In a fit of strange nostalgia, I pulled out my high school yearbooks. I guess because there are prom ads everywhere, which make me wonder what it would have been like if I'd been the sort of person who'd ever cared about the prom. And then I looked at my yearbooks and decided that there are some things man was not meant to know. High school was fairly miserable, although a huge improvement on junior high. Thereby paving the way for further improvement in college. So, a trip down memory lane. Consider this a public service if you're still in high school, hating it, and want to know if you'll later claim that "Those were the best days of my life." You won't. It's okay. Do you really want a life that peaked at 16?

10th grade -- 1988

My high school was 10-12 when I got there. The following year, it added 9th graders. Little hoodlums. Anyway. The yearbook itself looks really nice. About 300 pages. Shiny embossing, looks nice on the shelf. I was really impressed when I got it, because we'd had yearbooks in junior high, but nothing nearly so, well, substantial. But who cares? Why do we keep these things? For the notes, of course. Given that this was 10th grade, there aren't many, so it won't take long.

Inside the front cover is a nice note from Amanda, who I just barely remember. She was in an art class with me, and was generically nice. No anecdotes to report. She says, "I have been very much educated by you [sic] unusual sayings and stories." I suspect this is referring to my extreme geek mode -- I was probably quoting Douglas Adams and Dr. Who a lot.

Flipping through the book itself.... first section is color, lots of photos of seniors organized around random themes like "spirit week" and so on. A two-page spread on twins, since there were (pause to count) apparently 16 sets at the school. Faculty. More random photo spreads. Finally, the actual students. Flip, flip, flip. Look at all the crazy 80's hair. Oh, there's Eric Argentar, who I had a vague crush on because he was in my art class and seemed nice. That's really all it took, at that point. (And things have changed so much now. Ahem.) Hi Eric. Senior quotes. Lots of lyrics, of course, but rather eclectic choices: Bon Jovi, Streisand, Springsteen, Pink Floyd (not "Another Brick in the Wall," oddly enough). Juniors. Flip, flip, flip. Sophomores. Uh oh. Hi,people I knew. Hey, there's still one person there who I speak to regularly. Hi, Zachary. Ack, ack, ack. Hi, former me. Ack. Sudden surge of self esteem because I do not resemble that picture any more. At all. Unexpectedly discover self to be writing in style of Bridget Jones' Diary Desperate attempt to form complete sentences again. Sorry about that. Flip, flip. Here's a section on current events. Ollie North starts us off. Black Monday. The earthquake in SoCal. Smoking in public schools was banned. Wow. Assorted pop culture info. Timothy Dalton plays James Bond. Alf! Andrew Lloyd Webber slimes across our consciousness. Is this starting to sound like a Billy Joel song? I'm so, so sorry. Sports. Flip, flip, flip. Clubs. Flip. Ads. Heh. Here's an ad wishing luck to the graduating seniors, from "The Senior Girls." Followed by their names. All ten of them. And a group photo. Of all ten of them. My school had several thousand students, y'see. So, wow. Arrogant, much? Supplement with prom photos. Wow, what horrible dresses.

Ah, more notes. A couple entertaining but uninteresting (to anyone besides me) messages. A really cool message from Kathy, who I lost touch with a while ago. Hope she's doing well; I still think about her. She was kinda like Joey Potter back in the first season ofDawson's Creek when she was insecure but smart and funny and had some spine and all that. Hm. Several people have made jokes about stealing my wallet. I'm sure that made sense at the time. Two-page note from Zachary. Hee.

11th grade -- 1989

Same size and everything, but the yearbook looks slightly cornier. "Classic Rock" on the cover, as a "we picked this out of a hat" theme. More notes. One ominously signed, "It was good to know you." Since this was someone I remained good friends with for many years, it looks rather final. But considering that we no longer speak, maybe it was just foreshadowing. Format's the same. Slightly different theme pages. "Married with Children" is the favorite TV show of seniors. Nintendo. The number one single is "When I'm With You" by Sheriff. I have no idea what that was. Oh! But #3 is White Lion, singing, "When the Children Cry." Wow, that was a horrible, awful song.

Senior quotes: Goethe, Styx, The Smiths, Corey Hart... wow. I seem to recall that Igor Dobrowlski, who was in my math class, was neat. Juniors. I don't look quite so scary. Sophomores. Some of my best friends that year were actually sophomores. Aw, they look so young and innocent. Freshmen. Blah, blah, blah.

More notes. A girl I bought "unclassifieds" from (personal messages in the school paper). There's Zachary again, whose message ends, "If there's no Ultimate Pont, at least--" and that's it. Got interrupted and never finished it. Or maybe he just wanted to drive me mad. Bastard. A couple of neat notes from people I barely remember. ("Oh, she's that girl who was in my physics class! Right! ...I didn't know we ever spoke to each other. Huh.") Someone I don't remember at all says, "I don't think I can survive in English next year w/o your sarcastic comments." Aw. Now I really wish I could remember who the hell this person is. One from Kathy, with a space left for me to draw a very mean picture of a teacher we didn't like. I obliged. Among other things, she's hanging from a noose. Nowadays, kids would probably be arrested for doing that. 'Cause it's a death threat. And not, y'know, just damn funny. Look, she was a nasty teacher; I channelled my aggression. See? One of my sophomore friends wrote, "I'm inarticulate and worthless and hopeless and don't deserve to sign your yearbook. Sorry." That was pretty much what he was like then. He got better.

12th grade -- 1990

God, what an ugly creation. No embossing, bright crayola colors. Because, god help us all, that's the theme. "Coloring us in." Really, really stupid and ugly. Blech. I didn't even care about the damn book when I got it, and I was appalled by the sheer ugliness. Flip, flip, flip. Current events: Tiananmen Square. Berlin Wall. The Arsenio Hall Show. A two page spread with, and I'm not kidding, the lyrics to "We Didn't Start the Fire." And some photos. And that's all. Oy. Senior photos, in color for the first time. There's one girl who I remember hating when I see her picture, but I don't know why I knew her or what was so awful about her. I'm not sure if it's good or bad that I just remember that she was hateful in some way. I guess that shows how good I am at carrying a grudge, but didn't we all know that already? Class photo (they herded all the seniors out onto the bleachers for a giant picture in which no one was identifiable without a magnifying glass). The caption lists everyone's names, leading one to believe that I'm there. I'm not. Zachary and I hid the art room, with the unofficial permission of a sympathetic teacher. Picture of one of our few punks, Mike Kammer. How can you not be a punk with a name like that? The punks were what kept me sane sometimes. I wish I'd gone that route, but the cool thing is that the punks were nice to the nerds. At least in my experience. When you're a freak by choice, you can accept the people who are freaks by nature. It's the pom squad that you've gotta watch out for. Anyway. Oh, there's me. Hi, me. Still glad I don't look like that, though it's not nearly as awful as the 10th grade photo. But few things are.

Quotes. Zachary's was from Zippy the Pinhead (a comic I really dislike, but that's me): "All life is a blur of Republicans and meat." Mine was, "These were the good old days when we wished we were dead." I forget where I stole that from.

