A dental hero

My right eye is infected and it's really gross--all puffy and red and swollen.  My doctor was sufficiently disgusted by my appearance to tell me to stay home from work today.   So I watched some My So-Called Life episodes; I have the series checked out from the library right now and Mr. Awesome has no interest in watching it, so this was a golden opportunity.  I haven't seen that show since it aired, and it's weird to see those ugly plaid shirt dresses that Angela always wears and know I had a bunch of them.  Oh Grunge, you cast a long, ugly shadow over the fashion world.  

In other exciting health-related news, I went to the dentist.  32 years and still no cavities.  There aren't many things I'm really good at, but I am amazing at not getting cavitities.  I don't really floss very often, but the hygenist and the dentist always go into raptures about how amazingly well I take care of my teeth, and regard me as a sort of dental hero.  It's nice.  Also, today my dentist was wearing the most resplendent Cosby sweater I've ever seen--more resplendent even than those actually worn by Cosby.  It was more like Joseph's (or Dolly's) coat of many colors.  I was fascinated.

Sorry, environment

I'm sucking at this post-every-day thing, aren't I?  Don't answer that.

So, after a car-free summer, Mr. Awesome and I are car owners once again.  A couple of years ago his car got stolen and stripped to the bones by some suburban thugs who apparently needed to pimp out their Honda.  Our remaining car, my 1998 Nissan Sentra, was rear-ended this June and declared deceased by our insurance company.  (Which was actually pretty sweet because we got about $4500 for it, and otherwise I know we would have had to sell it for parts.  It was a heap.)

We went without a car for a few months, partly because we were waiting for the insurance money to clear and we were taking time to research cars, and partly to see if we could get by without one.  It turns out that we could.  We both work downtown now, and we can commute by bus in 15-20 minutes.  I biked a lot.  If we were out late (which we almost never were, being old and tired), we'd sometimes take a cab.  It was doable.  

But also, it completely sucked.  We were a pain in our friends' collective ass, always needing a ride or to borrow a car.  Buying anything heavy or bulky required serious planning--it was almost impossible to carry home both kitty litter AND laundry detergent.   I pulled some crazy capers trying to get 3 full bags of groceries home on my bike.  And without a car, it's pretty hard to be spontaneous.  If you want to get away for a weekend--or even just go out to a restaurant on the other side of town--you have to start planning well in advance.

But now we have a car of our own!  Just like Real Americans!  (It looks like this, if you are the kind of person who cares about such things.)  It's not new, but it's the newest car I've owned.  And it has fancy features that we have never before experienced in a car of our own, such as a CD player and (gasp!) a rear window wiper.  And you can put a ton of shit in it without even trying.  Yesterday we went to Fred Meyer and bought one of everything they had.

I must say, it's pretty effing nice to be driving again.  Sorry, environment.  Guess I don't love you quite as much as I thought.

Tresemme Hair Salon and the Loreal Paris Makeup Room

Tonight we hosted M.T. Anders0n at our library, and boy, does he rule.  You know how it is with authors--sometimes the ones you think will be really great, dynamic speakers turn out to be, well, authors.  They're shy and introverted and kind of hard to watch.  (Like I would be.)  I thought M.T. might be one of those--like, that since his books are kind of dark that maybe he spends a lot of time alone, wearing black, or something.  But nope.

He looks and dresses sort of like the coolest professor at your college.  When he was writing his Octavian Nothing books (for three years, mind you) he only read books that were written in the 18th century, or else books that those people would have read.  Like the Greeks and Romans.

Also, when I first met him he made a joke about me sweeping him off to the Tresemme Hair Salon and the Loreal Paris Makeup Room before he went onstage, and my heart was his forever.

Yes We Did

I don't expect to see anything more wonderful on the world stage in my lifetime than Obama winning the election.  I don't have anything particularly smart or eloquent to say about it, but I did have some booty shaking to do about it last night.  Those booty shakes go out to you, Mr. Obama. Thank you.

Twitchy

Mr. Awesome and I were the first people to vote in our precinct this morning--numbers 1 and 2. We were there about 10 minutes before the polls opened, and there were already about 25 people there. We all quequed up quietly like the docile North Seattlites that we are.

After today, all elections in Washington state will be vote by mail, and I'm a bit sad about it. I've voted by mail before, and I acknowledge that it is cool to take your time with the ballot over coffee and whatnot. But there is something about the air of celebration at the polling place--even at 6:45 on a cold, wet morning--that I'll miss. Plus, with vote by mail? No sticker.

I'm going to be in a meeting most of the day today, which I kind of can't believe. Sure, sure, it's probably better for me to be away from a computer, but I know I'm going to get twitchy. I might have to pop out for a few minutes if the shakes set in.

Mr. Awesome just sent me this election day cuteness distraction. Did you even know such adorableness was possible?

Go vote now. And if you've already voted, please allow me to say that you are looking smoking hot today and everybody knows it.

I've got crazy

All right then. Even though it's too late for me to really do nablopomo, I'm doing it anyway. If, after a month(ish) of forcing myself to write something in this sad little blog every day, I find that the blog still deserves to die, I will kill it dead. I will even be gracious enough to remove its moldy corpse from the internet. (Aren't you glad I'm back? It's writing like that that keeps the fans clamoring for more.)

Unfortunately, I won't be able to write very much of interest until Nov. 5th, because at this time I have to spend all of my free time fretting about the election. ALL of it. Plus some time that should really be set aside for other things, such as working, eating, and going to the bathroom.

Part of the problem is that, in my deep and abiding self-centeredness, I truly believe two things:

1. Whether or not Obama wins this election depends entirely on me and how overconfident I allow myself to get. If I ever let the words, "I think Obama is going to w__" cross my lips, it's all over.

2. If I take my eyes off of the polls for more than fifteen minutes, John McCain will suddenly be ten points ahead and will then surge to victory. I am keeping the electoral map blue by sheer force of will.

I mean sure, some people are opening their homes to buzillions of Obama volunteers, canvassing nonstop, making phone calls. But hey, I've got crazy completely covered. So don't you worry your pretty little head about that.

Blog Death Watch

Blog, my friend, things are not looking good for you.

I think I have used up all my blog-related thoughts. I've been blogging on and off (mostly on) for a while now. I mean, not since the days of the blog pioneers, when bison ranged free over the internets and you had to cook up your html over an open flame, but for a while. Occasionally these days I start a post and I think, didn't I write a post just like this one sometime back around 2002? And also: who gives a crap?

The thing is, I am interested in the minutia of OTHER people's lives. I love reading blogs. But the minutia of my own life just seems kind of, er, minute.

Who knows, maybe I will experience a big bloggy renaissance at some point. But probably not this week.

But before I kill you dead, how about a photo? I've heard that people enjoy photos.