Smokey the Magnificent

Sometimes, the sheer volume of the things I plan to make and sew overwhelms my brain like a load of laundry in a wardrobe, and makes my eyes twitch. This is a Bad Thing. Not a totally bad thing, as it allows me to think of myself as a crafty person brimming with ideas; but on the occasions I break through this happy bubble and realise I haven’t done anything more creative for a month than sweeping around a rectangle on the floor and pretending it was a rug, it makes me feel very small inside, and then I have to go eat carbs.

At the moment, my list of unfinished creative enterprises runs as follows (not in bullet-point form, as a) the length would be depressing and b) bullet points are too orderly to represent the reality of the situation): a small cushion made out of scraps from my wedding dress, a pink and green Irish chain quilt for the pig, another one in flannel for the pig in winter, both justifiably put on hold as she doesn’t have a bed of her own right now anyway; half a winter wardrobe of dove-grey, pink, beige and blue clothes for the pig, for which I bought fabrics, only it turns out she has plenty of clothes; the pig’s art station, a blackboard/whiteboard easel thing from the inlaws which I wish to make steampunky and awesome, because it doesn’t match the living room; a knee-length swooshy dress made with this awesomely manly tweed from the thrift store, whose very essence I wish to subvert by lining it with a dusky rose print and adding lace and doing cap sleeves and stuff; a grey more-than-a-circle skirt; a lace pettiskirt; lacy pantalettes, just below knee length; a pair of knitted stockings with little Xes all up the front, even though I suspect this will not look as good on me as on the Gibbous model; a pair of knitted stockings with horizontal blue and tannish stripes, sort of Alice in Wonderlandy, even though ditto; a pair of knitted lacy cream arm warmers that I’ve been knitting since the dawn of time; three unspecified baby gifts for recently ex-foetal pigs; typographical miniature cushions with ampersands and things on them for Helpdesk Man’s office, not that he’s holding his breath; a brown duster like Helpdesk Man’s current black one; a floor-length voluminous winter coat for me in smoky blue; a shorter one from the same pattern in some unexpected colour, so as to make me known in the boroughs as the Girl With the [undetermined but totally groovy] Colour Coat, which is on hold indefinitely as I can’t think of the right colour; a pair of natty lace wristlets, possibly done with very thin string in crochet, if I learn how; another pair of arm warmers with the leftovers from my pinstriped skirt, with dozens of little shroomy Victorian buttons down the side; a Mod Cloth-inspired grey dress with an asymmetrical cowly collar that makes me look like a scifi heroine; a demure grey pinny with tucks on the bodice, cunningly concealing invisible zips for breastfeeding access; a truly awesome autumn leaf quilt for the master bedroom, which is so ambitious I wisely refrained from buying the fabric and committing myself, but it still pesks my mind; a more doable but still not done bronze and blue bedspread cover, because Helpdesk Man doesn’t like the Laura Ashley one I got on sale three years ago, and it has ink on it; a cool Star Trek quilt I have vague and noble intentions to make for Helpdesk Man’s best friend’s couch, which is unseemly; somehow creatively ModPodgeing my old faux leather boots which are falling apart and showing their faux; a fairy-inspired dress with a ballet top and froofy skirt, for which I bought a lot of expensive fabrics and then panicked because they are sheers and I don’t do sheers, and they’re too expensive to mess up; a Grecian evening gown with a woven bodice which I want to make with some fabric someone gave me, only I don’t think my hips will stand the cut and I don’t have much occasion to wear evening gowns anyway, and Helpdesk Man wouldn’t like it because he objects to dresses that don’t have a defined waist; a pinstriped zipup dress based on a top I got from an op shop, but trying to copy the pattern gave me a headache; a top for the pig made out of this awesome dragonfly flannel I got last year, but she doesn’t need it and by the time she does it’ll be too small to make a whole top; a mini quilt I made ages ago to cover the changing table, which still needs to be bound but is a bit rubbish; a hand-sewn chevron quilt I started years ago, but I’ve gone off the colours; several underbust corsets, because I bought a bunch of spiral steel boning and things a while back, but am waiting on eyelets and inspiration and diligence, etc; new oven mitts; a new manly apron for Helpdesk Man, because his other one went missing; some summery, holidayish fifties-style bright dresses to wear to Disneyland next year to improve our festive moods, including a red polka-dot dress for the pig like Minnie Mouse wears; a smoky blue knitted hoodie with a frill around the bottom and a cabled tree on the back; a knitted grey dress with words from the end of The Return of the King chain-stitched all over it, in case I ever need to go to a book-signing; a harem pant/bellydance-inspired pair of pyjamas, although ovbiously not with dangly coins on them, but with breastfeeding access, but not until my current PJs wear out because of the environment, and they’re proving to be very long-lived; a fairy costume for my friend who’s a fairy at children’s parties, for no good reason except I looked at her costume she bought online and thought “Muahaha, I could totally make that”; a knitted top or two for Helpdesk Man; knitted knee-high socks for me and the pig that have demure wee bows at the top; a new Roman blind for the room of Flatmate Man, because the current one looks like a girly shower curtain; a stuffed pig for my nephew, which was supposed to be his Christmas present, but I got bored with the nose; a knitted top for the pig from a pattern I found online; a two-layer cutout top for the pig that I started making, but it wasn’t going well so I shelved it; and an assortment of hair accessories for myself to match the clothes I am planning to make.