Juniors. Randy. Another boy from art class. Girls, take art classes. Seriously. You'll thank me. Yum. Now I feel dirty. He's what, 16 in that photo? That's horrible. Wonder if he still looks like that. Yum. Even with the crazy cowlick. The photos get smaller and smaller for the underclassmen. Subtle. Faculty photos. Hey, Mr. Ring's not in there! Mr. Ring ruled all. Well, he was a fabulous teacher, is all I'm saying. Should have been teaching college, for his own sanity, but his classes were an oasis of sanity and knowledge in high school. A note from Ms. Winter, my art teacher, who was unaware that I only kept taking her classes so I could stalk the cute boys. Not really. That was just a bonus. Mr. Ring did sign my book somewhere, I think. I wonder where. He sponsored like, five thousand clubs, so it might be on one of those pages. Thank goodness there's an index. Hm. Still not seeing it. How odd. I wonder if he wrote it in disappearing ink. Or if I imagined the whole thing. Both are possible, given the personalities involved.

Oh, this is great. Last page, there's a photo of about ten kids heading home at the end of the day. Or at least, that's what the caption implies. In fact, its a photo taken between classes, and two of the figures are friends of mine, who are on their way out early, if you know what I mean. One of them is holding the forged excuse note he made. Hee hee.

Okay, more notes. Here's a nice one from Pat, who I completely lost touch with. He was a slightly goofy, but a genuinely sweet guy. I like this bit at the end: "If you ever need someone famous to write about you can write about me." Aspiring actor, you see. And here's one from someone who's signature I can't read. But she (?) added a phone number. Oh, yearbook supplement (for things that happened too late in the year to get into the book.) We had jello wrestling. Freakish. And there's the prom. I spent the evening with my friends, having a festival of Muppet movies (hey, Jim Henson had just died). Apparently the theme was "Tender Years." I assume that was a current hit song. Don't recall it.

More notes. One from Nate indicating he's jealous 'cause I'm going off to college. If you know Nate, you know how funny that is. If you don't... well, he graduated early and went off to be a professional smarty-pants and he's... just so damn smart. And likable. Sometime I'll have to write about the movie they made about Nate. [Clarification: My friends made the movie. It wasn't, like, a professional documentary someone made about Nate.] Kathy's message says (among other things), "No more snobs, airheads, pimple-faced, buble-gum blowing teeny boppers!" And another good one from Sylvia, who I believe was editor of the paper that year, saying all sorts of nice things that modesty forbids quoting. Except this bit, 'cause it's funny: "You've been an inspiration to me... watching you whip off those history papers in one class period when the rest of us took all week." I quote it because it's true. I can spout BS under pressure like nobody's business. I distinctly remember walking to class with a friend who was writing his own paper last minute. He needed a conclusion, so I told him to read me his opening paragraph, and then as we walked I told him what the end should be. He said, "You're good," as he scribbled frantically, and I think I sort of expained that you just take the thesis, rearrange the sentences and use synonyms to write your conclusion. Apparently he'd missed that day in comp class. Heh.

That was the other good reason to take art. With a cool hippie art teacher, and really, aren't most of them like that? 'Cause once I built up some good credit with her, I could go in when necessary and say, "Um, I have to finish a paper," and she'd let me go into the back room (with her office and the art supplies and all that) and work on it during her class.

And I guess that's it. I have better stories from college, honest. But the high school yearbooks were right here.

At the moment, I can't remember who first said that writing is simply a matter of staring at a blank piece of paper until your forehead bleeds. [But JohnConstantine has since pointed out that "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead," is a Gene Fowler quote. Thanks!] I'd go look it up online, but I'm bound to run across a neat list of quotes in the process, stop to read them, think of something else I meant to look at, decide I should check my mail, check in on the MBTV forums, and by then it'll be time for bed and I won't remember what I got online for in the first place.

See? See how easily I'm distracted? Already I've wandered from my original point. Which, in a way, was my point.

I've never been one to fall asleep quickly. If I'm totally exhausted, I can nod off pretty fast, but on the average it takes me around half an hour of lying in the dark before I drift away. That's always been true; I remember being a little kid in bed, making shadow puppets on the wall to entertain myself in the light that came down the hall when I was supposed to be asleep. Before I digress again, my sleeping habits aren't the point either. This is the point, coming up soon. No, really. Next paragraph, I swear.

I think of all sorts of things to talk about here. I think of a lot of them when I'm lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come. My mind wanders, I start pondering some random topic, and then I think, hey, I should write up something about that, put it on the website. So I think about it a bit more, start organizing my thoughts, figure out a good opening, get the phrasing right, come up with some general points... and somewhere along the line, I fall asleep. Wanna guess how much I remember of that after I've woken up and gone to work and come home and watched TV and checked my email and had dinner? Halve that, and you'd be close. Some of it is that, of course, things that sound like really good ideas at 2 AM aren't quite as enthralling the next day. But a lot of it is that, having thought it all out once, and then forgotten it, trying to recreate that idea the next day is tiresome and, frankly, feels like work. Who needs that?

Then there's the flip side, where I do need some decompression time at the end of the day. Around 10 PM my mind starts going again, and by 1 AM I'm suddenly filled with the urge to add something new to my site. But it's almost 1 AM. I'm not gonna last much longer. And at that point my brain is fuzzy and I really, really want to digress even more and ramble about some movie I watched earlier, and or an annoying commercial I keep seeing, and... See, there are currently eight other files in my folder of "things that I might someday finish and put online." Because of this very problem. I start something in the wee small hours of the night, because that's when it seems like a really interesting idea. And then the next day I look at it and can't remember what where I was going with it, or why I thought anyone would care.

Today, though, is a whole different thing. Today I had nothing to do until evening, when my family was getting together for my mom's birthday. And I was thinking of writing something up about movies I like, or maybe things that irritate me for no good reason, or possibly some gratuitous plugs for things I've bought that are cool. This last idea came to me in the shower, and is actually a very girly train of thought. I got this new pumice-stone thingamabob with a handle from the Discovery Store (I have no idea why it was being sold there, but that's not my problem), because in the summer my feet get all dry and calloused and it's gross. So I bought this thing on impulse, and it was ridiculously expensive for what it was, but what the hell. Then I tried it while I was taking a shower and it's damn cool. Still overpriced, but I'm willing to pay $12 for nice feet. Satisfied with my purchase, I started thinking of other things I'd be willing to plug (like that Orange Glo cleaner -- that stuff is great) and how this might lead to offers from major corporations who'd give me giant checks to promote their products, and then after selling out I'd be able to live in a huge manor and get an Irish Wolfhound. Dream big, that's what I say. Unfortunately, this pleasant train of thought was derailed after I finished rinsing shampoo out of my hair. Which is often when tragedy strikes.

I went to reach for the conditioner, and then I saw a blob on the shower wall. It was just a blob, because I don't wear my glasses in the shower. But it was distinct variety of blob, a form of blob that I have come to recognize no matter how blobby it might be. It was the kind of blob that usually turns out to be a centipede.

You'll need some background here. I'm not very keen on bugs, and the more legs they have, the less I like them. Ants, fine. I can kill an ant, no trouble. Spiders get a bit worrisome if they're the Martian kind that jumps several feet up (that's a story for another time), but those are rare. In general, bugs with eight legs or less don't bother me too much -- by which I mean I can kill them in a professional manner. With a shoe. My mom kills bugs by just grabbing a tissue and smooshing them, which I can't handle. Oh, roaches get a special mention: normally I can kill them (not that I have much occasion to, mind you), since they only have six legs but I did visit a friend many years ago in New Jersey who had lots of roaches in the kitchen. As I discovered when I wandered out late one night to get a bagel. One wouldn't have been a problem, but dozens all of the place is no good at all. So maybe it's the total number of legs, since altogether there were probably close to 100 legs in that kitchen with me. Although there were almost immediately two fewer, since I just turned and left after seeing them. [shudder] Let's not get into the freaky walking stick bugs and other "Temple of Doom" traumas, or we'll be here all night.

