...when you receive a phone call from an unfamiliar number, hear a cheerful woman say, "Hi, this is Kathy from Dog Day Afternoon, letting you know Gus is ready!" and reply, "Great, thanks," whereupon you hang up the phone, then have to rack your brain about whether any of your pets are named Gus and whether you might have left them at a place called Dog Day Afternoon.

I don't believe so, but I can never be sure these days.

Dear Champaign-Urbana:

Thanks for knocking me out of bed with an earthquake at 4:30 am, causing my cat to leave great gashes up my leg in her quest to achieve orbit and also causing my dog to start howling and gnawing on her own ass. I know you have delusions of grandeur, but this is Illinois, and you will always suck, even if you start doing cool things like this.

Loooooove Tyra Roo

P.S. 5.4? Good show.

Money is still legal tender as long as all the serial numbers are still visible and more than half the bill is intact, correct? It doesn't, per se, matter if it passed through an animal's digestive system?

Man, you know how great it is when you pull your winter coat out of storage in the fall and discover a twenty in the coat pocket? This feels ALMOST that good.

So Milo has this habit of lashing out when he gets scared. It's as though his fight-or-flight response got permanantly jacked up to one end, such that where you or I would interpret "DANGER! RUN!", Milo thinks, "DANGER! POKE IT IN THE EYE!" He doesn't even MEAN to; it just happens. Were the events of Cloverfield to occur in present-day Illinois, it would probably end with the monster lying prostrate across half of Chicago while Milo unendingly beat the hell out of it with a pancake spatula.

It's the sort of thing you only learn about a person the hard way, as you might imagine. There might have been a time when I would have thought it was really funny to tiptoe into the bathroom while a person was showering and jerk open the curtain a la Norman Bates. There might have been a time that I was high-kicked in the face by a naked man. This is the sort of thing you chalk up to "life experiences to learn from."

Of course, it's no good when you know just how easily he frightens, because you can't help yourself. Once we went to see a movie - I think it was Ninja Turtles - and I leaned over and whispered, "You know, this is the same theater where they showed The Ring when it was first released and they say the little girl crept out of the screen and still lurks - " and it goes kind of hazy at that point, but I think I got punched in the throat. (It probably sounds like we're in an abusive relationship, but it's too close to call who's torturing whom.)

...Where was I going with this? Oh, yes.

I mention this because April 1 triggers EXACTLY the same response in me. I've mentioned this before, but I hate April Fool's Day with that sort of irrational, inexplainable, gripping anger that normally only creeps up on me when I see a commercial for The Hills. Like there's something REALLY REALLY wrong with the world, and if only you could find it and stamp it out will humankind be able to live in peace. The whole day makes me punchy, because I'm so wary of being fooled that I begin to lash out at the well-meaning: "I'm hungry - " "NO YOU AREN'T! THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT ME TO THINK! I AM NOT FALLING FOR IT!" I won't read my friendslist, I won't sign onto AIM, I won't read my email. I'm afraid to even touch anything in my apartment for fear of being rickrolled. RICK ASTLEY COULD BE HIDING BEHIND THE COUCH, JUST WAITING TO SPRING OUT AT ME.

Of course, he'd probably only get at far as "Never gonna - " before Milo knocked him unconscious.

Last night I had a dream that I taught myself to read while driving. I woke up thinking, "Hey! Great idea! I'll get so much more done on long, boring drives!" I thought about it as I put on a sweatshirt, let the dog out, and poured myself a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles. It wasn't until I got a mouthful that I thought, "...oh, wait."

In other words: Hoo. Fucking. Boy. I don't THINK I've had a stroke recently, but I couldn't swear it under oath.

Since I've been a neglectful blogger recently, I'm stealing a page from - uh, everyone - and asking you all to get a little creative juice flowing. If you ever wanted to hear me rant about something other than adhesives, hit me up.

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.

...Come to think of it, I do need something to do with my hands while driving, since I still don't have a rearview mirror to adjust.

There's no shame in being sick. There's no shame in being sick. There's no shame in being sick.

I've managed to talk myself into believing that if I take a day or two off, I'm clearly a delinquent human being who shirks responsibility to stay home and eat bonbons and watch TV, even though the biggest expenditure I made yesterday was crawling to the living room to get my laptop, then getting back to my bed by doing a stylized version of the Worm while shoving the computer along with my head. I mean, I allowed my dog to eat a couch cushion, partially because I was powerless to stop her, and partially because it meant she was getting some nutrition without my getting out of bed to feed her. That's pretty much the defining hallmark of the flu, isn't it? "Would you allow your pets to eat furniture to save precious energy? If yes: Take a sick day."