You see the issue? I wouldn’t even swear that’s the lot, either. There’s a bolster cover lurking on my sewing shelf whose origins I can’t even remember… two, actually. Now, not all these ideas are unfinished in the sense that I actually started sewing them. Some of them are nearly done, some I have the fabric for but no notions, some just milled around in my head long enough for me to construct a precise plan. The point is, I spent a lot of mental energy on them. I spent weeks planning that autumn leaf quilt, and I knew at the time it was doomed, even as I said hopefully to myself “I could do a block a week, while I watched movies; it’d only take a few years”. I still have the sketches somewhere, probably.

In fact, the sobering thought occurs to me that if my next year’s New Year’s Resolution was “Finish up all unfinished or thought-out projects”, I couldn’t do it. Not a chance. Not in a year. Does that seem right to you?

Anyway, in the spirit of ignoring my own inadequacies, I thought I would show you pictures of the projects I have actually completed in recent history. Not the squab I finally finished for the bedroom window seat, because it’s a bit dubious and the light was all funny. Here’s a muskrat instead.

Pretty nifty, no?

Here’s a bowtie scarf I made.

This here’s m’ pig.

I made her dress.

She likes it.

I went all arty with the bodice, and Helpdesk Man laughed at me. He is basically a smegger.

He did, however, insist on me putting a bow at the back (see above re. defined waists, which is amoosing because if there’s one attribute the pig doesn’t have, it is a defined waist), and that helps.

Also, in true marvy craft blogger form, this dress was made out of an old bedsheet. Weep in awe.

Anyway. I also made her a hat from a Ruffles and Stuff tute, which is not that super but does in a pinch. She hates it, acourse. She’s always pulling off her hats. But I got her to cooperate while I was taking photos by getting her to say “communism”.

I also knitted her a wee scarf and handwarmers.

And I finished my pinstriped skirt.

That was a rubbish photo and it makes me faintly moop, so I will conclude with another muskrat.

Pretty nifty, no?

Today I was productive. I got up early (well, 8:45, which turned out to be two hours earlier than Helpdesk Man and the snortlepig), zoomed through my writing for the day, started (or Step Threed, technically) a sourdough loaf and breadsticks, made veggie soup for lunch, hewed a foam mattress in half and began constructing a cover for it (it’s to end its days as a squab on our window seat), then got distracted and started knitting a bowtie scarf. And now I gotta make chicken curry and watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And do something about the other half of the foam mattress. Anyone want half a dead foam mattress? It would be useful if you hated Helpdesk Man and wished to perform juju on his dead skin cells. Or if you wanted to clone him or something. Or if you were under the kind of gunfire that didn’t seem to warrant a complete mattress. Or if you had an incredibly narrow child. Or if you wanted to make a really rubbish teddy bear, or a moderately realistic mega-sammich. I’m not judging. I just want to get rid of it. Maybe I should make an auxiliary squab for Christmas, with holly on. Wouldn’t that make me the best wife ever?

OK, people. I need suggestions.

Next March or April we are planning a trip to Disneyland - about which I could write many thousands of words, but won’t for the time being. While we’re in the US we naturally wish to squeeze in as many activities as possible, particularly the sorts of things we don’t have in New Zealand. Like, well, everything. So we’re hoping to have dinner at Medieval Times, go to see Wicked, visit Universal Studios, see the San Diego Zoo and Wildlife park, and all that jazz.