But centipedes destroy my ability to remain calm. Anything with that many legs is just trouble. And it's not just the number of legs -- they're long, and they move in waves and I wish I could explain it, but it's just one of those things. I used to chuckle at people who were freaked out by snakes, but then I saw a centipede, and realized that we don't get to pick our insane phobias. I've got several horror stories about encounters with centipedes over the years. My apartment's on the ground floor, which is part of the problem, so a few times a year I have to deal with a multi-legged roommate scuttling around. (And in the fall I get crickets. That's fun.) I'm very lucky that no one has ever seen me deal with one of the little bastards. It's sad. I make pathetic squeaky yelps when they suddenly start running or fall off of the wall. I do think I was fully entitled to yelp about the one that fell off the ceiling, though. I can cope with them much better now then I did as a child, and that's entirely due to my stockpile of Raid. Another product I'll proudly endorse. I may die young from inhaling the stuff, because when I press that button it stays down, by god, but I'm willing to shave a few years off in exchange for the ability to kill centipedes without getting close to them.

I did say it was pathetic. I'm okay with that.

Right, so there's a centipede in my shower. With me. Not good. Since I can't see the hellspawn, I'm not quite as freaked out as I would be if I could see all the creepy legs waving at me, but I'm still very unhappy. So I get out of the shower, grab a robe and my glasses, and go out to the kitchen cabinet to grab the Raid. I did not stop to look at the centipede with my glasses on, because that ends up with me getting hypnotized by all the little legs and it turns into a Lovecraft story. Raid in hand, I go back to the bathroom, move the shower curtain out of the way and look just long enough to confirm that yes indeed, my blob-identification skills are correct, and whoosh goes the wonderful, fabulous, toxic fumes. Take that, bug.

I do wish the fine, heroic people at Raid had something that works faster, mind you. There's always a slight delay between the spray and the death, where the bug goes "Ack!" and runs in a random direction, and then I have to spray it again even though I know it's a dead bug scuttling, but maybe it's gonna lunge at me and kill me with it's feelers or something, I don't know, it doesn't make sense but that's what I do. So the centipede runs over the lip of the bathtub, falls onto the floor, and starts running in my direction, and I make my sad squeaking noise and spray more poison into the air, and it says "Ack! Aieeeeee! I regret nothing!" and dies. Phew. Then I had the pleasant task of getting a paper towel and picking up the corpse and depositing in the trash and then shuddering and saying, "Oh, ick, gah, gross" at the feel of the teeny little exoskeleton crunching when I picked it up.

Then I came out, wrote an update for the Words page, and got online to post it. Only I couldn't, because the online tool I use to post updates seemed to think that there was no site to access. It wanted me to create a new homepage. Then my heart stopped for a few seconds, until I could open a new browser window and confirm that Glumpish was still here. I fussed with that for a few minutes, trying to figure out if I'd done something different accidentally, and if so, if I could undo it. Then I gave up and emailed tech support, but since it's a Sunday I still haven't heard back from them as I'm writing this.

After an uneventful hour or so, it was time to wander off for my mom's birthday, where I gave her earrings that were very pretty, except I forgot that her ears aren't actually pierced. She wears clip-ons every once in a while, and for some reason I blanked out on the key fact that they were clip-ons. Needless to say, the earrings were not clip-ons. Sigh. I did give her a book last weekend because I'd run across it and thought she might like it, so it wasn't a total debacle.

So that was my Sunday. And that's why I didn't write anything fun about movies or books or other randomness tonight. Although I did manage to plug a few products, so that part worked out all right. Feel free to send me some hefty endorsement contracts. I had such good intentions, but it was not to be. I also planned to clean out Scooter's cage today, but given how my day has been I suspect if I tried to do that I'd drop the cage on him, or somehow manage to set him on fire, so I think it's better if I wait till tomorrow.

The point is, sometimes when I haven't updated the site, it's not my fault. Okay, that wasn't the point, but I didn't really have one. Maybe that's the point?

6/5/01

Another bug update. A moment ago I went to feed Scooter, came back, and there was some kind of small flying bug crawling on the monitor. Flying bugs aren't a problem, but it started me, and I made a really fake sounding (but entirely sincere)"Eiaaa!" noise of surprise. I hate summer. I should do a "gross encounters" page on the site where you can keep track of all my insect woes. Because that'd be really intersting. Hm, maybe not. We'll see what happens with the annual cricket invasion in a few months..

And now we'll travel back in time to hear the exciting story of how I spent my summer vacation. Since I've cleverly waited a couple of weeks to finish writing this up, it's entirely possible that this is all lies. Er, I mean, I may have mixed up details a bit, so if you were there and, while reading this, think, "That's funny, I could swear that I was the one who did that, but apparently Strega thinks it was someone else," I apologize. My memory is hazy. Keep your slander suits to yourself, is all I'm saying.

I worked, I paid off the bills that would be due while I was out of town, I got frustrated with my work and cherished the idea that I'd have a few days off. I also left early to go to the bank and do laundry and pack and so on. So that evening I packed and chatted on the phone. And then I got irritated with my credit card company (well, one of them). I started writing out the whole conversation with the customer service lady, but halfway through I realized it's not a very entertaining story. They suck, is all.

Oh, the key saga! I had a bit of trouble getting an extra key made so that Kelly could come tend Scooter in my absence. I had tried two shops at the mall on Sunday: neither one had the right kind of key. On Monday, after work, I stopped at Home Depot, but their keying machine was broken. On Wednesday I went to another hardware-type store, and they, too, were out of the right kind of key. At that point I went to the condo office, minutes before they closed for the day, and begged for use of the spare key they keep on file. I wasn't sure they'd let me, since I've gotten the impression that they don't like letting those keys go for more than an hour or two, but the woman there was very nice when I explained that I'd been trying desperately to get a spare key, and she let me borrow it and all was well with the world.

Kelly came by that evening and picked up the spare key, and also got some last minute Scooter instructions, and then I packed and did laundry and cleaned and watched TV and all that stuff.

And now we'll travel back in time to hear the exciting story of how I spent my summer vacation. Since I've cleverly waited a couple of weeks to finish writing this up, it's entirely possible that this is all lies. Er, I mean, I may have mixed up details a bit, so if you were there and, while reading this, think, "That's funny, I could swear that I was the one who did that, but apparently Strega thinks it was someone else," I apologize. My memory is hazy. Keep your slander suits to yourself, is all I'm saying.

Wednesday, 8/15

I worked, I paid off the bills that would be due while I was out of town, I got frustrated with my work and cherished the idea that I'd have a few days off. I also left early to go to the bank and do laundry and pack and so on. So that evening I packed and chatted on the phone. And then I got irritated with my credit card company (well, one of them). I started writing out the whole conversation with the customer service lady, but halfway through I realized it's not a very entertaining story. They suck, is all.

