Charles got in a copy of Makrokosmos today--it's one of the pieces he did for his final stuff in college or grad school. When you first pick it up and turn to the first piece (it consists of twelve pieces, one for each sign of the zodiac) it looks fairly ordinary. Lots of 32nd and 64th notes, which is terrifying for a former flute player. But as you flip through the book you find pieces that are... written in a circle. (One of them has you play a few bars written in the center of the circle, then play the circle 3 1/3 times around...) Or a spiral. Or half sideways, or in staves that jump erratically around the page or just disappear.

Stuff like this just reek of sheer pretentious douchenozzlery (Mr. Danielewsky, I'm looking at you). We listened to a clip on Amazon, and Charles is noodling around with it in the music room, and basically it's in the category of "modern dissonant show-offy artsy-fartsy." Give me Chopin or Debussy any day.

My senior year English teacher called me a curmudgeon. I wonder why.

I don't care how comfortable you think they are--there is NO EXCUSE for wearing shoes THAT FUGLY.

Anyway.

In other news, just started reading Proven Guilty, book whatever of The Dresden Files today, and all I have to say is EEEEEEEEEEEEE! *does a happy little dance*

Not that anyone here (except I think ahmeemee) has read the books or really knows what the hell I'm on about.

Eeee.

Apparently "New York Style" Chinese means "good food, but the staff have an attitude, and you get shorted something every visit."

Traffic was shut down northbound on I-69 not too far north of Indy today because apparently Michelle Obama was in town. That's great and all, but could we have planned the visit to NOT SHUT DOWN A MAJOR HIGHWAY DURING EVENING RUSH HOUR? Please? Hello?

Wow. UPS Mail Innovations is a load of crap on the same scale as Medicare drug coverage.

I am apparently allergic to Neosporin. What the fuck.

Plus my right ear sounds funny. Could we at least wait until actual winter before I start with the ear infections?

Besides my annual childhood ear infections, I was never a fragile or sickly child that I remember. This makes all this doubly frustrating.

OH HOW FABULOUS THE CLERK FORGOT TO TAKE THE INK TAG OFF MY BLOUSE.

I think it's low enough down on the hem it won't show if I tuck it in. But now I have to hope we have the receipt, and take that and the tags back so they can take the tag off without destroying it...

So I've been listening to Golf Monster by Alice Cooper, and decided to look up "shanking," a golf phenomenon he describes. The part of the club called the hosel (pronounced "hozzle") plays a part in it.

And I find this, a metaphor taken too far about Nike and sweatshop workers. The authors fail to convince me that the gender of the people involved really is anything more than coincidental.

I just went through and removed some people and groups from my friends list that don't seem to exist anymore. In the case of some of the groups, it was things that I unfriended but forgot to remove from my list, and seeing them hanging around on the list annoys me.

I was subscribed to food_porn for maybe a month, and then got thoroughly sick of it and left. Jeezus Christ on a bicycle. The group should be named "Food Snobs." Yes, I got a couple of very good recipes off it, but I'm not a roast-leg-of-lamb-with-pomegranate-infusion-and-raspberry-coulis-Wellington kind of person. Can I just get a recipe for a good, solid recipe that's fairly straightforward, does not require a specialty store, and involves fewer than thirty ingredients?

The real capper was some woman with an ENORMOUS ego posting her recipe for authentic gumbo with this high-and-mighty "You should thank me for this," attitude. Christ. Like anyone really GIVES a shit, really. I don't act like an authentic fish chowder (that would be without tomato, thanks Manhattan) is God's gift to the fucking culinary world. I love it myself, but I know it's not everyone's thing.

Also, the denizens of this group were apparently all the idle rich--when someone posted a request for advice on buying cookware, the OVERWHELMING bulk of the response was that they should get the non-nonstick coated high-end Calphalon-style cookware, because OMG NOBODY WHO CONSIDERS HIMSELF A COOK SHOULD BUY THE NONSTICK KIND THAT'S WHAT THE WORKING CLASS USES. The fuck? I do not have the time or energy to deal with cookware that isn't nonstick, thanks, and I've been using nonstick T-Fal since I began cooking, and I would put my cooking up against any gourmet fancy-food "ew nonstick cookware!!1!11!" snob. Get a stepladder and GET OVER YOURSELVES.

Now that I've got that off my chest, I'm going to bed.

Though I've never watched Family Guy, I found this on Youtube and thought it was hilarious. Though I felt old when I saw the note apparently had to inform younger viewers that "The song is 'Elvira' by the Oak Ridge Boys."

In other news, my car got egged last night, along with at least two others on our street. And SOMETHING IS FLATTENING ALL MY CORN. What, have we got citified bears?

I don't wanna go to work today. I got to sleep at reasonable times the last two days, but getting up has been really hard. Plus yesterday I had loads of people pulling attitude on me and making the day suck. (Okay, I'm offering you a job, could you not argue the details with me in such a way that I can HEAR your HEAD MOVING?) And the construction guys got the counter put up on our half wall so Chris and Mario rearranged my office AGAIN which always throws me off.

Unfortunately I can't wimp out today because we have a phone meeting scheduled to import data from payroll to our new HR software, but we're having some major issues with Payroll's weird-ass department/job code numbers that I have to call ADP about.