And then it occurred to me… USA. Population. Subcultures. Geeks. Conventions!

Sadly Comic-Con is on at the wrong time and place, but thus far I’ve scouted out two potential conventions (in San Diego, I think) - ConDor and MegaCon. Guest lists aren’t up yet, it being a year away, but they both look promising.

So my question is: What costumes can I bring to wear that are portable, unbreakable, preferably washable, non-bulky and otherwise suitable for dragging halfway around the world and back?

The obvious choice for the snortlepig is Ensign Ro, although I’m not sure how to get her to wear the traditional Bajoran earring. Helpdesk Man wants to go as the Tenth Doctor (actually I think he wants to be the Tenth Doctor, but that’s another, deeper issue). Which leaves myself - redheaded but unchesty, which is an inauspicious combination for convention garb.

Any thoughts? I’m open to ideas from Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Buffy, LOTR… pretty much anything except Twilight, in fact. My default option is to attempt to recreate Penny’s outfit from Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. This mostly appeals because I may be able to get away with wearing it at Disneyland too, even though it’d technically a costume and I’m over 9. And the anarchist in me goes “Heh” at the thought of illicitly wearing Unauthorised Character Garb under the nose of Walt himself. It’s how revolutions happen.

Or I could get around to making the steampunk outfit I’ve been threatening to make for years, and wear that. But Victorian clothing, neo- or not, tends to be bulky and I don’t want to clog my suitcase up with bustles and frills.

I await your suggestions with calm severity.

It’s Easter Saturday - that strange, lonesome day in the middle of a bunch of public holidays, presumably designed to prevent teenage girls who work at the ice cream shop from spending those public holidays sunning themselves in Raratonga. But I haven’t worked at the ice cream shop for years. The situation, then, currently runs thusly:

• Helpdesk Man is at a friend’s house playing a violent computer game for the second day straight. He will probably stagger in at midnight, have nightmares about psionic monkeys and pull the blankets over his head in the morning, plaintively declaring he doesn’t want to go to church.
• My dear friend April was gonna come by and watch movies, but is sleepy after her sister’s wedding so changed her mind.
• I am home alone with the snortlepig.

On occasions this sort of situation depresses me, but on others - like when, as now, I have nearly half a large jam tart in the fridge - the thrill of possibility runs through my veins. Because anything could happen. I could, if I had the oomph, walk the pig down to the public gardens and feed stale hot cross buns to the duckies. I could concoct a ridiculously elaborate dinner and leave the dishes. I could begin a new sewing project. I could start a novel. I could dance around to the Beatles in my smalls. I could rag-curl my hair and smear kaolin clay on my face, and then quote lines from Restless. I could watch old episodes of Lois and Clark. Or I could clean a small, insignificant part of the house impeccably so that Helpdesk Man would notice in a week or two and make a comment and I could be all smug - I get a kick out of that, sometimes. I cleaned a wall the other day, and it made an astonishing difference. I recommend this.

Or I might watch Monty Python clips on YouTube. Or go through the hand-me-downs in the glory box to see if anything fits the snortlepig for next season. Or, ooh, make popcorn. Or something for church lunch tomorrow, which would be more to the point.

Or, I could get distracted googling the top 10 food blogs while writing this post, and suddenly find it’s 7PM and the piggie has been asleep on my arm for so long it’s gone numb. Still, though. Things could happen.

As some of you may know, I’m a vague, lazy adherent to Traditional Foodism, aka the Weston A Price Foundation system of nutrition. Of late I have decided to step it up a notch, and thus rashly made a pledge in the presence of my online peers to:

• eat fish twice a week
• eat organ meats once a week (and a tablespoon of liver hidden in a largeish lasagna counts - what am I, Wonder Woman?)
• eat yoghurt five times a week
• and consume chicken broth in some form three times a week.

Fish twice a week is a tad pesky, as I don’t drive and only go to the supermarket once a week. I might have to buy frozen, which is problematic because Helpdesk Man once violently hurled after eating some frozen fish - and even though I’m pretty sure it was coincidental, it causes him to view all iced seafood with a rheumy and skittish eye. I cannot blame him, really. I ate a kebab once with little bits of carrot in, and - well, we shall not speak of it. Anyway, apparently fish roe is the most nutrient-dense form of seafood, followed by shellfish, but I simply cannot bring myself to look a mussel in the eye, and the snortlepig made friends with some at the supermarket the other day (”Bath! A having a bath!”), so fish it is. Fissssssh.