Oh, the key saga! I had a bit of trouble getting an extra key made so that Kelly could come tend Scooter in my absence. I had tried two shops at the mall on Sunday: neither one had the right kind of key. On Monday, after work, I stopped at Home Depot, but their keying machine was broken. On Wednesday I went to another hardware-type store, and they, too, were out of the right kind of key. At that point I went to the condo office, minutes before they closed for the day, and begged for use of the spare key they keep on file. I wasn't sure they'd let me, since I've gotten the impression that they don't like letting those keys go for more than an hour or two, but the woman there was very nice when I explained that I'd been trying desperately to get a spare key, and she let me borrow it and all was well with the world.

Kelly came by that evening and picked up the spare key, and also got some last minute Scooter instructions, and then I packed and did laundry and cleaned and watched TV and all that stuff.

Thursday, 8/16

And off we go! My flight was at 1:30 PM, and Camper and I were planning to meet up at the airport around noon. I like to plan on getting to airports early, so that when something unexpected happens and I start running late, I'm still on time. You know what I mean. Well, that worked out very well, because you know how BWI is doing all this construction? Possibly you don't. They're doing all this construction. I knew that, but I didn't know how big an effect it was having on the parking. I got to the airport before 12, but both of the satellite lots were already full. So I had to follow cardboard signs to the mysterious "Pink Lot" which was their new overflow parking spot. That took a few minutes, since it's on the other side of the airport. But they had buses waiting and the BWI staff people were doing their best to keep things going efficiently, so props to them. Between that extra side trip and then the bus ride to the terminal, I ended up actually getting to the gate around 12:30, which just proves how well my "getting there early" strategy works. Camper showed up a few minutes later -- she'd run into traffic problems of her own. But it all worked out, and the flight took off on time and actually landed in Buffalo a few minutes early. Yeay for Southwest.

We walked off the plane and there was Glark waiting for us. And off we drove! We took a pit stop to grab some fast food, and also paused to pick up some sweet corn for the Saturday BBQ from a roadside stand that operated on the honor system. There was just a box to put money in by the lovely fresh fruits & veggies. Those Canadians, with their trust and honor. So quaint! (Okay, I've seen similar things in rural CA and PA. But it was more fun for Camper and I to say things like, "That thing would be robbed in ten minutes in our country! And then they'd take the stand apart and use it for firewood!") It rained off and on during the drive, and we hit rush hour as we got into Toronto, so between that and the stops I guess we got to the hotel a little after 5. All of which is to say that Glark was very nice to make the drive for us and not just tell us to take the damn train or rent a car or something.

At the hotel we met up with our respective roommates, Alex Richmond and Miss Alli. Then there was a lot of "what should we do now"-ing, and I suggested that since Gustave, Shack, and Aaron were due to turn up soon, maybe we should hang out and wait for them, and then we could all get dinner somewhere since they'd probably want some food. So that's what we did. Aaron turned up first, because he'd cleverly taken a cab from the airport. It turned out that he'd actually seen Gustave at the airport, and was pretty sure it was Gustave, but didn't want to walk up and start chatting just in case he was wrong. Gustave was taking the Sars shuttle, which ended up being delayed because poor Shack had been trapped somewhere with a surprise layover. Camper began to demand Starbucks' coffee, so we trooped down the street so she could get her fix. Somewhere in here Aaron also gave me a copy of Point Blank, a novel by Stephen Hunter. I'm sure it's very, very good -- so good that I'll put quotes from it on the Hunter page eventually. So thanks, Aaron! Kind of!

Oh, the hotel. It was a Days Inn, and the rooms were very yellow. This seems to be a trend at MBTV summits. Apparently the building used to be owned by some other chain, and then Days Inn bought the place, which explained why it was so big. Usually they're just a few stories, y'know? This one was around 20 floors. And there were four elevators, which were very, very slow. Plus, if you were on an upper floor, you couldn't call an elevator to go up; there were only buttons for down. We were scattered around on a few different floors, so there was a certain amount of stair-climbing. Only a few flights, so it wasn't a big deal, but it was disconcerting the first time you went to push the "up" button and realized you couldn't. Oh yeah, and they may tell you that you can get cots for a third person, but they're lying. This came up because Gustave's roommate (Demian, I believe) wasn't arriving until the next day, and so Gustave was going to share our room for the first night instead of paying for a room by himself. So at some point after Gustave arrived, we called down for a cot, and they said there weren't any. Then we stared at each other for a minute, and Alex nobly offered to share her bed with Gustave. I would have, but I was hesitant because I do tend to toss around for a while before I fall asleep, and I figured that Gustave might suffocate me with a pillow if I kept waking him up by doing that. Because he's so surly like that. As it turned out, the events of the day had me pretty exhausted and I fell asleep in five minutes so it probably would have been fine, but when it comes to risking murder by your bed mate, you can't be too careful.

Eventually everyone turned up, (Sars retreated to Casa Über, where Wing & Glark & Kim were, where I'm sure she resolved to never to never again offer to chauffer people from the airport) and then we repeated the earlier negotiations, only this time it was "where shall we eat?" Since it had started to rain again, we just went across the street to The Golden Griddle, a Denny's-esque place that seemed likely to have something for everyone, provided that everyone likes standard diner food. Which, as far as I know, everyone did. Camper got smiley fries, which are a creation I had not previously encountered. I don't think food should be grin at you.

And then came the bar hopping. First we wandered back and had a beer in the hotel bar. Which allowed us to see when Pooh and her friend Sharon turned up. They joined us, and someone also asked if we should meet for breakfast the next morning, and after some terrified looks at suggestions that we might awaken before 10, I think we settled on 11 as a reasonable time. And so we set out for some thrilling Toronto adventures. Of a minimal sort. Really, we just went down the block to a place that claimed to be an Irish pub. But in fact, it was a college bar. And loud. Very, very loud. Pooh and Sharon were driven away by the horrible, horrible noise, poor girls (plus they were tired from their trip), and I was close to fleeing myself but it was agreed that we'd leave soon. So we finished our drinks and left. Next, we went searching for the gay bars. Because that's what tourists do! Don't they? Alex and Gustave led us in what turned out to be a repeat of the Bring It On march from last year's Vegas trip. Basically, we walked down the street for a while, and the buildings changed from businesses to houses, and finally we called a halt. Alex described the place she was looking for. It was near the "big gay Marlboro sign", which sounds insane, but there was in fact a big sign parodying Marlboro billboards. I'm not quite clear on whether it was an ad for a particular establishment or if it just encouraging people to be gay. Probably the former, but I really wish it was the latter. Anyway, Miss Alli said we had in fact passed the place several blocks back, and she would have pointed it out if she knew that's where we were going. So we turned around and headed back. In the rain. Did I mention it was still raining? It was actually just funny, though, and we were all chatting as we walked, so it was fine.

We ended up going into a piano bar with its rainbow flag a-flying. I had started whining about wanting to go to the bathroom, and also said that I was sorta in the mood to sit around and just chat and make fun of something on TV, because the bars so far hadn't been conducive to socializing. Plus, I was tired and whiny. It ended up being decided that we'd go in, I could use the bathroom, and then if I wanted to head back a couple of other people would join me. So we went in, and it was much more restrained and we sat and got drinks again. And then I made Gustave help me find the bathroom. See, he said it was probably in the back, behind the curtain. Beyond which we could see the flashes of disco lights. I was a little nervous about going through that curtain, especially if I didn't know for sure there even was a bathroom back there. So Gustave gallantly led me back, and we crossed the disco dance floor full of Hot Gay Dancing Boys... well, there were like, two of them. And five or six Hot Gay Drinking Boys sitting at tables, just watching them and shimmying in their seats. It was kind of a let-down, frankly. We found bathrooms, and all was well.