I might be delirious with fever, but you catch my drift.

Anyway, this is not about my travails with illness. This is about my travails with my rearview mirror. It had been coming slowly unstuck over the course of some weeks, because adjusting the mirror is my driving tic. Chances are good that when I have my first accident, it will be because I've rear-ended someone while desperately trying to get the seat/mirror proportion just right. I think it has to do with the fact that I tend to slump - when I drive and in general - and I don't like having to crane my neck to see out the back, so I keep adjusting the thing lower and lower until I realize that I'm pretty much just looking into my own backseat, then I sit up for a half-second and readjust, and slump gradually downwards again. I'd say that at any given moment, 76% of my attention is on adjusting the mirror, 18% is on skipping through the CD trying to find that Tom Petty song I like, and 6% is on merging. So the mirror had been like a persistently loose tooth, bouncing up and down anytime I hit a bump - which incidentally is VERY distracting at night because it looks like you're being tailgated by an entire disco - and the last snowstorm was finally too much for its feeble glue, because I came out in the morning to find it dangling gruesomely all "Goodbye, cruel world!" Now, of course I have the kind of mirror that has the interior lights built into it, so it's still attached to the ceiling by the wires and is also kind of heavy.

Note: Adhesive does not work in below freezing temperatures.

Further note: No adhesive. Not glue. Not tape. Nothing.

I know this because I duct-taped it up for the time being, which held for maybe three seconds before the mirror came unstuck, swung down by a wire, and struck me firmly in the eye. I drove around like that for a couple days, where every time I accelerated or made a sharp right turn, it would swing around by the wire and strike me firmly in the eye. I finally bought some rearview mirror adhesive - which you really should not use in an enclosed vehicle, by the way - and sat for a while with the defroster running to warm up the windshield and stuck it up there, where for a change of pace it came unstuck, swung down by a wire, and struck me firmly in the eye. It was another several days before the weather shot up to 55 degrees, but I used this window of opportunity to attempt another adhesive defense. It held for several hours until the temperature dropped sharply again and the mirror came unstuck, swung down by a wire, and would have struck me firmly in the eye if I hadn't developed the sharp reflexes to jerk my head away and slam the side of my forehead into the closed window instead. If I happen to get pulled over for this anytime before spring thaw, I think I'm going to invite the officer to stick his head inside my window for a moment.

So basically, I only caught the flu as a convenient excuse not to drive anywhere for a while.

Dear Makers of Yuck Off Stinky Gross Battery Acid Stop Chewing on My Shit Or I'm Going to Sell You to an Animal Testing Lab Brand...Stuff,

I appreciate the idea of your product. A simple non-staining, bitter spray to squirt on my belongings to deter my dog from chewing them up is, in theory, a genius idea. However, I wonder if you have thought through the idea of marketing a product as "bad tasting" to an animal whose idea of gourmet dining is nosing through the litter box. As such, she seems to be under the impression that I am frosting the couch.

Also, I accidentally sprayed myself in the face with it and I think I may not be able to have children now.

No love,
Roo

It's official: I fail at the "update LJ every day" resolution. January 23 - another year arcs into the toilet.

( What everyone is talking about, or, am I really the person you want giving sensitivity training? )

So I was starting off an entry here to discuss the progress of the New Year's resolution, but I was interrupted by the sort of crash that's always accompanied by either a symbolic screaming from my checking account or the mournful lowing of my time spent doing things other than cleaning being sucked away into the abyss. (Sometimes both, which is something like a vole being trodden on by a steel toed boot.)

When I got to the kitchen (accompanied by Delilah, Deputy Investigator) to check out the disturbance, it became apparant that Pandora had taken a ride on the Hamster Cage Express, Final Stop: The Floor ("...do you have a license to drive that thing? Because I think you CRASHED IT UPSIDE DOWN") and when I attempted to pick it up in a careful manner the whole top part popped off, sending about a pound of soiled cage lining, assorted chewings, and one very dazed hamster scattering across the floor.

Now, I am not exactly known for my, um, physical prowess. I have punched myself in the face with my own sneaker. I have gotten my hand jammed in the printer at work MORE THAN ONCE. I have fallen into bushes, off of curbs, down the stairs, and out of cars. I have had a car trunk slammed directly onto my nose. I once broke a fall by hitting my mouth on a doorknob.

