandwidth with just the power of our MINDS. Also, we speak Russian and 19 million other languages, including ones you have not discovered yet. Surrender now or prepare to fight! Meow, that’s right!†
We will get them next time…
†If you can tell me what this is from WITHOUT GOOGLING, because that would show weakness to the spambots, I’ll whore your blog/Twitter/website/pictures of your cat on my Twitter.
The mirror is a rapist in disguise. It is trying to kill me.
Every time I turn off the lights and crawl into bed, it steps forward menacingly. It moves closer and closer to the bed, until I turn the flashlight on. Then it jumps back into its place in the corner and it. is. JUST. a mirror.
With the light off? It’s a rapist again. Because the rapist got in through the locked garage/basement/front/back doors, came upstairs, AND into the closed bedroom door without me hearing it.
When the heater kicks on? I jump. When the toilet randomly makes noise? I jump. And let’s not forget the self-drying Whirlpool tub. That motherfucker is actually a ginormous vacuum in the ceiling that is going to suck me into outer space and perform rude, invasive experiments on me. As if I don’t have enough problems.
As I sit downstairs at the table, working on my laptop, I’m convinced that there is someone standing in the backyard, Michael Myers style. But there are no footprints.
The rapist has technology.
I know you’re coming for me, motherfucker. And I have a message for you: you can’t get me, as long as I have the flashlight I am safe, and I see RIGHT THROUGH your flimsy disguises.
So if I disappear and stop updating, dear readers, you know why. It was the mirrorrapist.
I got my very first jury duty summons about a week ago.
I laughed. I cried. (Especially when I found out I won’t be getting paid by my company, since I only work part-time. Though I am also self-employed, so I wonder if that might change things.) I swore a lot, too. My mom gave me several ways to get out of it (like calling the night before to see if my name is recorded on the list of people they don’t need). (Here are a few really funny ways to try and get out of jury duty!)
And then I filled out the return form like a good girl and marked the date in my planner.
The next day at work, I broke the news to my boss. “I know it’s like forever away,” I said, “but I have jury duty on the 25th. Of September. Just so ya know.”
He asked if I wanted to borrow a book to bring with me. (Wish I could remember the title! He said that when he brought it with him, they sent him home as soon as they saw it!) “Or,” he said, “you can ask if they need you when you show up. Just say, ‘look, do you really need me?’ and they might not and just send you home.”
“Hmn. I might try that. Unless it’s actually interesting.” I sighed. “Jury duty. Ugh! It should just be a profession, for people who actually like it.”
“It would make a great job for retired people,” my boss said.
I laughed. “I know, right? They watch People’s Court all day anyway!”