And then we parted ways. Oh dear, and it is starting to blur a bit now, but I'm pretty sure that Miss Alli, Shack, Aaron and I went back to the hotel while the others continued their bar hopping. That sounds right. We went up to my room and watched a very, very noir movie. If by "noir" you mean "dark." Although eventually we decided the TV just had its brightness way down. We watched part of some movie that had Mickey Rourke as a bronco busting cowboy with a bank robbing girlfriend, or something like that. And we just chatted and made fun of the movie and after a while people wandered off to bed. I kept watching the movie to the bitter end (spoiler: everyone dies) and then Alex and Gustave returned, fresh from exposing Camper to explicit gay porn at another bar, and we all went to bed.

Oh man. That "explicit gay porn" is going to get me some hits by people who will be very disappointed by what they find, isn't it? Sorry.

I woke up around 10:30, and as I was oh-so-quietly preparing to take a shower without waking up Alex and Gustave, the phone rang. Which ruined that plan. Alex answered the phone, and it turned out to be one of the other MBTVers checking to see if we were still on for breakfast. I believe we renegotiated to 11:30, and then I resumed my showering plans. It turned out to be just as well that the phone woke them up, because there were two light switches inside the hotel room door: one for the bathroom (yes, outside of the bathroom) and one for the room. And I wasn't entirely sure which one was which. It turned out that I was just about to turn the lights for the room on, which would have woken them up if the phone hadn't. So I'm glad the phone rang, because I always feel very guilty about waking people. You know, whenever I wake up in foreign hotel rooms with people I don't know very well.

That's just a joke. Hi, mom!

So we all gathered in the hotel lobby eventually (waiting for people in the lobby became a recurring theme of the trip) and headed off for breakfast. Where? Why, the Golden Griddle, of course! Because it was almost noon, and who else would still be serving breakfast? We ate, and then tried to figure out what to do. Oh, I haven't mentioned the money situation. I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but they have some kind of crazy money up there. Crazy, colorful money. And at different times, there was almost always someone who didn't have any Canadian dollars, or who only had very inconvenient denominations. So just taken as given that at every meal and cab ride there was someone who paid too much in order to cover someone else who didn't have enough Canadian dollars. I think it probably all balanced out eventually; at least I hope so. But it wasn't real money, anyway, so who cares? (But I kid Canadia-land.)

After that we made another hotel pit stop and Alex and Gustave decided they'd venture off in search of Prada stores. The rest of us had no clear plan, but Camper wanted to shop for shoes, and so we began wandering down toward the giant mall that Glark had pointed out on the drive in. Actually, Aaron and Shack (I think) had already located it during the post-breakfast break. Boys always want to know the terrain. And so we walked a few blocks and entered the scary mall of doom. We walked partway through one level, and then I started feeling whiny again. Well, I was PMS-y, honestly, and while I had plenty of drugs, I didn't want to end up trapped at a mall if the drugs suddenly removed my ability to remain conscious, as they sometimes do. Plus, malls just make me want to punch people. Especially the people who are walking very, very slowly in front of me, and the people who suddenly stop dead, and the people who are, to put it in a nutshell, in my way. Which is most of them, when you're at a mall. Luckily, no one else seemed to enthused about the shopping possibilities, and Miss Alli stepped up and formed a new plan. Basically, we thought maybe it would be nice to meet our hosts. We went across the street to a currency exchange place I'd spotted, where I was able to load up on pretty Canadian money. And then we ventured down into the Toronto subway system, and headed for Casa Über.

We cleverly got day-passes for the subway, figuring we'd probably get our money's worth out of them. I believe we were correct. Some guy standing nearby tried to sell us his day-pass, but we ignored him and plunked down money for passes that we were sure would actually work. We arrived without any misadventures, and finally got to see (or for some of us, meet) Sars and Wing and Glark and Kim. Pooh and Sharon were already there, I think. They definitely joined us at some point in here. We hung out a bit and got to tour the compound, which is very cool but which I cannot go into for security reasons. Oh, hey: they've got the same Blair Witch Playskool-esque figures that I got in New York! I'm so pleased that I'm not the only one who thought those were neat. After some chatter, we decided to head over to Kensington Market and do some power shopping. Wing and Glark had to, I dunno, do work or something, and hang around in case other lost soldiers turned up, but the rest of us went out and began flagging down cabs. (Which was another recurring theme of the trip.)

Um, so we got there and, um, shopped. We divided up again with plans to regroup in a couple of hours. I, of course, sniffed out a used bookstore and got some Stephen Potter books, as detailed elsewhere. We roamed the streets a bit more, stopped in a little coffee shop for snacks, and then we all met up again. I believe that Sars was the big winner, since she had several bags of clothes. Then we decided to head back to Casa Über (now that I've started calling it that, I just. Can't. Stop.). Except it was around 5:30 PM on a Friday, so collecting cabs became difficult. Camper decided she could shop some more, and set off by herself in search of the new Peter Gabriel single that Shack had taunted her about. The rest of us kept searching in vain for an empty cab. Sadly, this isn't a very interesting story, but basically it took a while, and finally we found one cab, and then another, and then Pooh and Sharon were abandoned to the wolves. Insert Last of the Mohicans quote here. They said they'd get another cab... eventually. It was very dramatic. And so we were back at Casa Über again. Pooh and Sharon even managed to make it back finally. They were so heroic. The plan for the evening was to have a big snazzy dinner at a soul-food restaurant. At this point, I'd like to say a few words about the weather.

Now, I'd had a very easy time packing, because at this point I have no non-work clothes that are really suitable to wear outside my apartment. So I'd just thrown in a few less-formal dresses into the suitcase. I'd tried to make sure that I'd have something with long sleeves, in case it was chilly, and something light, in case it was hot, but that was about all the thought that went into it. And it would have worked really well, except that I always seemed to wear the exact wrong thing. For instance, on Friday I'd decided to wear the really thin, short-sleeved, full-skirted dress. Naturally, it was a bit cool and very, very windy. The next day, I wore the heavier long-sleeved dress, and it was much sunnier and I sweated a lot. It was a little bit frustrating. Anyway, I had originally thought that we'd go back to the hotel before dinner, and I'd change into the warmer dress, since I knew we were going to be sitting outside for dinner (for the benefit of the smokers, because Wing is thoughtful) but at this point that clearly wasn't going to happen. So I begged Wing for a sweater in case it was cold, and she kindly obliged. And then I told everyone around to make sure I returned it and didn't wear it home and take it back to the US with me, as that would probably be ungrateful. Anyway, we sat out on the back porch and chatted some more, and began trading complaints about our shows and just generally gossiping, and then it was time to head to the restaurant.

We went to "True Grits," a soul food restaurant. In Toronto. I just report the facts, I don't have to explain them. Seriously, it was really nice. And we had a wonderful waiter who managed to keep up with our constant demands for more liquor, and was generally cheerful and friendly and he was just gosh-darn nice. And not unattractive, either. I'm just saying. As is tradition, we made enough noise to scare away a couple who was trying to have a nice romantic dinner. Tough noogies. Alex and Gustave turned up, and we were also joined by the final group of travelers: Wendola, Regina Rouge, Demian and Cate. So the round table was finally begun. Only it was rectangular, but it's the spirit of the thing that counts.