So I think that it is to my credit that, in the space of maybe a second and a half -

0.10 seconds: The hamster scampers.
0.15 seconds: The cat dives.
0.16 seconds: The dog dives.
0.40 seconds: I hook the dog's collar with my right hand, while stretching down in order to
0.50 seconds: Hook the cat's collar with my left hand and pivot counterclockwise,
0.75 seconds: Sending the dog sailing in a perfect arc into her open kennel standing in the
0.89 seconds: Corner, then
0.95 seconds: Bring my right foot around and
1.00 seconds: Kick the door of the kennel shut, while simultaneously
1.32 seconds: Scooping up the cat and
1.41 seconds: Dumping her on the counter out of reach in time to
1.50 seconds: Complete the spin and stamp my foot down to trap the escaping hamster in a corner.

New Year's Resolution #1: Become a fucking ninja. Done and DONE.

"So, Roo, I haven't heard you talk Guitar Hero in a while. Have you found religion? A drug addiction? Something slightly less pathetically time-consuming and yet ultimately, in a sucking cosmic way, equally pointless?"

I'm glad you asked that question, self - in a word, no, though sometimes that sounds like a really good idea. Because I doubt that one day, while you're inserting a rolled-up dollar bill into a raw and bleeding nostril, all memory of every sweet nirvana high and shattered, gasping low will suddenly be wiped from existence. It is unlikely that your preacher will kick off this Sunday or any other by cheerfully letting you know that God can not be detected, and would you care to start anew and overwrite Him now? Odds seem long, in fact, that anyone can TRULY understand everything that occurred in the vicinity where my heart might be when I flipped on my Playstation - on New Year's Eve, completely alone while Milo was out in California - to discover that my memory card had in fact gone corrupt and erased all my data for no particular reason.

There are people who've had it WORSE, of course - cancer or some damn thing - but there's something crushing about it I can't quite describe. Like being forced into the Total Perspective Vortex, only instead of a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot with a tiny marker that says "You are here," there's nothing at all, and a tiny marker that says, "You seem to have been corrupted. Overwrite existence now?" Like I was entering the year 2008 laid naked down to the soul. Like all those hours practicing Bark at the Moon meant NOTHING.

So I took some time, you might have noticed. Time away from Livejournal, time to get through the stages of grief - pounding the reset button, kicking the shit out of the armchair, being irritable with the dog, going to Taco Bell, and irony - before beginning anew. Remembering all the five-star scores I had without weeping was difficult, but when I allowed myself to really feel it, I began to play again. Maybe not the same as ever before, but quite possibly better, since my first attempt out of the gate was a perfect 100% - that would be nigh on 400,000 points and an 843 note streak - on My Name is Jonas. Only I'm way better than that fucknut there, because I got a higher score AND I DID IT ON LEVEL 4 HYPERSPEED.

It's enough to make you realize you can overcome anything at all, as long as you have a staggeringly inflated sense of self-worth and you never stop laughing derisively at it.

Okay, quick - if I get sued, can you all vouch for me that it has been unseasonably warm? IT'S THE WEATHER'S FAULT, OKAY?

Because if it wasn't 65 degrees out today, I wouldn't have opened the patio door and walked out on the balcony, and I wouldn't have noticed Milo's car in the parking lot and cleverly deduced that he must be on his way up the stairs. And I wouldn't have been forced to grab Delilah and tiptoe down the hallway and hide behind the door - as you do, obviously. If it hadn't been so warm, I probably wouldn't have waited for the door to open before letting go of Delilah's collar and yelling, "SIC!"

In which case my dog would probably not have knocked down my neighbor coming up the stairs with her dry cleaning.

She probably still would have pissed all over in excitement, though. BUT THE REST OF IT WAS THE WEATHER'S FAULT.

I got a new alarm clock for Christmas. I mention this partially because if your first thought upon recieving a new alarm clock for Christmas is "OH SNAP, YES" then you've basically got one foot in the grave already, haven't you? I mean, you might as well just set the thing for 4:30 am so you can get to bingo on time and be in back in bed by 2 pm. But since my old alarm clock had a habit of being rude and ill-tempered I'm willing to overlook the part where I turned eighty-six.