Was planning on maybe going to the Binford farmer's market and the cross-stitch store in Indy this weekend, but the software that I ordered, which was boxed and labeled to ship almost immediately, doesn't appear to have actually shipped yet, so apparently I won't even be getting it this week, so I'm not anywhere near ready to go to the cross-stitch store. That's okay, right now my dearest ambition is to SLEEP IN this Saturday.

It's not even 6 AM and already it's 70 degrees out. I'm not digging this summer.

But I've been reading a collection of Damon Runyon short stories, and I absolutely totally love his writing style. It's what the Midnight Louie books would be if told from the point of view of the Fontana brothers. ♥

Plus I got a CD in the mail from my favorite fox, kehza. Now if I can only find my poor decrepit CD walkman.

Speaking of decrepit Walkmans, besides the volume button going missing, now the label on the back of my MP3 player with the serial number on it is peeling off. I'm rather disgusted by the whole affair. Maybe I should just buy an iPod like everyone else with some of the extra money from July 4th.

My hot dog bun pan shipped from Vermont on 4/30. I was hoping to get it in time to make a batch of buns this weekend and have some proper tuna fish sandwiches for lunch tomorrow or Sunday.

The shipment reached Anderson via FedEx on Thursday, and then was handed over to the postal service, had to go back to Indy because that's the nearest hub, and is supposed to have reached Anderson again last night. It's scheduled to reach here Monday. Is it unrealistic to think they could get it here today? Or even Saturday, if the USPS has it now.

I might as well have gone to Vermont myself. :P

But today we're celebrating Mario's birthday, so that will be fun. I also have clinic, so it will be a short workday.

Dear DA,

"Calendaring" is not a frigging word. The word you're looking for is "scheduling." Please adjust your trendiness accordingly.

I'm having trouble convincing myself to track points this week. My appetite's been a little unpredictable, and it's reassuring just to be hungry enough to want to eat at any point. It's also hard to muster up the energy to cook at all. Tonight I'll be trying the pastitsio recipe from my Weight Watchers cookbook.

Wouldn't be nice if, when you typed in "happy happy joy joy" on Youtube, you actually got the Ren & Stimpy clip, and not thousands of videos made by little anime fanpeople? Dear anime fanpeople, Please fuck off. No love, me. Not all of us think that OMG everything that comes out of Japan is OMGSOKEWLLLL!!!1!!one!

Supposed to be almost 70 today, and I get out of work early for an appointment at Methodist! Wheee! Aw crap, I need to hit an ATM somewhere for parking money. But I get to drive around in the lovely weather with my music up and my window down. Now I just need to make sure I write down all my weird questions for the doctor.

Fifteen inches? You have got to be kidding me.

Went to the Subway in the new Wal*Mart yesterday, which was packed. Subway was busy as well. The line might have moved faster if the man in front of us had, oh, asked his wife what she wanted BEFORE it was his turn to order (she had sat down rather than going through the line with him), and also found out WHAT SHE WANTED ON IT at the same time. And not, when the sandwich person asked what kind of sandwich he wanted, replied "Lettuce and tomato," and then at every question dithered and changed his mind and misunderstood.

And then as they're making our sandwich, to my request of "mayonnaise" the lady reached for the light mayonnaise. I said, "Um, regular mayonnaise please." "Oh, you wanted regular?" DID I ASK FOR LIGHT? NO I DID NOT. THAT MEANS I WANT REGULAR. If I were that worried about fat or calories I'd just skip the fucking mayonnaise entirely, not asked for fake. This follows how, if I say "Tomato, onion, and olives," if you reach for the lettuce and try to put some on the sandwich, I will get pissy with you. Lettuce is not a given. I don't want your crappy shredded iceburg. If I'd wanted lettuce, I'd have said lettuce.

Jack Frost Yankee candles smell like peppermint Tic Tacs.

All I can see is thank god for Netflix, or we'd have bought A Prairie Home Companion. Guess we'd better stick to the real radio show.

Oh shit, the Colts won. The flu department is going to be insufferable.

It snowed Saturday night and we actually have a decent ground cover. Charles says the weather is calling for freezing sleet this morning. Yay.

Dr. Whelan managed to annoy me again last week at clinic. We were discussing the possibility that I was getting a kidney, and I mentioned that we may put it off until after July 4th for financial reasons. He observed that most people were usually really excited over getting a kidney, but I wasn't, but I had always been more "pragmatic" about it all.

I muttered something about New England pragmatism and we went on to something else, but it really annoyed me for some reason. Well gosh, realizing just how tenuous my financial situation is when I'm working full-time is kind of a buzzkill when you realize that I'll be off work for about three months for a transplant, you know? Jesus. I don't make a nephrologist's salary, and I'm not some friggin' retiree who'll be making Social Security and a pension no matter what I do.

This is why I don't much care for Dr. Whelan--he just doesn't seem to understand where I'm coming from at all.

---

I see that they've remade--live-action--The Year Without a Santa Claus. Normally I'd wonder why what they did to the Grinch wasn't enough, but then I looked at the cast list--John Goodman as Santa! ♥ Harvey Fierstein as Heat Miser! ♥♥ Mike McKean as Snow Miser! ♥♥♥ Now I have to see it just for the Miser brothers.