Argh. And Niki was there! She had been at Wing's earlier, too. She might have come shopping with us, in fact. I have no idea anymore. I knew I'd forget to mention someone. Sorry, Niki! I wonder if I've left anyone else out in the various roll calls. Most likely I have. Especially if they were sitting at the other end of the table. Oh well. Sorry, whoever else. Glark was supposed to join us as well, but he was called away by an urgent business appointment with sleep.

Yum, dinner. There were giant slabs of cake-like cornbread, and I had a fried chicken dish that had the word "sinful" somewhere in the name, which was enough to convince me to try it. And then we just carried on. For, oh, four or five hours. A good time was had. I was sitting close to an end of the table, so I mostly talked to Sars, Aaron, Camper, Cate, Wendola, Miss Alli, and Shack. Hey, I told you it was a big table. Camper and Shack were the furthest in, so they were sometimes participating in conversations taking place in the middle of the table, which we couldn't hear. So we yelled at them and demanded to know if we weren't being entertaining enough.

Cate told a wonderful story about a friend of hers (I think) who, while looking through her kitchen window, saw an owl swoop down and fly away carrying the neighbor's poodle. This spawned about an hour's worth of merriment, as we built up a celebrity lifestyle for the owl, complete with car chases, trials, and E! True Hollywood Story. I admit you had to be there, and it probably would help if you'd had a few drinks, but in the future I'm going to reread this page, too, and that will be enough to remind me of the whole thing and make me laugh. Which, really, is what matters. We carried on, and on, and on, and then, at last, it was unfortunately time to end the festivities. I'm not sure if it was Wing or Sars who picked up the check, but since I've already pledged them my eternal soul as part of the MBTV initiation ceremony, I guess a simple "thank you" will have to suffice.

It was a little before 2, which is when the subway closed, so we scampered off to the station and went in, only to discover that the last train had already left. Time for another cab-finding adventure! We found two cabs quickly, but we really needed three, so once again there was the "You take it." "No, you go. Save yourself!" This time Demian and I were left behind to fend off the wolves that wander the streets of Toronto, dining on the corpses of abandoned tourists. We coped, though, and got a cab, and since Demian had been sitting at the opposite end of the table it was actually nice to get a chance to talk to him. Although, between the beer and the food coma, I'm not entirely sure what we might have talked about. I'm sure I was fabulously interesting, though. Anyway, we returned safely to the hotel and collapsed.

Saturday, 8/18

Did we go to the Golden Griddle again? You bet we did! They serve a big brunchy buffet on the weekends! People trailed in slowly to join us, but eventually we had around ten of the crew there to eat and make plans for the day. I needed to get myself to the Lush store to make a whole lot of purchases, since Katie and Johanna had sent me lists of things they needed, and threatened my life if I returned without lots of Canadian bath products. They scare me. Aaron, Miss Alli, and Camper were going to go to the Hockey Hall of Fame, which didn't interest me terribly. Shack kindly offered to escort me as I roamed the city, and I forget what everyone else was doing. Hey, who cares: this is about me, damn it.

So Shack and I set out for Lush. I'd looked up the address in the phone book, and there was one near the mall of doom, so that's where we headed. Originally I wondered if going for a long walk after eating a massive breakfast was a bad idea, because at first I kept thinking about how I really would rather go back to the hotel and sit and digest pancakes for a few hours. But after a few blocks I felt much better, so there just might be something to this wacky "exercise" theory that I hear is all the rage in certain circles.

We found the Lush store, and the girls working there were incredibly nice and helpful. We were the only ones in the store for a while, which helped, but even so. I pulled out the emails from Katie and Johanna, and was looking around at the vast arrays of soap and shampoo and bath bombs and so on, and one girl came up and said, "Do you have a list? Can I help?" So we divided things up and it went pretty quickly. Meanwhile, the other girl was snatching items out of my shopping basket as fast I could put them in, so that she could start wrapping and bagging things. It was all very efficient and friendly and nice, so you go, Canada. Meanwhile Shack was eying the ocean-scented soap, and I threw that onto my bill as well since I owed him money for one of the cab rides. Plus, I like to bribe people to be my friends. He later reported that after using it, he smelled like a sea cucumber. I'm not entirely sure what sea cucumbers smell like, or if that's a good thing, but I'm going to choose to believe it was a positive experience.

With my $160 of soap neatly bagged (which turned out to be just over $100 US, which means that Wing was completely right when she said that I'd wish I'd spent more when I realized how incredible the exchange rate was), we began to go a-roamin' again. There wasn't anything in particular we wanted to do, so we just walked around looking in store windows and so on. We did go into a Tower: I had some inconveniently large bills that I wanted to break, so I bought a couple of magazines. We were also frightened by some gigantic KISS dolls that were for sale. Then we just walked some more, until it became businesses instead of stores, and we gradually walked in a big circle (or, I suppose, more of a rectangle) taking different streets back toward the hotel.

This was the hot, sunny day where I'd chosen to wear a warm, long-sleeved dress, so I wanted to change, but we thought some TV-watching and general inertia was called for. I was supposed to change and then go up to Shack's room, but Alex had returned in the meantime, so I talked to her for a few minutes and then I went to get a soda, and then when I went up to Shack's room he'd wandered out for a few minutes because he'd gotten tired of waiting for me, but eventually we found each other again. And then we hung out and watched bout half of an Elvis movie called "Easy Come, Easy Go," in which Elvis is trying to recover some sunken treasure while fending off diving fetishists and beatnik yoga instructors. It was pretty darn strange.

Um. And then I'm not quite sure what went on. Maybe someone turned up, but I think we just figured that it was time to head over to Casa Über again. The official MBTV meeting was going to be that evening, followed by a barbecue. Hm. No, I don't have a clue. It's not really that important, so let's just do a quick dissolve and fade in as we all began to gather at Casa Über, later that afternoon. Deborah also joined us for the meeting, which was cool since we'd shared recapping duties for The West Wing for a while but I'd never met her. I gave her a cheap little pocket-guide to DC that has maps of the inside of the White House and the Capitol and so on, so she can try to keep the nitpickers at bay. And you have no idea how glad I was that I'd remembered to pack it, and remembered to bring it with me to the meeting, because I was sure I'd forget it somewhere along the line. You're thinking, well, that wouldn't really be catastrophic, because I could always mail it to her. True, but I'd had it for a couple of months and hadn't managed to mail it, so you can see why I was amazed at my relative organization at this point.

Everyone arrived, we deployed the MightyBig Cone of Silence and had our meeting, followed by a hypnosis session to ensure that we could never speak of what we had discussed. You know, the usual corporate stuff. And then the grilling of burgers and veggie burgers and hot dogs began, and it was basically a replay of the night before, except with more mingling, which was good. Oh, and we got to eat the fine corn on the cob from that roadside stand, and it was goooood. Afterwards I felt a little guilty because I mostly ended up hanging out outside, and there was another little gathering in the living room which included Deborah and Professor Frink and some other people, and I kept thinking I should go in and talk to them, too, but basically I'd think that, and then get distracted by someone's story, and I never really made it inside. Oh well. There's never enough time to hang out enough with everyone.