So it has a dock for my new iPod (Milo gave me a Touch for Christmas, which I'm overfond of saying because it sounds DIVINELY filthy when delivered sotto voce) and it also has a variety of calming nature options. I've been experimenting with different alarms all week - "rain" and "waterfall" were summarily dismissed re: bed wetting, but "nighttime" and "sunrise" are both just delightful, crossing the sooth of real nature with the artificiality of obviously having been recorded by machines in a studio, since you can't detect the growl of old-growth forests being razed and replaced with a municipal dump. (Sound effects: Beating nature at its own game for over a century.) The problem here is that "sunrise" is not a particularly decibel-intensive event, so to make sure it actually wakes you up you've got to ratchet up the volume until it sounds more like the sun is actually lurching up over the horizon after a long night of bourbon and hookers and the gentle flutter-flutter of bird wings are possibly buzzing napalm across military zones. (Milo, sleepily: "Is that the sound of old growth forests being razed and replaced with a municipal dump?" Me: "No, but in the background you can hear the foley guy picking his nose!")

Best of all, it also projects the time onto the ceiling - "Look, if you lie this way it's 2:22 and this way it's 5:55! 2:22! 5:55! 2:22! 5:55! 2 -" "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GO TO SLEEP" - and this morning I fussed around with the iPod settings so I could wake up to the Salute Your Shorts theme.

One foot may be in the grave, but the other one is putting up a DAMN good fight.

It's late one December night; drifts of snow sparkle against the window, undisturbed but for the occasional rattle of wind. Cars are frozen over and morning will bring slush, scraped windows, wet gloves, and missed appointments. But for now, safe indoors, all is warm peace. Milo and I are snuggled together under toasty sheets, lulling off to sleep by the soft humming of the heater and the gentle purr of Ophelia tucked under my arm. Suddenly she stirs, yawns, stretches off the wrinkles of sleep, and crawls up to the pillow. With a soft gagging and horking, she barfs in Milo's hair, then crawls back under the covers, cozies up beside me, and falls back asleep.

Wintertime: It truly is the most magical time of year.

Christ. Obviously I knew when I got a puppy it was going to need vaccinations, but for some reason I thought it was a one-time deal. I mean, I HAD dogs as a kid; surely I'd remember spending 46 percent of my childhood sitting around the vet's office? Of course, that number is now closer to 68 percent, since Ophelia has had bouts of ringworm and a bladder infection, and Delilah has needed vaccinations for rabies, distemper, bordetella, mad cow, consumption, leprosy, cholera, pinkeye, chicken pox, and syphillis, which all, naturally, must be administered separately. It's gotten to the point where I can never remember if I actually have an appointment; I just rush home from work every day, snatch up the nearest animal, and go to the vet. They're always nice enough to find a syringe of something expensive lying around.

Today, however! Today was circled in purple on my calendar - VERY LAST SHOT EVAAAARRR - 5:00 pm. Nothing was going to bring me down, even though she nervously pooped on my foot while we were in the waiting room and then took advantage of my distraction to escape into the back room and barge in on a cat having surgery and then ripped off a hunk of the vet's sleeve while she was getting her nails trimmed ("...Can we give you the name of an obedience trainer? Please?"). Not even when they were like, "That'll be ten dollars," and I was like, "...WOO -" "...for the rabies shot. And sixty-five for the heartworm. And the nail trim." "...hoo." Because then they said, "See you in a year!" and that was worth way more than 75 bucks to me. My animals, they are finally healthy, and they are going to stay that way, because god knows I have paid for it.

The very first thing that greets me when I walk in the door and take off Delilah's leash is Pandora. The only pet who has never caused me an ounce of trouble. At least not up until this very moment, when she has exploded forth in bloody diarrhea.

I'm totally not above charity, by the way.

Everyone's got their limit. Everyone's got a breaking point. Everyone's got a moment where everything in their life is going so very badly that they find themselves liable to end up on the ten o' clock news ("...Authorities say she struck the dishwasher eleven times with the lead pipe before turning to the hamster...") unless they can fix something, anything, some risible, miniscule detail just to let themselves know that not everything in their life is flaming wreckage helplessly, inevitably careening into the crushing gate of a black hole even if most of it actually kind of is.

(And those of you who don't catch my meaning just now are going find yourselves a year from now, spending seven hours and upwards of five hundred dollars trying to hang a picture frame level, and say, "...Oh.")

