Prepoceros

Paragraphs are overrated*.

1. This morning I finished a tub of chocolate icing, closed it, and left it on the coffee table. When I got back from tutoring this afternoon, I found the tub on the floor, chewed open and licked clean, next to a mangled pair of sunglasses and an untouched rawhide chew. As of this writing the puppy lives, so I’m assuming he didn’t eat enough chocolate to do any serious damage.
2. I was feeling tired and grumpy around dinnertime tonight, so naturally I cleaned the kitchen, ran the dishwasher, did a load of laundry, and took out the trash, thus concentrating all my grumpiness into one evening and saving the fun things for when I’m actually awake enough to enjoy them. I didn’t plan it that way, but I think it’s clever. From now on I’ll do this on purpose.
3. Sometime before class on Friday I lost my Latin book. I scoured the apartment for a whole thirty seconds but came up empty-handed. I just found it . . . in a stack of books holding up the right end of my keyboard.
4. I estimate that it will be pool weather in about a week, but I refuse to turn on the air conditioning in my apartment. It’s hottt in here. I leave the patio door open and the fan on when I’m home, and the fresh air is lovely. Right now Sammy’s splayed out on the tile where it’s cooler. But don’t worry about him—he gets ice cubes whenever (1) Mommy is in the kitchen and (2) Sammy is adorable.
5. Do I throw commas around with reckless abandon**? I’ve gone back and removed from this post several that seemed superfluous. You’d tell me if you thought I had a comma problem, wouldn’t you? WOULDN’T YOU?
6. I’ve been jeansless for MONTHS, ever since the crotch of my old favorite jeans shredded itself. This week I finally found a new pair I like: medium blue, slightly worn but not torn up, and like six fingers below my belly button. Call me a skank if you like, but I love me some ultra-lows. These new jeans? They’re not made for sitting, really. It’s a good thing shirts are getting longer. And I know ultra-low-rise jeans are on the way out, but I don’t care because omg hot hot. I’ll wear them until they’re cool again (or at least until I get fat).
7. When I’m scratching Sammy’s belly and he wraps his little paw around my arm . . . oh man, that kills me.
8. Goodness me, this list is getting to be way longer than I’d planned. I was going for short and punchy. Ha.
9. Now that I’m halfway through the 30-day slow-food-only project, it’s become easier to avoid the drive-thrus, which is the outcome I was hoping for. The first few days were painful, but now that I’ve nearly broken the habit I don’t miss it so much. On the other hand, this cupcake-a-day program is becoming a problem. To counteract this, I’m testing out a plan in which I buy icing (see above) at the store and eat that instead of cupcakes. I’m playing my vices against each other, you see. If you disregard my consuming approximately two thousand calories’ worth of icing in the first 36 hours, it’s a brilliant plan.
10. I am a sexy bitch.

That is all. Go back to your cheesy snacks and your television programs.

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* As is the claim “[blank] is overrated.” I saw it on two billboards this morning. One was for a car; the other was for . . . something else, I don’t remember. Extreme hardcore skateboarder juice or somesuch.

** I’ve tried for several minutes to work my clever new coinage ‘commarhea’ into this sentence, but, alas, without success. I can’t decide if it should have one ‘r’ or two.

Today is (yesterday was) Blog Against Sexism Day, but as I’m sleepy and have no riveting comments on sexism ready to fly from my fingertips, I’ll be shallow and blog about Project Runway instead.

I’m a big fan of PR. Though I don’t have TV, I’ll never miss an episode of the show—I go over to Toni’s apartment every Wednesday night for a PR powwow.

Tonight was the season finale, in which the top three designers show their collections at Fashion Week in NYC. I was rooting for either Chloe or Daniel (I’m not a Santino fan). I wasn’t bowled over by any of the collections—underwhelmed, as Michael Kors would say—they all seemed a little cheap and poorly made to me, but I guess that’s what happens when you have to sew everything yourself. Still, I liked last year’s better. (Except for Wendy Pepper’s, of course—gross.)

I’m happy to report (though if you don’t already know, you probably don’t care) that Chloe brought the (figurative) trophy home to Houston. Woop woop!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here before (I think I’ve spent less time talking about Season 2 than I did about Season 1), but Chloe has had a boutique* in Rice Village ever since I’ve lived here. I drive past it every day on my way to the office, two blocks away, and marvel at all the pretty things in the window I would buy if I were rolling in money.

Last week they suddenly put tarps up over the windows with signs announcing that the store was closed for remodeling and would reopen March 3. It struck me as an odd date, less than a week before the finale—why didn’t they wait until the day of? Or the day after? It was clear when they reopened that somebody had gotten a trunkload of money from somewhere, as the formerly-tiny boutique had doubled in size. You’d think the producers wouldn’t have allowed that sort of thing to be public before the finale aired…but what do I know about television?

