I had the weirdest, longest dream last night. Short version: there were government-approved podpeople, and everything on my computer got erased. Boo.

Oh, and that second bit reminds me: I got a blue screen of death the other week! I haven't seen one in quite awhile, and almost pissed my pants.

It was the strangest thing. The day before this happened, I was on a website when I heard some background music start up even though I couldn't see a player on the page. It wasn't exactly a song, or at least one I've ever heard before. There was music, but mostly overlapping conversation fragments that were repeated over and over. One of them was a guy saying, "It's not my decision, but..." and another was a teenage girl saying "Of course there will be no implications (or maybe complications? something with -cations), Mom!" It was kind of freaking me out, but it stopped when I went to a different page on the website, so I forgot about it, until...

The next day, on that website again, I heard the music start! Determined to figure out what, how and why the hell it was, I turned my speakers up... just in time for everything onscreen to go away, the music stopped, and the blue screen appeared. I may have actually screamed out loud, I don't really remember. I turned my computer off, then back on, at which point it turned on normally and has been functioning fine ever since. Whew.

Other scary news:

- As I write this, there's a spider watching me from the ceiling. I've been looking back at him approximately every two seconds to see whether he's moving (hopefully, to a place where I could smash him), but he seems content where he is. Just don't fall on my head or in my water, and we're good.

- "Pet Sematary" and "Pet Sematary 2" are on FearNet's On Demand section right now, and I watched them both last week. It was pretty awesome. I forgot how hilarious PS2 was, especially Zombified Gus. Just my opinion, but there can be nothing wrong about a movie that has L7 on the soundtrack.

- I'm currently reading William Peter Blatty's "Legion," which took me some time to warm up to, but is now a serious contender for Scariest Book Ever award. Possibly even scarier than "The Exorcist," but I'll reserve judgment until the last page is read. I stayed up way later than I should have reading it last night (it's probably what caused my weird dreams), and got hooked again for at least an hour this morning. I'd start reading it again right now, but I'm kind of scared to...

Non-scary book news: I finished one of the June Flaum Singer novels I bought a few weeks ago, "The Markoff Women." It started off great, following the story of a young woman's arranged marriage, then her son's voyage to and assimilation and success in America, and then... the book abruptly stops with what could've been the awesome story of his daughter. Instead, we get to watch her grow up to be a spoiled, social-climbing, anti-Semite (unknowingly hating herself, as her father hid his Jewish heritage since years before she was born) through a couple dozen brief diary entries penned by her father. Boring. All I can say is... JFS, WTF? I prefer to think not that she ran out of steam, but that her publishers told her the book was way too long. To quote JFS' brilliant "The Debutantes": Fuckers!

I'm off to exercise (indoors, it's kind of a thousand degrees outside), but I wanted to end with good news: I got that job I interviewed for and have been working for a couple of weeks. Yay me!

I've had a procrastinate-y couple of weeks, so I've been trying to get out of my rut by shaking it up a bit. LS and I went to Santa Cruz Pride on Sunday, which was awesome for so many reasons. And today, I finally got it together enough to spend (most of) the day outside the house.

My first stop was a small farmer's market at the "new" Kaiser in Antioch. Me being me, I looked at the vegetables (and some gorgeous orchids!) but ended up buying an Italian garlic-parmesan spread* and some giant cookies. This is why I should never be allowed to have cash.

*It's fluffy, delicious, and seriously garlicky. I had some of it at lunch, spread atop Ritz crackers, and it totally ruined my second course (apple slices with peanut butter). Still: worth every penny.

Then I went to Target, where mass confusion ensued because they've moved everything around in the health-beauty section since I've been there last. After a year of wandering around like a lost puppy, and buying the generic brand of everything, I still spent way more than I wanted to. On necessities, even. Wah!

After running back home for lunch, I went to a used bookstore that's fifteen minutes away from my house and that's almost never open. I could happily live there if they'd only put in a bed and a kitchen. There were so many treasures to be had, but I restrained myself: two sketchy-sounding sequels to "The Amityville Horror" (if they're barely half as good as the original book, they'll at least be tolerable) and three novels by June Flaum Singer.

My grandma gave me two novels by JFS about a year before she (my grandma, not JFS) died: "The Movie Set" and "The Debutantes," both of which are easily the best trashy novels I've ever read. I've previously read one of the books I bought today after borrowing from the library, so I'm glad to have found that and two more.