I won't bore you with details of my current depression - work, poverty, weight gain, and the state of my carpeting are figuring prominently - except to tell you that I finally lost a screw over my recent crappy Guitar Hero run and found myself hunched over the kitchen table, in tears, stripping insulation off a wire with a pair of scissors and chugging cherry Kool-Aid out of a Guinness glass. I fixed the fucker, too, and for a brief shining moment - specifically, during the final solo of Cliffs of Dover - things were okay again, I was in control, and nothing in my apartment smelled like urine. I had, in all actuality, hit the bottom of some dank pit and pulled myself out again with a bit of electrically questionable wiring.

Guitar Hero: My Anti-Drug.

Hi! I'm Delilah!

Guess what happened to me yesterday? I woke up early! So I went barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark until Mommy stumbled out of bed and said some words I am not supposed to know and let me out. Later she said this was the problem but I don't know what that means. What I DO know is that she picked up everything in the living room and then went back to bed and left me alone. Well, since I didn't have anything left to chew on except for the things I'm SUPPOSED to chew on and those aren't very interesting, I went looking for something I could reach. And I found something in the kitchen that smelled so yummy! It was way up on the table, so what I did is I pushed out a chair with my nose and climbed on it and then climbed on the table, which I think was very smart of me. And I found a plate of those whaddya-call-its, they're all brown and sweet and sticky? Oh, brownies! Well, I ate all of them and also the aluminum foil, even though I probably didn't have to and it wasn't so yummy, because I thought I should get rid of the evidence.

And then I was very very awake! I ran around and around and around and around and around and around and around until Daddy came out and said "WHAT IS GOING ON HERE" and I tried to climb up the side of his head. Then he saw the empty plate - I KNEW I should have eaten that too - and said some more bad words and woke up Mommy and she said some bad words too. She called the mean doctor that gives me the shots and said "mmm hmm" and "okay" and then fed me some yucky liquid. She and Daddy put me in the bathroom and sat with me for a long long time and said things like "Throw up," and "Please throw up" and "Throw up NOW, okay?" but I didn't feel like it. Also I was very awake. So then they took me outside and ran around with me for a while saying things like, "Do you feel sick NOW?" and "Just throw up already!" but I didn't feel like it. Also I was very awake. So finally they put me in the car to go to the mean doctor that gives me the shots and when Daddy reversed out of his parking spot I felt sick. So I climbed in Mommy's lap and threw up. She said, "Figures," but I didn't know what that meant.

We went to the mean doctor anyway. It was no fun because they wouldn't let me play with the other doggies there and also I threw up a lot more times and THEN I got a SHOT even though Mommy said I wouldn't. The mean doctor said it would make me sleepy because we were supposed to go on a car trip.

But it didn't! I was still very very awake! Mommy took a shower while Daddy scrubbed out the car and then we went on the car trip! I climbed on Mommy and the backseat and on Mommy and the backseat and Mommy and the backseat and I chewed through the bag with my food in it because I was HUNGRY and climbed on Mommy and the backseat some more and then we stopped at a gas station because Mommy had a headache and said she needed me out of her sight for a few minutes. And then we drove some more and I climbed some more and finally we got to Chicago to meet my grandparents! Only then we had to get right into a different car because some people were there to look at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but I didn't mind because I had MORE people to climb on! And we went to look at the house that Grandma and Grandpa are building and Daddy carried me so I didn't fall into the basement, but I didn't mind because there was lots of wood for me to chew on! Life is so fun! Even though Mommy still had a headache.

And THEN we got to go back to Grandma's and I got to chase around my Uncle Kip! He hisses a lot, but I think he likes me. And lots and lots and lots of people played with me! And Mommy and Daddy left for a while to go to a casino and Mommy glared at me and said she would just watch because she spent all her money at the mean doctor's that morning, but I didn't know what that meant and I didn't care because lots of people were there to play with me. (Mommy was still mad when she got home. She was yelling at Daddy because if he had bet on the number she told him to, he would have won a thousand dollars. I wonder what a thousand dollars is. It sounds like it tastes good.)

And finally I was very very tired! I laid down in the backseat to go to sleep while we drove a long way home (Mommy said "THANK GOD," but I never know what she's talking about) but all of the sudden a very very big puppy, the size of the whole car with some sort of a coatrack on his head, ran out in front of us. Daddy said "OH SHIT" and Mommy said "CHUCK NORRIS" and I flew aaaaaall the way across the backseat and aaaaall the way back a couple times while we swerved to miss it and skidded on some gravel and then we were going BACKWARDS and I flew into the front and Mommy grabbed me and said something that sounded like PEAS and then there was a very big THUMP THUMP THUMP and then we stopped but we were not on the road any more. Also I was not very very tired any more. I started crying and we tried to get out but the grass was taller than me and I was scared so Daddy carried me again. (Mommy was still saying "CHUCK NORRIS." Maybe I'll understand her when I get older.) And some very nice people stopped, which was lucky because there was nothing all around us, and the mommy hugged my mommy and said they could put me in their car because GUESS WHAT? They had a puppy too! I said barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark and we chewed on each other's ears and Mommy put her head in her hands.