I drove past on my way home after the show tonight to see if anything newsworthy was going down, but the party was clearly somewhere else. Meh. Go Chloe. You done us proud.

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* Lot 8 is the name of the store, so I assume this is the website. I would’ve thought it’d be live by the time the finale aired.

Starbucks Drive-Thru Guy: Back for more cupcakes?
Me: Sure am!
SDTG: Man, they’re addicting, aren’t they?
Me: Very.
SDTG: They don’t tell people about the secret ingredient.
Me: What’s that?
SDTG: Dash of grade-A China white.
Me: Wouldn’t be surprised.

MICHAEL ROUNDS. The governor of South Dakota signed that [punchy negative epithet] anti-abortion law today. Ugh. It doesn’t even make exceptions for rape or incest. Apparently they’re making the law as provocative as possible so it’ll go all the way to the Supreme Court, but still, this disgusts me. Abortion is such a fucking hard problem—it hurts my head to think about it, and I wish…I don’t know what I wish. That it would go away. Somehow.

AMERICAN EXPRESS. Who ever heard of a credit card number with only fifteen digits? I mean, seriously, am I the only person who didn’t get that memo? I had no idea this wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule: telephone numbers have ten digits (in Houston, anyway), zip codes have five, social security numbers have nine, and credit card numbers have sixteen.

Today at work I told a parent over the phone that the number she gave me was missing a digit, and that I’d try to put the purchase through, but that it might bounce back. She sounded surprised and told me that it had always worked before. I said I wasn’t sure how that was possible, but sure, I’d give it a shot. And now I feel like a moron. What else are they keeping from me?!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here before, but I am *terrible* on the phone. Proof: the missing-digit controversy flustered me so badly that, after talking with this parent for nearly an hour (most of which was not about the card…payment didn’t enter the conversation until minute 50 or so), I ended the conversation without (1) telling her how much the program cost (a lot), (2) asking for the expiration date on her credit card, or (3) catching HER NAME.

REESE WITHERSPOON. I’d almost forgotten how annoying she was. Almost.

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P.S. This will only be funny to a handful of you, but I originally put the bold bits between <emph> tags, instead of <strong> tags like I usually do. LaTeX flashback! Old habits die hard…and resurface at odd times, apparently.

P.P.S. I think my ability to write grammatical sentences and tell stories in an engaging fashion declines sharply after midnight. To wit: this post, the previous one…pretty much anything from the past week. I’m so tired right now I’m not sure I have the energy to get alllll the way up into the bed.

In several recent posts I’ve left a few threads dangling, so I thought I’d take a minute to tie them all up at once.

First, my new apartment. I finally signed the lease, a feat that required three visits on three consecutive days to accomplish. All I wanted was to sign my name seventeen times and write a huge check, but no, it got complicated. First they didn’t have my lease typed up. Then I sat around for an hour and a half while they tried to get my current apartment complex to fax back a rental verification form, to no avail. At least two different people were all, “Sure, I’ll send that right over,” but of course they never did, and eventually I talked to someone who said it needed the approval of someone who wasn’t there, but she’d be back in half an hour, would I like her voicemail? Whatever. By the third day, all that had been sorted out, and I could finally sign everything.

I walked through my new place, which smelled horribly of smoke, so they repainted and changed the air filters (they’d already replaced the carpet). I haven’t been back to check it out, but I will the next time I’m in the area. I’ll start moving all my crap over once I figure out a way to haul my bed.

Second, the no-fast-food resolution. It’s been a week, and I’m still alive and on track. There have been SO MANY TIMES (any time I’m in my car, basically) that I’ve been tempted to hit up a drive-thru, but knowing I’m absolutely not allowed to has forced me to make a better decision and go home. Still I may be making up for it in cupcakes—7 so far, 2 back-to-back tonight.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping this past week. I don’t know how much of that is the cupcakes and how much of it is blogging at 1:something in the goshdarn morning. I’ve been going to bed much later than I usually do, waking up in the ugly hours of the morning (4 or 5-ish), feeling groggy when I finally roll out of bed at 8 or 9, and moping around tired all day. Blah.

Third, that dent the vicious bump made in my rim? Let all the air out of my tire. Friday morning I noticed it was mostly flat, but I had to drive to Pearland (to sign the lease) and then back to school. When I tried to put air in it on my way to work, the pressure was at 10 pounds, and I could hear and feel air rushing out of the gap between rim and tire. I changed the tire (with the help of a nice man*) and dropped the car off at my parents’ house, swapping it out for my brother’s old Jeep.