Last stop on my field trip was an antique store that's always full of amusing goodies. I really wish I'd taken my camera with me, because I saw some of the creepiest dolls I've ever had the misfortune to meet. And I'm afraid of dolls in the first place, so that's saying a lot. I was also traumatized by the following:

(me) "Oh look, a tiny handmade doll! She's so cute!" (looks at price tag) "And she's only one dollar!" (continues reading tag) "Made with human hair!?" (throws doll down and runs home to compulsively wash hands)

Those things scared me way more than this badass talking Freddy Krueger doll. It was a hundred bucks, or I would've bought it just because I now have a Freddy Krueger-style hoodie. You think I'm joking, but it's got the big red-and-green horizontal stripes and all. Besides being awesome, it was free from a former neighbor who was getting rid of a bunch of like-new clothes. Hells yes.

Speaking of scariness, I've had the urge lately to watch bad horror movies that I love, especially sequels. "Children of the Corn 2" (why isn't this on DVD yet?) and "Pet Sematary 2" (very likely Eddie Furlong's worst movie ever, which is pretty astounding if you think about it).

I got a call earlier this afternoon about a job I applied to about a month ago. I'd even had an interview scheduled for it back then, but it got cancelled last minute and never got rescheduled. Boo. So, assuming it doesn't get cancelled again, I've got an interview tomorrow morning. Yay! Then it's back to the homestead to get my read on before the action-packed week that is... um, well, next week.

Happy 100th post to me!

But as I noted last time, I haven't been feeling particularly blog-gy. So, you'll have to be happy with two random pictures from around my house:





Pepe sleeping under my bed. Also partially pictured: my hungry stereo (it ate a CD once).



They had to replace part of the banister today. I would've gotten closer to show the scary-ass open drop to the first floor, but I probably would've fallen down, as I tend to.



Well, that's it for today. Oh, and Edie Falco as "Nurse Jackie" is amazing. I also approve of any show with Peter Facinelli in a doctor's coat. I read a snippet (maybe on IMDB?) recently where he talked about wife Jennie Garth constantly bugging him to wear his Carlisle Cullen doctor's coat because it gets her in the mood. What a weirdo; if I were married to him, I'd make him wear no clothes at all. Duh.

It's June first. How the hell did that happen?

I don't really feel like writing this right now. I've been trying to blog for the past few days, with little (and by little I mean no) success. I'm pretty sure I've been un-bit by the blogging bug, which I know has a lot to do with my being out of practice. One thing I know about myself is that the harder I fight to not do something, the more it means I really need to do it... so I guess I'll have to start blogging more, starting now. Bleh.

Last week, I went to a sort of rally to mourn Prop 8 being upheld. Although I would've definitely preferred for us to have had something to celebrate, it was nice to be with like-minded (as in tolerant and non-bigoty) people. We held signs about marriage equality on the side of a pretty busy street for an hour or so, and got a pretty good reaction for the most part. A lot of thumbs-up and friendly waves, and some honking; only two shaking heads that I saw, and one middle finger. Seriously, dude? That's your most intelligent response to people wanting equal rights?

Saturday was the annual wine and chocolate event for the Special Kids Foundation. I went last year with JH, who also came this year, and I brought my mom, too. I'm no expert on wine, but it was pretty good; I had one glass, and slept like an absolute log that night, ha. I am an expert on chocolate, however, and was quite pleased with the selection they had. There was this one lady who specializes in truffles, and had some amazing flavors: almond lavender, pink peppercorn, cinnamon, and some others I didn't try. I was kind of bummed at first when I found out she didn't have a website, but I guess that's a good thing; otherwise I'd be there right now, spending money I don't have and sizing myself back into bigger jeans. (She does sell at a local farmers market every weekend, though. Uh-oh.)

Speaking of money, I'm abstaining from the Bath and Body Works semi-annual sale that starts today. Sob. It's the first one I've missed in years, but it's all for the best. I have stuff I bought at the last one that I still haven't used or even opened, or even looked at since then.

I've continued my weekly volunteering at a free lunch program, which has changed a bit: there have been too many volunteers showing up, so now the first five who show up get to work and the others get to... well, not work. I figure I can use my living five minutes away to my advantage, right?

Final item for the day: I've scored an interview for the position I took a proficiency test for not very long ago. Yay that!