So, yup. Tomorrow the lawn-mowing man will be upon us with his claw outstretched for the taking of lucre, so I have to get up early in the morning and walk the piggie to the butcher’s (not as terrible as it sounds). Helpdesk Man is away on Monday nights, so… let’s see here…

Monday: Pasta for dinner, go to butcher’s in morning, get cash out for lawn-mowing man, make hot cross buns for in-laws. Yoghurt for breakfast. Get Helpdesk Man to charm the chappie at work into putting free bus credits on my bus card, which is running out (he thinks the snortlepig is cute in the face - v handy, thrift-wise). Chicken soup for lunch. Try to finish knitting the snortlepig’s other wristlet.

Tuesday:  Yoghurt for breakfast. Go into town and buy wool to knit this top for the snortlepig. Get library books. Stop in at supermarket on the way home and buy fissssh. Fissssh for dinner. Wait, smeg. Mum’s homeschool choir is having its first performance at a rest home, and I am expected to attend for reasons of dubious usefulness. Do the shopping in the afternoon, then. Or whenever the performance isn’t. When is it? Then my choir practice at night. Gotta make something. Something bananoid, gotta use them up. Yus. Defrost gravy beef and liver.

Wednesday: Yoghurt again. Make something crockpoid with the gravy beef, incorporating a minute, token amount of liver. Soak rice. Chicken soup for lunch.

Thursday: Shopping with sister-in-law. Buy fish! Eat fish. Red fish. Blue fish. Have rice with the fish, cooked in chicken stock.

Friday: Date night with Helpdesk Man, a concept that has become laughably meaningless of late, but which will probably involve eating steak on the couch and watching the A-Team while the snortlepig kicks us in the face. Must ask Helpdesk Man what he wishes to eat sometime before Thursday, so as to buy it from the supermarket again. Yoghurt again - by this time, gut is teeming with iridescent life to the point where we will probably cancel Saturday altogether in order to sprint a half-marathon.

Wait. On Friday my practically-nearly-only-brother-in-law will be staying the night in honour of Easter. I shall have to ask my sister what he eats. It better not be fisssh.

At some point during this whole protein-laden debacle, I should also finish sewing the snortlepig’s spotty winter top, query a couple of print articles and write a few more for the web. And clean the light shades, on which flies have rudely throomed. Also experiment with a sugar-salt-water syrup, which tonight I used on my hair admixed with henna as a moisturising agent, but which needs to be more scientifically tested next time I wash it.

K.

First off, in the What The I Don’t Even category… I give you this.

Anyone care to shed some light?

The snortlepig had a pleasant birthday yesterday, not withstanding a random outburst of vomiting which occurred at midday. The pig remained philosophical throughout the episode (which was orange and not at all chunky, for those of my readers who document that kind of thing), merely pointing to the puddles and saying “Cloth?”, which was both tactful and hygienic.

While not upchucking the piggie spent the day feeding duckies with her grandparents, Skyping practically her only aunt who lives in England, and eating all her favourite things for dinner.

The rest of my week promises to be on the busy side, as we are having a braai on Saturday night to celebrate Helpdesk Man’s birthday and a picnic at lunch on Sunday to do the snortlepig’s birthday with her other grandparents. Unfortunately I just discovered Smitten Kitchen, which has caused my culinary ambitions to soar and doubled the size of the grocery bill. The plan is to festivise Sunday lunch with dulce de leche cheesecake squares, make straciatella ice cream and chocolate mud cake with caramel frosting for Helpdesk Man’s birthday cake, and fill in the rest of my leisurely days constructing potato salad, fudge, flatbreads galore, hummus and marinade. Not to mention sewing a hasty winter wardrobe for the snortlepig, the weather having abruptly shifted to winter just as I was thinking about making light autumn clothes. And I have a cold. I can see how Martha Stewart ended up on the inside.

I think I peaked early. Two lessons on I seem to choke more often than glide, growl where I should purr and freeze up with terror at intersections. Oh well. My father-in-law told me at the first lesson that new drivers usually come to a point of getting worse before they get better, so perhaps I am just precocious. At any rate I have now successfully reversed twice and executed a couple of extremely cautious three-point turns.

In happier news, my knitting is coming along. The wristlets which I demoted to dishcloths I ended up ripping out several times, and am more or less committed now to making a wee scarflet for the snortlepig - the kind that fastens with a button. I decided to do the wholething in Continental knit stitch in order to master it - it is boring, but virtuous.