People began clearing out as it got later, especially those who had early flights. The rest of us did wind up in the house eventually, where we played "Who's a gaylord" until 4 AM or so. Gah. Oh yes, and Nicole had brought homemade jewelry and soap, which she distributed. Free stuff! And cool free stuff! I'm wearing the bracelet right now: it's purty. Some of the soap contained plastic dinosaurs, which I was sorely tempted by, but I ended up taking one that had one of those plastic loofah-ish thingies encased in it. Which is really brilliant, because it's soap on a rope, and the loofah thing is close to the surface so you aren't just rubbing yourself with soap. And it's a pretty blue color. I've been alternating between using it and my Lush shower gel, which is a good indicator of how much I like it. She may start selling her stuff online, and if she does I'll put in a link or ordering info or whatever is appropriate.

After much merriment, Wing was forced to kick us the hell out so she could get some damn sleep, and I don't blame her for a minute. We called for cabs, and then a bunch of us were outside taking photos of each other that I'm sure won't come out, but at least we simulated the appearance of a very localized lightning storm going on in the street. Eventually we got the bright idea of going out to the cross street, which had actual traffic, since a cab would have an easier time of finding us there (and we'd have an easier time finding a cab) and we headed back to the hotel. During the ride I attempted to explain to Demian what the definition of a gaylord was, but since I'd missed whatever had inspired the conversation to begin with, I don't think I cleared anything up for him. I couldn't avoid waking Alex when I got to our room (have I mentioned how squeaky the closet doors were?) but at least I was able to recall which light switch was for the bathroom, so I didn't blind her.

I half-awoke when Alex left the next morning, and then woke more fully around 11. Check-out time was noon, and those of us who remained were going to gather down in the lobby after we'd taken care of the check-out stuff. I had enough time to make a cup of much-needed coffee and shower and pack up all my souvenirs before finally heading down, and I was still the first one there. Alex had made the room reservations, and the bill was on her card, so she'd graciously said I could just send her a check for my share of the bill. Which meant all I had to do was turn in my key and I was done. I wandered into the hotel's coffee shop and got another caffeine dose (let's remember that even after I got back to BWI, I had an hour's drive home, so I figured I should try to get as many stimulants as possible into my system while I had the chance). Aaron, Pooh, Sharon, Demian, Camper, and Miss Alli all turned up, and after some difficulty we arranged to store our luggage at the hotel while we went to -- can you guess? -- The Golden Griddle for brunch. Oh, wait: Pooh and Sharon didn't join us; I think they had some kind of urgent shopping run to make before leaving. Food was had, and we waved a sad goodbye to the Golden Griddle, which had sustained us throughout our many adventures. And then it was time for another round of goodbyes, since everyone but Camper and I was headed off to the airport or home or, y'know, wherever.

Camper rushed off to attempt to purchase drugs (the over-the-counter kind), and I collected my luggage and chatted with Demian a bit more until Camper returned. She got her bag and since it was getting late, we figured we should take a cab to Casa Über. As we stood outside, Pooh, Sharon, Wendola, and Regina Rouge appeared in a burst of perfect timing, so we got to say goodbye to all of them (and Demian, of course) before catching a cab. Over at Casa (and this is the last time I'll say it, I swear) Über, we reloaded our stuff into the car and set out for Buffalo. Wing was coming along as well, which was good because during a long drive I always think it's nice to try to keep the driver entertained, especially when the driver is driving me to make my life easier, but I wasn't sure my brain was really up for stimulating conversation. Oh, and it was also good because I like hanging out with Wing. Duh.

Um. Well, there's not much of a story here: we drove for a while. And chatted about random things, and so on. The border crossing was no problem at all -- we kind of had to nag the customs guy to notice that there were actually two U.S. citizens returning, since as soon as he'd talked to me he was ready to wave us through, and still his only questions were about where we lived. Our flight was at 6, and we got to the airport around, uh, 4:30, I think? Something like that. More goodbyes, and huge thanks to Glark and Wing for originally mentioning that we could fly to Toronto, and for even more foolishly offering to convey us to and fro.

And then, you know, airport stuff. We got munchies -- I got an ice cream cone from a girl who seemed very irritated that I was interrupting her conversation to do something as silly as try to exchange money for food. Since we were there so early, the numbers on our boarding passes were very low, which turned out to be good since they'd overbooked the flight. Oh well: not my problem. Oh, someone in the crew, possibly the captain, mocked me as we boarded. Okay, teased me. I can't always distinguish the two. See, I was wearing this blue dress, which was close to the same shade as my luggage. And I had black shoes, and the suitcase has black piping. So he just noted how very color-coordinated I was. Honestly, I'd noticed the same thing, and it was kind of funny. No hard feelings, crew-guy. The flight was a little bumpy -- it was, once again, rainy -- but the captain was cool. People had just gotten drinks and then we hit more turbulence, so he encouraged everyone to "get acquainted with the bottom of your glass" so that the steward-folk could collect the cups and get back to their seats before landing.

Once again, the flight arrived a few minutes early, and again I say: yeay Southwest. Okay, when the flight is 70 minutes long, being on time isn't quite as big an accomplishment, but credit where it's due. Camper's fiancée met her at the gate, and then we said our final goodbyes and headed home. My problems in finding parking when I'd arrived were made up for here: I waited outside in a giant mob of people who were all looking for various buses to take them to the satellite parking lots. Since it was a Sunday night in the summer, the crowds and traffic were pretty bad, and it was taking a while for the buses to even get to us. But the first one that came through was for the pink lot, which is where my car was. Yeay! I made it back to my car, and it was just sprinkling occasionally so the drive home wasn't bad. I even made it home with time to have some cereal and say hello to Scooter before it was time for the big season finale of Six Feet Under.

And then, on Monday, I slept a lot. Phew. In retrospect, there wasn't as much good story material in this trip, and there was no karaoke, but it was every bit as fun as the Vegas trip. Plus, vacations are good.

Oh. Hi! I just found this little "souvenir" which I meant to add here ages ago. It's just a clipping from the National Post that I saved because the headline amused me: "Proffered help in taking off one's clothes not adequate." It's the headline for a review of a book for toddler's called Pants Off First!. I bet whoever wrote that headline spent the rest of the day chuckling. I just wanted to share that.

Technically (ha ha -- you'll get that in a minute) this is the third day in a row I've spent fussing with electronics. I've started to contemplate making a big bonfire of all my possessions and moving into a nice, Spartan, low-tech cave.

I bought a new TV on Saturday. First new TV I've had since college, and it's a 27-inch, so that was very exciting. I spent the rest of the day trying to work out some way that I could get it hooked up to the cable, the VCR, the DVD player, and the stereo. Couldn't be done. At least, not in any practical way. I could set it up so that the cable didn't go through the VCR. And I could set it up so that the cable feed to the TV was so fuzzy that it looked like I was using an antenna. Neither of these options were particularly appealing. (I'm not going to go into the details of all the various combination of S-Video, A/V, and coaxial cable connections I made. Trust me, I tried all of them.) I eventually settled for the option that gave me a good picture, and gave up for the evening, figuring I'd go to buy more cables on Sunday, and then sort everything out.

Well, I bought cables. But little progress was made otherwise. I started getting quite frustrated, which meant that I was becoming a little bit forceful when I pulled components out, pushed plugs in, and shoved the mess back into the TV stand. I know that high-tech gadgetry doesn't respond well to tough love, so I figured that I should take a break for a while, and come to the problem with fresh eyes. So I began a new project: moving the computer into my bedroom. My bedroom's pretty large, so the plan was to put the spare TV and the computer in there, freeing up more space in the living room. I did that. I even rearranged the bedroom furniture. It looks quite nice now, if you ignore the pile of clothes in the middle of the floor. (Laundry is one of today's other projects.) Feeling reassured about my homemaking skills, I returned to the problem of the "home entertainment system."