I woke up at 5:45 this morning, after going to bed "late" (11:00) last night. I will blame that (instead of my general airheaded-ness) on my jumping from subject to subject:

- I took another proficiency test/exam for another position, at another school district. And this time, I finished first. Ha! Yeah, I'm still immature.

- Last night, I watched an episode of David Letterman I recorded last week that had The Killers. DL is incredibly boring (I assume - I've never watched it), so I had to fast-forward through the first 50 minutes to get to what I wanted. And because the Comcast DVR hates me, it started freaking out and skipped all the way to the end, and when I tried to rewind it, it went all the way back to the beginning. Ugh! So I had to do it all over again, but more carefully.

But seriously: DL looks so boring. Tom Hanks was also on this particular episode, and he was the only guest on this episode. Are they all like that? I haven't watched Jay Leno in quite awhile, but I think he usually has at least two guests. Jimmy Kimmel has two or three guests, and random stuff in between. Do I have ADD, or is it just a generational thing? You decide.

Main point of the story: The Killers are awesome, and, with an orchestra, even more so.

- We got a "new" (new to us) treadmill. The first one we got slowly committed suicide by strangling itself. No, seriously; the belt got all twisted and weird and choked around the base. Oh, Free Crappy Treadmill, we barely knew ye.

The new treadmill is also an older model, but considerably less crappy. You can actually adjust the speed precisely by MPH, and the grade, and it has a built in timer and calorie counter. I try to ignore the calorie counter, because it's so discouraging; I bust my ass and all I burned is 80 (or whatever) calories? Eff that noise.

- I haven't been reading as much lately, but I did finally get a few non-fiction books from the library a couple weeks ago. I just finished "Full Frontal Feminism" by Jessica Valenti (Feministing). Not extremely comprehensive or in-depth, but a good starting point with lots of ideas and resources; I'd recommend it for anyone, especially women, who are afraid of the f-word (feminism, obvs).

- My mom and I went on a self-guided art tour this last Saturday, and it was pretty neat. We went to a few locations we didn't see last year, including this one lady who made these awesome tapestries. I wish I was more crafty than scrapbooking. For me, the highlight of the tour was the work of Bill Sala, whose paintings remind me of Rene Magritte's art in that they're creepy, eerie, yet strikingly beautiful.

- After a hiatus of longer than I'm willing to admit to, I've started writing again. Yay! I credit this to restarting my morning pages (also after a hiatus), and the hot weather keeping me inside and bored on a Sunday. Hey, whatever works.

Okay, there was one more thing I was going to add to last entry, and I want to write it now before I forget again.

Early last week, I took a proficiency test for a position in a local school district. It was a pretty standard reading/math exam, with some additional questions about your personality and how you deal with students (some of the Q's were so ridiculous, I wish I could remember them). It was an easy test, and I plowed through that bitch.

Okay, so I have this thing about finishing tests first (where "thing" = "I have to"), and when I was just two questions away, this other chick finished hers. How do I know? Because she jumped up out of her chair - and I swear to whatever deities there may be - looked over at me and gloated. Ugh!

I got the results back on Friday, and even though I did well on the test (99%), I didn't get picked for an interview. Wah. I just hope Gloaty McSmug didn't get picked, either; is someone immature enough to care about finishing a test first the best choice to work with students? Um... yeah, maybe not.

This is going to be a short entry because 1) I don't have a lot to say and 2) It's stopped raining for the moment, so I think I'll go take a walk. Anyway:

- My volunteering through the county library finally started this week! While picking out books and stuff for my client, I think I rekindled my own love affair with reading. I have a bunch of novels at home I still have to tackle, but there are some non-fiction things I'm fantasizing about now, too. I'll probably go sometime this week to get some books for myself... or, depending on my schedule and the weather tomorrow, I can go to the one county library that I know is open on Sundays. Seriously, why aren't libraries 24/7 (or at least 12/7)?

- We had an overload of ripe bananas this week, so I made a bunch of bread. Wednesday evening, I made four mini-loaves to try and satisfy everyone's taste: plain banana bread, banana with walnuts, banana with walnuts and chocolate chips, and banana with walnuts, chocolate chips and chai flavoring. Yum! These were actually all consumed, and I made more last night: four mini-loaves of plain banana bread, and one regular loaf of banana-walnut. The big one is being eaten, and the others have been frozen.