I think the point of this story is . . . boo Kirby. The lost hubcaps are still there, by the way; I check for them every time I drive by. If I were an unscrupulous hubcap seller person**, I would snatch them all up in the name of de-littering the sidewalk.

Fourth, this isn’t an update to anything, but Sammy chewed a liquid-ink pen to bits all over the couch today. Or rather, from the trail of green splotches, it seems he snatched it from the couch, chewed a hole in it, carried it all around the apartment, then brought it back to the couch for the final inky dismemberment. The good news? It’s almost the same green as the accent pillows. That’s called “looking on the bright side.”

Fifth, there is no fifth. That’s all the updates for now. I proctored for eight hours today (two four-hour SATs), and I have a lesson tomorrow afternoon. Time for bed.

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* If anybody needs a plumber, I can recommend you a friendly one. His name is Julio.

** As opposed to the majority of hubcap seller people, who are absolutely bursting with scruples. Not to stereotype or anything, I’m just saying.

The surface of one of the major streets near my apartment (Kirby) is a cracked, blistered, potholed mess and has been for years. It’s a pain.

In one particular spot, two whole pavement slabs are out of alignment, creating a 2-3 inch vertical ‘jump’ that spans the width of a lane. I’m almost certain this feature did not exist a week ago; I drive over that spot nearly every day and would surely have noticed.

Tuesday night I was driving home along Kirby (because that’s where the cupcakes are), and I came to the bump. I didn’t expect it, and it was dark, so I didn’t notice anything amiss and drove straight into the ridge at about 35 mph. OUCH. Shocks? Tires? Still there? You sure?

The best part was when a flash in the rear view mirror caught my eye, and I looked up just in time to see my right front hubcap fly through the air into the bushes. I probably should have stopped and fetched it right then, but I was still in shock and wasn’t inclined to go digging around in someone’s bushes at night. It’d probably still be there the next day, and if it wasn’t, meh. Walmart sells hubcaps for like fifteen bucks a set**.

Then last night I was driving home from work along the same route. I got to the spot and slowed waaaaaay down for the bump. Still jarring, but at least this time my teeth didn’t try to knock each other out of my head.

It was dark again, so I wasn’t planning on stopping to look for the hubcap, but then I saw it! My hubcap! Sitting right there in the middle of the sidewalk! So I pulled into a driveway marked “No Trespassing” and jogged back to pick it up.

When I got there, however, I was amused and disappointed to find that it bore the Toyota logo (my hubcaps are from Walmart—see footnote): amused because someone else had apparently suffered a similar fate, disappointed because I’d have to go poking around in the bushes in the dark after all.

It wasn’t until I set the Toyota hubcap down and looked around for a likely resting place for my own that I noticed the NINE OTHER HUBCAPS lined up along the fence. Clearly I was neither the first nor the last to underestimate the bump.

I went over to investigate, and sure enough, there was my missing hubcap. I grabbed it, then trotted back to pick up the Toyota “fresh kill” and set it at the end of the line. Give a little, take a little.

I was going to put the cap back on when I got home, but the bump actually bent the metal rim of my wheel. At least, I think it’s bent. Wheels are supposed to be round, no?

So now I’ve got a dirty hubcap in my trunk and a ghetto-fied car. Fabulous.

PSA: If you’ve recently driven on Kirby near Rice Village and are now missing a hubcap, you should check the fence across from the Shell station. If you were planning to walk around that area, don’t. Unless decapitation is your thing.

But seriously, to whom does one report these sorts of things? I know this street has always been a mess, but this is new and probably a violation of some sort of road safety code. It’s at best a nuisance and at worst dangerous. Anyone I can sue?

Oh, and before I forget, this whole episode led me to a new LESSON LEARNED:

Do not pick up a loose car part or two and then, half an hour later, forget that you have done so and attempt to put your contact back in. Grease + eye = BURNING.

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* Perhaps you’ve noticed that all of this happened before tonight. I started this post yesterday, then slacked off and got too sleepy to finish it. I’ve been bad at that lately—not going to bed on time. Boooo.

** The last time I drove out to California, two of my hubcaps came off before we got halfway across Texas. I think the people who rotated my tires snapped off the tabbies.

Three days in, and the fast food boycott is still going strong. I’m almost positive this is a personal best for me in the not-yet-Olympic sport of sustained self-discipline.

I’ve been eating lots of leftover pot roast. And lots of leftover soup. And lots of toast. And some raisins. And yogurt every now and then.

Oh, and cupcakes. I believe I’ve had . . . five, now? Is that right? Four or five. I don’t remember if I had one yesterday. I don’t think I did. Let’s call it four. And two lattes. No, one latte. Four cupcakes, one latte.

But ZERO waffle fries! I think that more than makes up for the chocolate overindulgence.