Right now, though, I’ve set it aside for more pressing projects. During the last few days summer has slunk away, and it turns out the snortlepig no longer fits into any of her nice warm clothes. So I am on a long sleeved top-making mish this week, using the fabrics I bought at Spotlight recently and some vintage-ish patterns from Mother. The first one will be a tasteful grey panelled number that I’m adapting from a dress pattern - which, being vintagey, is extremely brief to begin with, so shortening it is pretty easy. It does, however, require facing my two nemeses, sleeves and buttonholes. (Zippers are my third nemesis. Taxes are my fourth. I’m also not keen on right-hand turns. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.)

I cleaned the fridge today. I can very rarely say that. Interestingly, I was expecting to find all manner of unseemly smeg lurking under mould, but I didn’t. There was a small ramekin half-full of chocolate moisse I don’t remember making, but it only looked elderly, not grotesque. One could say it had acquired a certain gravitas - think Patrick Stuart, as opposed to post-earring Harrison Ford. And there was a jar of REALLY old hummus that I only threw out on principle - smelled fine, looked fine, but could conceivably have been in league with the Commies back in the day and the last thing my fridge needs is to be overrun by the Red Menace, innit. So it’s a mystery. Either Helpdesk Man has been being cleanly behind my back or I need to give the fridge a raise.

Anyhoo. Practically my only sister Betty Scandretti has tagged me for a weedy meme, Happy 101, or Ten Things That Make You Put the Gun Down Once More, For Now. I’m then supposed to tag a number of friends, that being the sort of thing that makes memes happy, but a) meh and b) hello, Aspie, “friends”?

Here I go.

1. Having a clean fridge. It just makes me want to curl up inside it and - hold on, we’re out of cheese. When did that happen? I distinctly remember not moving cheese when I cleaned the shelves. We had cheese. What the blazes is my fridge up to?

2. The last page of The Grapes of Wrath. Everybody I’ve spoken to on the matter finds it creepy as heck, but I don’t.

3. Olives. Ha!

4. Playing poker with Helpdesk Man. More so if I’m winning, or at least not bleeding chips to the point where he shoots me a withering glare and asks me to recite the rule about pot odds.

5. The snortlepig saying “Kees eyes, kees chin, kees nose, kees ears, kees chin, okay!”

6. Sewing, on the rare occasions that the needle isn’t coming unthreaded and the bobbin hasn’t run out unnoticed halfway through a long seam and the pattern doens’t require a degree in hyperspatial engineering to figure out and the pig isn’t drawing on the sewing machine with a pink felt tip pen and the fabric is still pleasing one several days after having purchased it, making one go “ooo” instead of “hrmm”, and everything is snortly.

7. Helpdesk Man comparing my cooking favourably to purchased foodstuffs, whether from a restaurant or particular supermarket brand.

8. Rediscovering an old interest after getting into a rut. I don’t mean like Willow and Xander. I mean like cooking. In theory, I love to cook, no? Ask people to describe a Smokey, and once they’ve gotten words like “crepuscular” out of the way and mentioned my unnervingly mobile upper lip, they’ll say “she cooks”. And I do. But sometimes I find myself making the same eight meals over and over again, feeling moop about the entire process. And then, aha! I get a book out of the libe about pasta-making, and the spark is rekindled. I had practically my only small sister Ruth over the other night and we made tomato fettucine in a cream and basil sauce, and it was delicious. So there.

9. Not being dairy-free. I do not mean to exhibit smugness in front of any Gentle Readers who come over in suppurating pustules when schmeared with cream cheese. But it is the truth. It makes me happy. Sometimes I’m eating a bowl of ice cream and I think “Gosh, I’m glad I’m not dairy-free”, and then I grate some cheese on top of the ice cream and slather it in custard. Or at least, I could. Unlike some.

10. I saw an inchworm one time. It made me happy.

Remember the snortlepig’s security knickers? Well, she seems to have made a new friend. It is a small bottle of peppermint essence. She fell in love with it at the supermarket when I gave it to her to hold in place of the cream, having spotted at the last second that she had taken the lid off and was about to upend it onto the supermarket floor. That same day I made mint chocolate chip ice cream (not my most successful flavour - that was three weeks ago and we still have some lurking in the freezer), and had to wrest the essence away from a squealing pig with entreaties and promises to give it back. When it was returned to her, sans half a teaspoon, she carried it away in sobbing triumph and promptly hid it under the sofa where my clawing fingers and dodgy housekeeping would never find it.