Doing all this baking reminded me of how my original plan for this last Christmas was to bake everyone goodies. That didn't work out, but there's always this year! Or any time when I get bitten by the baking bug, really. I have it right now, but I'm going to have to merely be content with daydreaming about all the kinds I want to make. Pumpkin, zucchini, something orange-y... oh, I really wish I had the recipe for the lemon-thyme bread that the chef at my restaraunt job had. It was an old family recipe of hers, and so delish.

- Okay, this really is a short entry. I have nothing else.

I woke up early this morning. Way early, as in 4:15. To quickly sum up the dream that startled me back into consciousness, I had to cut some guy's throat because he was standing too close to me in the grocery store checkout line. Don't you hate that?

My real life grocery rage is seeping into my dreams, I guess. Yesterday, just because of the way stuff turned out, I went to the store at 1:30 instead of in the evening. There were about the same amount of people there, but more kids. Ugh. I'm not really sure why I insist on going the same place every week; most of the other shoppers and all but two of the cashiers are snobs who'd rather stare through you than acknowledge that you're a human being. On the plus side, I came in six dollars and something-cents below my weekly food budget! Last week I was about two dollars over. I'm getting either better, or just luckier in that all the stuff I wanted happened to be on sale, I'm not sure which.

This week was a long one. Not bad by any means, just long. And really weird, weather-wise; it started off hella hot (that's a technical term, you know) and then got pretty cool. In the "I'm an idiot" category, I was freezing all Thursday night and couldn't figure out why. When I got up the next morning to open my window, well, guess what was already open? D'oh. I made sure to close it last night, but I was still so cold that I had to go into the hall to get a blanket from the linen closet. This was still at 4-something this morning, mind you. In fact, here's a timeline:

4:15 - Wake up, think "WTF? Ah, it's still way too early... I can probably fall back asleep."
4:16-4:30 - Toss, turn, shiver
4:31 - Get blanket
4:32 - Wrap myself in blanket like a burrito
4:33-5:15 - Stare at dark ceiling
5:16 - Unwrap myself from blanket burrito and walk (with eyes closed, for some reason) over to my desk to get my Zune
5:17-5:59 - Rewrap myself in burrito, then stare at dark ceiling while listening to my Zune
6:00 - Notice with dread that sunlight is starting to seep through the shutters; cover head with pillow
6:15 - Amy Winehouse's "Wake Up Alone" starts, and I fall asleep
6:18 - Amy Winehouse's "Wake Up Alone" ends, and I wake up
6:19-6:44 - Uncover my head, stare at bright ceiling
6:45 - Unwillingly drag myself out of bed

These times are all approximate, but I'm pretty close. And, unfortunately, I know I'll pay for the missed sleep by passing out at 8:30 tonight, as soon as "Cops" ends.

Okay, two last random things, and then I'm off:

- Whenever I use WinAmp, it pops up with an "Update" window, and I just close it, then go about my business. This happens for several weeks at a time before I finally give in and download the update. Everything's cool for about two weeks, then a new update is released. Come on, people! Maybe it's because I don't use it for anything other than just plain listening to music, but I've never noticed any significant changes after making an update. In fact, I still use the Classic skin. I should probably stop being so resistant to change in every area of my life.

- What is it about clothes that they fit in the store, but when you buy them and take them home, they don't fit as well? (I know, it must have to do with the mirrors.) The new jeans I mentioned last time already don't fit! In the "too big" way, which I guess is better than the "too small" way, but it's so annoying because it's not as if I lost enough weight since buying them to make a difference. I'm seriously pissed that they were perfect in the store, and are that way no longer. Now I have to wear a belt, unless I want to look like the Saggy Baggy Elephant. I hate belts. I hate elephants. Fuck!

Random junk, because I don't think I can manage coherent transitions between subjects tonight:

- You know how I complained last time about it being "cold" outside, and admonished myself that this would only bring on hot weather way before I'm ready for it? Yeah, it's going to be 97 tomorrow. I plan to pack myself in ice and only stick my head above the surface enough to keep re-reading Dana Reed's "Sister Satan." Good times.

- I spent almost two hours downloading free MP3's from Amazon. A lot of them might suck, but some of them will be pretty good, and some will be awesome. Yay music! Especially the free kind.

