I was in a carefree mood as I drove the last block to our house. Then, I saw them--a giant swarm of them--meandering along the road. Heading towards OUR house. Their eyes darted to and fro, yet they retained an almost nonchalant appearance, as if to say "pay no mind, we're just passing through, NO NEED to worry...", though in reality they are plotting their next moves. How to divide and conquer the entire block. How to infiltrate and penetrate each and every soul.

I panicked. My heart began to race, and I realized that there was no way I could avoid them. I would pull just past them before pulling into the driveway; I could not possibly avoid being seen. Then, even more horrifying, they would know that I was home. They moved slowly, surely plotting when to make their move for me, when to approach. I darted quickly into the house, and headed straight upstairs, where I VERY carefully peered between the blinds to keep an eye on the determined swarm. I watched as they split into groups and slipped quietly up to the front steps of the houses across the street. How were they selecting their course? My breath quickened with fear.

Assuming my side of the street to be momentarily safe, I placed a panicked phone call to J. "There are tons of them out there!" I said "They are moving up and down the street, and I don't know if they've already been here and I don't know where they're headed, and they KNOW that I'm here. They saw me, I'm sure of it!"

He replied calmly, "I already talked to them. Didn't you see The Watchtower and the Awake! magazine on the table?"

Yes, dear readers, I married a man who is completely and utterly unafraid of answering the door when the Jehovah's Witnesses (or the Mormons, for that matter) come calling. He told me that not only did he allow them to read to him a verse from the Bible, he gave them his opinions on the misuse of the Bible by many of our government leaders, and told them that they should check into that. Gotta love him.

nastiness

Allow me for a moment to live up to my blog pseudonym...

We have a new girl in the office. I can smell her perfume up and down the hall. And she has a HUGE ass, the kind that looks like it's trying to escape from the rest of her body when she walks. Today she is wearing a knee-length pleated skirt, that, as I'm sure I don't need to spell out, is HUGELY unflattering to her figure.

She seems nice though.

Maui Ink

Sitting in the Detroit airport on my way home from Maui last week, I called my mother. "I brought home a rather interesting souvenir from Maui," I said. Her guess: "You're pregnant?!" Um...NO. "Well, you're so close, but actually, I got a tattoo."

It's true, me with the fear of needles that once caused me to (very briefly) pass out at the counter in Claire's after an ear piercing, underwent over an hour of tiny needles being repeatedly dunked into my virgin (to inking, that is) epidermis.

I have thought about getting tattooed for a long time, but could never really decide on what to get or where to get it. Anywhere in the abdominal region is out due to potential future baby-related stretching; forget the lower-back "whore brand"--too cliche, and besides, I wanted to be able to *look* at the damned thing without using a mirror. I was really considering the top of my foot, but the thought of those bazillion tiny needles hitting my delicate foot bones was too much to bear.

So I finally went for it and got a dragonfly (and not a cute cartoony one either) on the back of my lower calf (ankle, really, but directly on the back instead of the more popular side option). Though I do like the design, there are a couple of things I would like to change about it. Now, normally the time to do that would be when the artist shows you the drawing and it can still be erased and redrawn, but I am such a fucking wuss that I just smiled and said OK and had her just shrink it down a bit overall. Fortunately, I'm fairly certain that the changes I envision could be easily made to the current version.

Since I'm sure you're wondering...YES, IT HURT. It really wasn't so bad at first, but near the end a few spots seemed to get really sensitive and it was all I could do to keep my foot still. At least by that point I'd stopped worrying about the fact that my toe was poking the tattoo artist in the boob. Because thinking about what was *really* going on made it harder to handle the sensations, here are some of the things I imagined was being done to my leg during the tattoo process:


1. That a small, very hairy portion of my leg was being continually depilitated with the Epilady from the 1980's (basically a tight metal coil that spun around while you rubbed it over your hairy areas, abruptly ripping the hairs out of your skin)




2. That my leg was being repeatedly tasered.







3. That stinging ants with huge mandibles were burying themselves in my skin in order to lay eggs and establish a colony that would eventually lead to their world dominance. (OK, I didn't really think that at the time, but it still works).


All I can say is that if it weren't for the calming effect of the palm trees swaying outside the window, I don't know if I'd have handled the pain nearly as well. And that said, I am already thinking about what I will get tattooed next. My husband was right about not being able to get just one (he has 10). He claims it's the pain that most people find addictive, but that I just don't get. Of course, most people wouldn't "get it" if I ended up with 10 different non-cutesy insects tattooed all over me, but that's their problem.

Anyway, here's the result (sorry for the crappy image quality:

absurdity of the day

Like a good anal-retentive rule-follower, I was perusing the irs.gov site today in preparation for doing my taxes. I downloaded the pdf of the instructions for good old Form 1040, as, this being my first year filing jointly and thus having to deal with mortgage interest and such, I'm used to the simpler forms 1040-A and 1040-EZ. Anyhoo, the very first page of the instruction booklet begins with a section entitled "What's New". This includes some information about deductions you can take related to loss caused by Hurricane Katrina, for charitable donations made in the wake of the 2004 tsunami, and other logical items.

Then, I noticed this bullet point:

Certain whaling captains may be able to clain a charitable deduction for whale hunting expenses. See Gifts to Charity on page A-6 for more details.

WTF, IRS? W. T. F.??

spam, a lot.

I've been getting a ton of spam on my primary e-mail account lately, and no matter how vigorously I report it to comcast, it just keeps on coming. The interesting thing is that, instead of subject lines like "earn millions now!" or "your penis too can be the size of King Kong's", the ones I get are just collections of random words--jibberish, basically. Actual examples include "avesta hearten hyannis thorough trite conscript", "a marx, it's cloudburst", and "radiometer salina shrunk brahmsian crow duty".

Yesterday I received a spam with the best subject line to date:
"!However, the baby appears to be mentally alert..." (note that in the original, the exclamation point at the beginning was miraculously upside-down, even though the statement following it was in english). Today I got one entitled "dispensate laxative". Because, you know, a subject like that *really* makes me want to know what the e-mail says...

Anyway, I am thinking of have a t-shirt made one of these days, perhaps by the folks at www.spamshirt.com. Another one to add to the "damn! why didn't I think of that?!" list...

another reason to write about work

They are sending me to MAUI. In January. I get to spend 4 full days there, and I have to work for about 4 hours TOTAL while I am there. I get to bring J (though we have to pay for his ticket and food) and we are staying at a nice resort. Cheapest Hawaiian vacation ever! Now I am able to forgive them for the lack of a Christmas bonus...