For what you wish, be careful.

Sometimes I wish I could catch a good, solid cold. You know, nothing too terrible, but something just bad enough to keep me on the couch for a few days, swaddled in blankets and cradled by pillows. So I was excited when I felt a little tickle in my throat last Friday. By Sunday, I had the full-bodied whoop of a lunger and a worsening sniffle. By Monday morning, I looked and felt terrible and was actually sent home from work.

Now, in my imaginary world, this should be cause for pajamaed celebration. You know, break out the hot chocolate and movies - it's time to recuperate! Unfortunately, my imaginary world generally fails to consider the crucial and unpleasant details of my real one.

1) Feeling like shit, well, it feels like shit.

2) Damned Protestant Work Ethic. Despite my dreams to the contrary, I can't bear the thought of skivving off, so I dragged myself to work every morning this week. And every morning, they promptly sent my pale, clammy, shaking, hacking (and on one occasion weeping) ass straight back home. "Stay in bed," they said. "Go away, death!" they yelled. "Why are you here again?" they implored. "I just don't know," I moaned. I don't understand myself at all.

3) My poor Snorri has had diarrhea since Saturday. We're talking five to six fetid puddles of ick a day. There was even one instance of projectile vomit. We've finally achieved a firm turd, but, let me tell you, it was a long time coming.

4) I have about four functioning neurons. Seriously - if it weren't for spell check, #3 would contain the word "puttle."

And I'm spent. Off to stare at a napkin for a few hours, and then I've got to get some sleep before I dash off to work in the morning, scarlet snot rag on my chest.

By the by - thanks for the kind comments on my new 'do. I cropped my face because I have an irrational belief that this sort of measure will prevent work-place discovery. And enhabiten, your home is absolutely lovely - congratulations.

The Price of Beauty

So, I saw Olga on Monday. Remember her? This time, she decided that winter was the perfect occasion for going truly short - she pressed the comb to the hair just above my shoulders and announced her intentions.

Olga: Here. And we add copper.
Me: I don't know.
Olga: Yes. Will be perfect.
Me: Copper sounds fine, but n.o.c. hates short hair, remember?
Olga: So, you have fabulous hair during day, at night you wear long wig. Yes.
Me: But...

But it was too late. Olga had decided, and she'd apparently decided on something much shorter than she originally suggested:

I love it. It's sleek and shiny and feels like an honest-to-god "style." I'm like a grownup or whatever. I check myself out in windows. Students fawn over me. I get compliments all the time.

Not, however, from n.o.c. While it wasn't as short as he'd feared, he told me last night that the cut was fine, but "it just makes you look average."

This was basically the most terrible thing anyone's ever said to me, so I killed him. Snorri loves the hair, and we're very happy together. Just the two of us, coiffed and adorable.

Joke's on you.

Last Thursday:



Suckaroo, motherf*ckahs! No cash, no nice radio, only a used litter box:

And a little Snorri for your evening:

And I'm rambling.

Once upon a time, I began my mornings around 3:30 or 4. I'd have a vat of coffee with Splenda (this is why I no longer use artificial sweetener) and translate like a motherf*cker until 9, when I'd head off to class. Each week I had five classes of my own (each met three times), three classes and three sections of the class I TA-ed, research for my advisor, and daily exercise. I always made time to exercise. I didn't make time to have friends, but I did stalk a very cute coffee guy at the Tuesday farmers' market, and I pretended that I knew the patrons who sat at my favorite cafe. I'd cook a small dinner in the evenings, work for a few more hours, and then I'd head to bed around ten, though I made sure to read one short story before sleep, just so I wouldn't lose all sense of propriety.

While I don't reminisce fondly about this particular interlude, I do frequently marvel at my former self. So driven! So regimented! So diligent!

I was just coming off this schedule when I met n.o.c., and six hours of sleep seemed like the ultimate frivolity - a selfish and slothful waste of time. Then we spent a solid month sunning ourselves and sleeping when the mood struck, and - *SHAZAM!* - that driven, regimented, diligent person decided that she was done with that shit, threw her book bag in the trash and cracked a beer. Last I heard, she was tanned like luggage and slinging cocktails in a seedy South American bar on a dangerous but beautiful stretch of beach.

Lately, I've been sleeping a lot - going to bed around 9:30, getting up around 6:30. I love it. In fact, it feels so good that I wonder if I might be happy just sleeping my life away. When I think I've finally gotten my nap out, I find that I can easily sleep for several more hours. I don't feel badly about this, although I do suspect that I'm being judged by some past me. I also feel a little duddish and phlegmatic when I come across someone like this, who is inhumanly productive and probably sleeps less on purpose so that she can do more. But, I was never into computers - or anything profitable, for that matter - so there's really no sense in comparing apples to wildly successful, techy oranges.