And then I spent about an hour cursing god, the various manufacturers of all my toys, the world, the people who write instruction manuals, and myself. Around the time that the VCR ate a tape that I was using to test the set-up, I decided that perhaps it was time for another break. It was either that or jump up and down on the VCR, and while that would be pleasant in the short-term, I figured I might regret it eventually. Given my success with the bedroom, rearranging the living room a bit seemed like a good idea, especially now that I'd gotten the computer and desk out of there. Notice that I say it seemed like a good idea. If you haven't picked up on the theme yet, understand that I'm writing this because sitting at the computer makes it impossible for me to look at the mess my living room has become.

I've got all these bookcases, you see. Four large, heavy bookcases, which are packed with books. I decided that I'd have to move one, so I unshelved everything on it, dragged the bookcase across the room, and then prepared to push the TV stand into the vacant space. Except it, naturally, didn't quite fit. I wouldn't mind it jutting out a little, but it jutted out in such a way as to cover the intake vent for the heater. Not good. "Fine," sez I,"I'll just move the TV stand to the opposite corner, so it doesn't block the vent." A moment later I realized that, for complex reasons, that meant I'd have to move all of the bookcases. Bleah. I sat down and stared at the room for a few minutes. Spontaneous redecorating had become much less thrilling over the course of half an hour -- I didn't want to unshelve all the books and shove furniture around unless I was absolutely sure I was going to like the results. So I looked, and thought, and I even measured a few things to test my ideas.

Eventually I hit on a plan that would only require moving one more bookcase, and went into action. More books were piled on the floor. The toys that frolic on the tops of the bookcases toppled, or were placed in piles. or (in at least one case) plunged to a dusty fate behind a bookcase. "Screw it," I thought, "The Bowler can live without her father's head. I'll pick it up the next time I move furniture, which, with any luck, will be never." Eventually everything was in place. I eyed the results, and decided I could live with them. And then I began reconnecting the cursed electronics -- I'd had to unplug a few things in order to re-situate the TV stand.

It went fairly well. I had enough cable to reach across the room, from the cable jack to the TV stand. I was able to drape speaker cords down behind the stand, grab them, and pull them through the back of the stand so that I could plug them into the stereo again. That's one of a thousand examples of how this all became an extraordinarily tedious undertaking. Once that was all done, I pushed the stand back, and realized that was a bit further back into a corner than it used to be. This meant that the television wouldn't be easy to watch from one of my chairs. Then I decided that I don't usually have enough visitors to fill all of my chairs, and if someone had to sit there they'd just have to bloody well cope. Eventually everything was connected, and the bookcases were shoved into place. The books remained in piles because I didn't want to put them back until I was absolutely and completely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wasn't moving anything else ever again for as long as I lived. Next, I turned on the TV to make sure everything was working correctly, or at least what was passing for correctly before I started this ghastly business.

And then I saw that the upper right corner of the TV's picture was an odd purply color. I checked the cable connections. I tried the DVD player, and the same problem affected it, so it was definitely the set.

That's when I came back to the bedroom and wrote what you've just read. Because it was that or tip the television down off the stand, watch it crash onto the floor, and then pick up a hammer and begin smashing everything within reach into bits.

I expect (or, honestly, pray) that in the course of reconnecting everything, I've passed a few too many wires too close together, and there's some kind of interference affecting the picture. It's also possible that, because I had to use another length of cable to reach across the room, one of the connections wasn't tightened enough. That one's actually only just occurred to me now, which proves that sitting down and distancing oneself from the problem can help. Perhaps in a little while I'll go out to the living room and pull out the cable, and test the connections. That won't be too hard; I'll just have to get a stool and pull one of the cable ends up from behind the bookcases so that I can get to the connection. And if that doesn't solve the problem, I'll unplug the stereo components and see what that does. If it is interference, it's just a matter of pulling the TV stand out a bit more so I can pull the cords through a lower opening in the back of the stand, which is the way they were before I started moving everything I own all over creation for no good reason except that I thought it would look nice, and let me tell you that doesn't really seem like justification for the annoyance I'm feeling right now. Because it all definitely worked before I moved everything. No really, it did. Except for the blasted VCR, of course. And then, once that's sorted out, I'll just spend a nice hour or so reshelving the books that are piled all over the living room floor, and putting all the toys back in their places, and push the chairs back to where they should go because they got pushed out of the way so I could move the bookcases, and the room's a complete disaster, honestly, I can't stand looking at it, but I'm sure I can fix it up in no time, honest, and it'll only be 4 AM or so by then and that's really not so bad, is it? And then I can go to bed secure in the knowledge that in the morning I'll have a lovely home with shiny new electronics that do exactly what they're supposed to do.

You see, it can't be a problem with the TV, because it worked fine earlier, and I can't possibly have damaged the cursed set in the course of sliding the damn TV stand across the room. That doesn't make any fucking sense, does it? No! Ha ha! So everything's going to be just fine! Yes it will. In fact, I'm so sure it's all going to work out that I don't really need to go and try just this moment. I can wait. I can wait until tomorrow morning, when everything will be fresh and clear and I'll notice anything I might have overlooked in my haste, like maybe there are tiny little demons dancing around in my tv stand and they're eating the wires, chewing them to bits as fast as i reconnect them, little bastards i'll kill them all kill them with their slavering jaws destroying two fucking days worth of painstaking wiring and rewiring and why do they hate me i didnt do anything to deserve this torment with the cable and vcr and now my brand new tv why wont it work oh damn them all damn them to hell

Um. Sorry. I'm a little bit frustrated. And tired. I just need a little rest, and then I'll fix everything. Promise.

Although, I'm just noticing that here in the bedroom I've got the computer, and a phone, and a servicable television set. I was astonished to see how many channels I can pick up with the antenna. Really, I could live in here quite happily, and forget that the living room exists. That sounds nice. Restful. I guess I would have to pass the... the living room... that sounds scary: Living Room. it's not alive though not really and its certainly not some kind of supernatural entity that wants to drive me insane no, it's not and i dont suspect a thing Ahem. As I was saying, I do have to walk past... it... to get to the kitchen... but I don't really cook all that much. Maybe I could just eat out from now on. There's a cafeteria at work, so I could have big lunches there and then have those energy bars for dinner when I'm home. And the bathroom's just across the hall, so I don't have to go near... that... that place. The bad place. Wait, I have to pass the you-know-what to get to the door, too. Hm. Well, I've got windows. I think they're painted shut, but I'll get bored in here eventually, and with some time I bet I could use this CD to scrape through the layers of paint and open them. I'm on the ground floor, so that's not a problem. Yes, I think this is all going to work out. I'll just stay here for, oh, a little while. Just to get my bearings. Take a break. Don't worry, I'll be fine. Yes fine here where im safe.

Maybe I should just put duct tape around the edge of the door, though. To make sure the little demons can't get in and start chewing at the computer while I'm asleep. Just as a precaution, you understand. You do understand, don't you? or are you working with them part of their plan make me think a new tv is good and fun and oh I can't wait to see all the shows so large and pretty and that's when they sneak in inside the boxes hidden under the styrofoam and yes i see youre all part of it well im staying here you cant lure me out no

Postscript, 1/1/02, 5 PM

Briefly: It was the speaker wires. The nasty spot is gone. Further details when I've washed off a few layers of dust.