Dear Friends,
In my defense, if I had work to do today, I’d be doing it. But I don’t, so I’m making new things instead. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s finding ways to distract myself. This happened while I was learning WML, because I want to write WAP-enabled sites. It’s pretty easy, since it’s just XML. You look at the DTD, and code accordingly. In an ideal world, of course. Turns out phone manufacturers are even less interested in standards than Microsoft. So I am painfully, ass-draggingly tired today. It’s because Bob is a future league bowler. I’ll explain. We went to brunch yesterday with Owen. French Meadow was mobbed and the crowd was unusually boring, apart from the devil-child sitting right in my line of sight at the next table. He alternated between frantic bursts of hair-pulling, screeching temper tantrum and perfect, blank-eyed calm every 20 seconds or so. He had pointy, arched eyebrows and huge, round, dark eyes, and he scared the everloving shit out of me. I wanted to hunker down behind Heather to block my view of him, but it was hard to eat my oatmeal that way. I just did my best to not attract his attention. Best not to speed up the process of damnation, since I do well enough as it is. After lunch, Heather went back to Owen’s for a haircut, and I went to my parents’. I arrived toting about four different bags of stuff: purse, knitting, the best vegetarian chili ever, woodworking plans, taxes, gym clothes. It was one of those times when I reverted to being 14 years old and needed my dad’s help with everything. First, we looked at my car. A couple weeks ago, the windshield-washer sprayer on the driver’s side stopped working. If I ran it a lot, the working one on the passenger side was sufficient. Until that stopped working, too. My car started alerting me every five minutes or so that the windshield washer fluid was low. It got to the point where I would empty an entire bottle into the reservoir, and it would just leak out again. Only I could never see it leaking, it was just gone. A few times a week, I’d be stopping three times on the way home from work to squeegee my window. I called Morrie’s Saab (read: evil) and they estimated it would cost about $600 to fix. Whatever. Duct tape is all you need for effective car repair, really. We figured we’d find a crack in the reservoir, seal it up, and it would be fine. Turns out the sprayer itself was defective, and was cleaning the inside of my engine instead of the windshield. My dad repaired it with a toothpick. He’s good like that. Then my mom and Stephanie and I went to Mill’s Fleet Farm. I don’t know if they have this store by you, but it’s your basic combination hardware/farm-supply store. You used to even be able to buy horse tranquilizers there until they discovered all the farms kids were buying them to get high. Ha. Anyway, I was clothes shopping. And holy crap! It was great. I found a cowboy shirt with red barbed wire stitched on it, a megapack of white undershirts for like $1.50, a Levis hoodie, and also a Fleet Farm tshirt with flames on the sleeves. I was always jealous of those 4H kids at the fair with their bright-orange, completely unironic Fleet Farm t’s. As soon as I get myself a goat, I’ll fit right in. On the way home, we stopped at the natural foods market. They had mock duck in cans. You are probably not as excited about this as I am. Next, my dad and I went to Home Depot to buy the lumber for my woodshop project. I think I have mentioned that I am very, very intimidated by doing my first largely-unsupervised project. I’m not that concerned that I’ll cut off my arm or anything, I just mostly don’t want to screw up really badly. We found the 8′ cedar boards I needed, and after checking my list against the price, realized that I’m dealing with about $200 in lumber. I’m dumb, and had no idea how expensive it would be. So I stood there reconsidering yet again. But my dad, he’s awesome. He really likes that I’m taking woodshop. And he really thinks I can do this. So he convinced me. How long do you think it takes two perfectionists to choose almost 20 pieces of lumber? Sweet mother of god. An employee came up and asked us what we were making. I shyly handed him my plans and told him I was a complete novice, and didn’t know what I was getting into. All of a sudden, I found myself with a little cheering section. It was kind of awesome. I know I’ve said it before, but I really like the people at Home Depot. Then, the experiment: would 8′ boards fit in Chico? In the dark, in the cold, in a snowstorm? But of course. I fit about half the wood in my car through the little porthole for long objects that opens from the trunk. There was about 4 inches clearance between the end of the boards and my CD player, so I was extra careful driving home. Although me and a bunch of 2×6’s would’ve made a pretty spectacular roadside death scene, I think. I got home, piled the wood into the garage, and left again. I picked up Bertine and we went to dinner. (I don’t even have to say where I go for dinner anymore, because it’s obvious.) After that, we went up to Elsie’s for cosmic bowling at 9:30. We were right on time, but the place was mobbed. The guys at the counter said there was a big party that had rented most of the place, otherwise it’s not usually that busy. We stood and looked around, and I had one of those weird moments I’ve been having lately: Hey! I know everybody here! Turns out French Meadow was having a staff party. Weird. We left and went to Stardust Lanes, which was nearly deserted, and not the kind of place anyone rents out. We got ourselves a lane, a large collection of pink balls, and Bertine (as Jim) and I (as Bob) bowled. Bob made up in good aim what he lacked in skill and practice, since he only bowls once a year. Jim will never be a pro, but he managed to get a turkey even though he almost fell down getting each of those three strikes. They figured they were pretty crappy bowlers, but they were kicking the asses of the showoff boys nearby, and that’s what counts. Bob jumped around a lot. Jim bought drinks. They high-fived. They talked about their balls a lot. Bob challenged Jim to an arm-wrestling match when Jim questioned his arm strength. Jim declined, because he knew Bob would win. Jim is a pussy. So, Bob and Jim ended up bowling much longer than Bob intended to be out, because he had to get up early and go to work. And that’s why I’m so damn tired today. And now I have to go to woodshop. I’m terrified. Luck, please. Jenni