- Because it is (or used to be) a night when my fave grocery story was mostly deserted, I do my shopping on Friday evenings. But for the last few weeks, I've noticed a disturbing trend of... well, people. Most of whom are standing in my way, letting their kids run wild, and/or having super-loud cell phone conversations. C'mon, people, this was my quiet time. Jerks. Plus, with the movie theater and fake mall across the street, there seem to be a lot of teenagers making a pit stop at the grocery store first, getting up to the usual annoying jackass-ery that teenagers do. I'm pretty sure I was never that obnoxious, but maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, I'm probably wrong.

- I almost fainted a few days ago, because IMDB had some news blurb about Dominic West taking a break from filming "The Wire" to do some other project that is not as awesome. For one moment, I allowed foolish excitement to trick myself into believing that the show was coming back. It's not. IMDB is just cruel that way. At least I have OnDemand reruns to console myself. And when I have a job again, maybe I'll spend the $200 on the complete series on DVD. I'm just going to say this about HBO: They rock my world, and can do as they please. But I think it would be so completely super-awesome if they could give their customers a free (or at least discounted) DVD of their shows. I'd happily give them copies of my paid cable bills for the past several years; I mean, they already own my soul.

- Some meals I've cooked over the last few days: sauteed asparagus with walnuts, oven-roasted potatoes and broccoli with cheese, and a veggie lasagna with alfredo sauce. Chomp!

- I have only one pair of jeans that fit me correctly, and so went to Fashion Bug on Friday to rectify this. Of course, it being April, they have all the summer clothes out: in other words, capris. I don't wear capris. They look weird on me, or I look weird in them, I'm not sure which. They had some very plain-Jane jeans, and their new color-coded ones that are supposed to correspond with your body shape. What? It hurts my brain trying to figure it out. So, I got the ordinary jeans, which are unfortunately not my favorite brand, but they are not baggy and/or monstrously ugly. Just to make myself feel better, I tried on a super-ugly pair from my favorite brand, and after spending freaking forever in a certain size, I've finally gone down a size. Sweet!

- I met a friend at Barnes & Noble for lunch last week, and had a Starbucks iced chai for the first time since before Lent began. I was good and had only a tall (small) one, and oh jeez... best thing I ever tasted. It's sacrilege for me to even think this, but I enjoyed it even more than I enjoyed the Dr Pepper I had on Easter. I guess I got unaccustomed to carbonation, or something, because that soda was way harsh. I actually haven't had one since then, and I'd thought that I'd be back to gulping them down. I do want to try the new cherry-flavored DP though... even if Gene Simmons (ew) is in the commercial.

- Oh yeah, almost forgot. Why must B&N torment me so, and have like a million adorable owl things in their stationery section? Someone up there (where up there = their corporate purchasing division) hates me.

You know what I miss about video stores? That there used to actually be videos (as in, VHS tapes) at them. Maybe it just proves what an introverted weirdo I am, but the second-favorite activity of my childhood was wandering the aisles of the video store for hours and looking at all the movies. I was especially fond of the ones whose covers had been bleached blue by the sun. (And in case you were wondering, my first-favorite activity: reading.)

My favorite section was, and still is, horror. I still don't know why being scared is so much fun - probably because, unlike the real world, a movie can't actually hurt you. Unless you're the type to have nightmares, which I had my share of. Still, "Halloween" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" were my favorite movies when I was in elementary school.

There were a bunch of movies in the horror section I was always too afraid to rent, though. The covers drew me in like a trainwreck: I didn't want to look, but I had to. Last night, I finally settled down to watch one of the movies whose cover haunted me the most: "Happy Birthday To Me."





I find that image mildly distressing now, but as a kid, I considered it to be about ten different kinds of fucked up. In fact, I was more scared of the cover back then, then I was scared at watching the movie last night. It had all the stuff that makes horror movies great: funny moments, cheesiness, mystery (in this case, some total "WTF" moments), and just enough blood. But I didn't get the creep factor until the last five or ten minutes. I won't forget the final image of the birthday party any more easily than I'll forget that goddamn cover. Ugh!

Now if only I could tackle Dead Alive and/or Monkey Shines, I'd have something to brag about. Alas, I'm a wimp.

In other news, it's cold outside. Okay, 60 degrees, but a cold 60 degrees. Hello, it's almost May? Of course, now that I've said that, it'll be something ridiculous like 90 tomorrow. I'm in no hurry to get on with sticky-hot-miserable weather, especially with Snowball's air conditioner needing some work. Wah. I guess I'll have to hope that white cars are less hot than dark ones?