Then a few days ago, the snortlepig’s tiny aunt discovered it under said sofa while searching for the snortlepig’s small wooden animals. I put it back on the shelf and thought nothing of it until today, when the snortlepig started dancing and pointing and saying “DA!” at the pantry. I picked her up, wondering if she’d developed a sudden taste for dried chickpeas… but nope. She’s been carrying the peppermint essence around again for two solid hours. Freak.

Interestingly, although the peppermint smell cannot be detected outside the bottle and although she almost certainly does not associate the two, the mint chocolate chip ice cream was her favourite flavour. She also eats olives. She’s classier than me.

Incidentally, shikakai? Good stuff. Exceptionally. If this keeps up I might be able to wear my hair down occasionally, although of course I would then have to navigate the perils of giving the snortlepig the milks without sitting on it myself or having said pig twine it round her feet and pull. Madonna never had this problem (the Blessed Virgin I mean, not the singer, although I doubt she did either).

I’m drafting a dress! It is harder than it looks. And invisible zips are evil. I will update you when there is good news: until then, don’t ask.

In other news… hoom. Helpdesk Man ate the first ripe tomato of the summer yesterday and his eyes watered a little. I am babysitting my small sisters on Friday, and we will watch the last 29 minutes of Toy Story 2 and the entirety of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I have an article due in six days that isn’t even remotely written. We watched Season 5 of The Office and are on to Season 6. I’ve been listening, goodness knows why, to wizard rock and have so far sifted only two decent songs from the dross - I Believe in Nargles and Accio Love. Both of which are, quite honestly, rubbish: but I have a small life. Also, the pig’s wet nappy reeks strangely of tuna, which we have not eaten for months. I’d better go change it before worse things happen.

So Helpdesk Man and I are watching our way through the Harry Potter films. Hermione’s eyebrows notwithstanding, I’m enjoying them more than I expected. The Order of the Phoenix, which we watched last night, was positively arty in a few spots. That bit where Fred and George were consoling Nigel after he’d been using Dolores’ torture quill was actually moving. Also, I’d never before considered the awesomeness of the name Dolores Umbridge. She’s good with names, is JK Rowling.

Here’s the thing, though. The Triwizard Cup. Now, clearly it didn’t matter how the contestants got to the cup through the maze: they were being judged on results, not the wizarding prowess they showed during the process. (Which made their previous accrual of points kinda redundant, which was silly, but never mind.) So if Harry proved himself a one-note wonder, it wouldn’t affect his win. That being the case… why didn’t he go with “Accio Firebolt” again? He could have zoomed over the maze looking for the cup found it in seconds. Better yet… why not “Accio Triwizard Cup“? I can buy that the Cup was maybe enchanted to keep it in place, but the broomstick thing should have worked. Silly Harry.

Also, I like that they didn’t tart Hermione up too much. They de-bushified her hair movies before they were supposed to, and put her in civvies when she still should have been wearing robes: but she wasn’t in crop tops and miniskirts, and that is something. There are Standards left in the world. And hoodies, apparently.

Anyway.

Much to my surprise my one-hour-of-housework-a-day resolution has left me eager and sprightly, so my added challenge for this week is to tie up loose ends. Which sounds like killing my ex-bosses, but it isn’t. I’m fairly fond of most of my ex-bosses, with the exception of Simon the evil manager from Rialto who once spent five minutes castigating me for stealing a piece of company scrap paper to write an amoosing story on to pin up by the freezer. Oddly it wasn’t the story he objected to: it was the stealing. Of the scrap paper. Which never actually left the premises, so technically it would be what, vandalism? Graffiti? Anyway he ended up filching $400 from petty cash, so ha.

Most of said loose ends are fairly routine - I have to fix a few flagged articles at Suite, complete my shopping tote bags and mend a few clothes. Sadly, I also feel morally compelled to do my taxes. Yes, those taxes. The ones that should have been done last March, or whenever it is one traditionally does taxes. Helpdesk Man and I have made a date to stare them in the face tonight, and I am hoping to contract fulminating lupus before then in order to gracefully back out. It’s not the money - I’m pretty sure I owe a paltry amount, plus of course the late fee - it’s the psychology of the thing. Ever watch Black Books? Exactly.