At the moment, I spend most of my time reading, writing, cooking, and sleeping. I'm basically a literate cat with culinary ambitions. And I think that's fine. I think. For now.

Because I'm sure as shit not writing anything worthwhile these days.

Read this.

The one where I talk about poop.

Last weekish, n.o.c. and I were having a lovely evening. We'd just finished dinner, so I went off to read, while goodhusband n.o.c. worked on cleaning up the kitchen. Snorri (a.k.a. The Snorracle of Smallfry, a.k.a. Snorrious Maglorious Bloodeagle Ford (not mine), a.k.a. ooooooohhhhiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou (mine)) was off doing what he does best - conquering cat trees, manhandling bottle caps, destroying feathered playthings, what have you. Or so we thought.

As n.o.c. prepped the coffee maker (he's the shit), he noticed the Snorrster scooting across the floor on his arse. Not having read 2,935 books on cat rearing (punny!), n.o.c. thought our little guy was just being a clown. I, however, realized that something, um, fouler was afoot. Sure enough, Snorri had managed to embed two hockey pucks of poo into his very fluffy and once pristine buttfur and then decided to drag ass across the apartment in hopes of scraping them off. To his credit, there was a poo circle (something like a crop circle) around my chair, so he had tried to attract my attention before embarking on his apartment-wide shit-smearing adventure.

Anyhoo, we eventually put everything to rights, and Snorri endured the blow dryer with aplomb (and a considerably less furry, but poop-free, rear end). We chalked the incident up to youth and abundant, Pantaloon-like leg fur.

But last night, after a delicious dinner of Cornish game hens (Snorri enjoyed Iams kitten chow and the smallest sliver of crispy skin), we settled into bed and Snorri frolicked off to take his evening constitutional. After I heard him exit the box, I immediately went to dispose of his deposit, because I am fastidious. Most unfortunately, Snorri had once again managed to - I don't even know how to describe it - it was like when you were little and you fell asleep with chewing gum in your mouth and it ended up in your hair... except, in this case, the chewing gum is multiple nuggets of poo and your mouth is a little feline ass sphincter and your hair is white fur. Too graphic? I just don't know anymore.

I tell you this neither because I'm weary of kvetching about work (never!) nor because I want to ruin your dinner - I just don't know how to proceed. Is the issue mechanical? Gastrointestinal? (I took in a sample yesterday.) Maniacal? What is he doing? Why is this happening? Help!

As long as I'm asking you for help with animals, please keep another furry friend of ours, M., in your thoughts - clap for her, give her the care bear stare, pray to St. Francis, smudge sage, whatever. Sweet little M. is having a rough go of things and could use whatever you've got. Thanks.

Guilt.

I feel guilty when I don't post. It's not guilt of the Southern Methodist, do-you-know-that-you-know-that-you-know variety, but, still, it niggles. If let it go on for too long, it's bound to spin into:

Shame (I have let you down. You came to me for amusement, and I failed you.)

Inadequacy (I am not clever enough to warrant your attention.)

Self-loathing (I'm a sham. I have never been funny.)

So, it's best if I just blog on the regular. I feel better, regardless of whether you do or not. (Though I really hope you do. And that's the baldest emotion you're going to get for a while.)

Lately, though, I haven't felt compelled to write much. It's not that nothing's going on, it's just that I'm consumed with a weird apathetic hatred that makes me boring and dangerous. Like a wildly venomous slug. I'm also really fucking tired, but who the fuck isn't, so that doesn't seem like a topic of conversation. But I persevere:

• Ninth graders think that circumcision is a rare and barbaric Jewish ritual. I have disabused them of this notion and given them permission to ask the men in their lives whether or not they are possessed of a foreskin. Consider yourselves warned.
• Snorri enjoys having a perch for his rear end when he takes a poo, so he often lets his turds fall just over the rim of his litter box. I find this endearing and amusing, and so does n.o.c., except that he practically vomits whenever he smells kitten shit. This does not bode well for the prospect of actual human offspring, since I am sure as shit (punny!) not changing all the rancid diapers.
• During last week's professional day, the dean of faculty began the morning by taking to the loudspeaker and commanding all teachers to leave their offices and march in the hallway. She then called out those who did not participate with enough vigor: "Ms. Lemplekins! I see you on the monitor! Get those knees up! You're only seventy-five!" She also sang the school song and a hymn.
• My dear, sweet, slightly insane mother would not stop cleaning last weekend, and now I'm convinced that she has the hantavirus. And it will be All. My. Fault.

That's the best I can do for today. I must off to work on my drinking problem and decide how best to be subversive and hateful without expending excessive energy or getting fired.