We waited a long long time and the people were complaining about something called "bad reception" and "stuck in a field" and then a man in a car with big flashing lights came and I was so excited I piddled on his feet a little bit. They talked and pushed on the car a while (I wanted to help but Mommy said no and held me) and finally we got going and Mommy and Daddy hugged each other and hugged me and said it was a very lucky day, except for not betting on eleven, but they weren't going to talk about that anymore.

Also Mommy said that if I did not go to sleep and stay quiet until at least noon today, she was going to kill me. What is she TALKING about?

OKAY, I WENT, YOU PUSHY BUGGERS.

AND I managed to be sportsmanlike, except for spinning around and whapping that guy in the face with my ponytail in lieu of a handshake, which was actually an accident even though I pretended it wasn't ("Oh, sorry, I...I mean, I MEANT to do that! Hrmph! -spits on floor-"). I made it quite respectably to the semifinals, but that may have only been because I had the element of surprise - "What...IS it?" "It has something growing out of its chest - do you suppose it's deformed?" "I heard that those are called boobs." "Wait. Is that one of those females I've heard talk of?" "HEY, COME HERE AND SEE THIS, THERE'S A GIRL HERE" - which...seriously? I was the ONLY chick in the entire competition? I don't think of Guitar Hero as a particularly male-oriented game, as far as games go, given that you at no point get to pull a finishing move that involves ripping the internal organs out of your opponent, but all right. (I'd make some sort of comment about the latent sexism in the fact that a) the only other two girls milling around were quick to insist that they didn't actually PLAY, they were just there to cheer on their boyfriends and b) some of the dudes were actually butthurt about "losing to a girl," but it's really too early for feminism.)

Anyway, I eventually lost to a guy who appeared to be playing by actually humping his guitar into submission. I kept scooting closer and closer to the TV to get him out of my line of vision and finally I was playing with my head, like, tucked between my knees and my forehead pressed against the screen, and then this reporter from the Daily Illini was getting up in my face with his camera ("'Girl, left, performs contortionist act while boy, right, has intimate relations with controller'...what the HELL kind of Guitar Hero tournament WAS this?") and IT'S TOO MUCH THIS IS NOT THE WAY ART SHOULD BE PERFORMED.

So there. I was only a LITTLE bit insufferable. Also, someone PLEASE save me a copy of that newspaper article.

QUICK SOMEONE MAKE A DECISION FOR ME.

There's a Guitar Hero tournament tonight that, if I have any sense at all, I won't enter. Competition isn't so much...um, healthy for me. In the sense that, when I win, I will knock you down and waggle my butt in your face in a celebratory manner, and when I don't, I will knock you down and brain you with my guitar/lacrosse stick/Candyland board.

People don't play with me very much, come to think of it.

So I'm trying to talk myself out of it - "your hands are killing you, you're too accustomed to playing on hyperspeed, you never play well in front of a crowd, there's a slight chance you might feel bad if you send someone to the hospital, and if they make you play on Xbox instead of on PS2 the way the good lord intended, there will be no END to the hell you will raise" - but I kind of want to go smoke everyone, just because I can. In the grand tradition, then, of making everyone do the hard thinking for me:

Poll #1089222
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Do I play in the tournament?

Did y'all know that Livejournal handpicks what comments you're allowed to see?

And by "handpicks," I mean "enlists a drunk, blind toddler and a game of darts" and at the end, whatever notifications that aren't too badly stained get sent to you. Which is a piss-poor excuse for not being a decent hostess and laying out a proper welcome feast for the new people here but WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW. Here...I have, um, a can of Pounce and two Miller Lites left over from summer. Help yourselves.

So...welcome, new people. I'm Roo, that guy over there is Milo, and our hapless children are Delilah, Ophelia, Pandora, Sasha, Saphira, and Cheerful Croc Jr. One slobbers a lot, two pee everywhere, one claws everything, two have nervous disorders, one wants to eat the others, and two are oblivious on account of being a fish and stuffed, respectively. As you can imagine, most of my time, attention, money, and soul have been sucked in their general direction. All my unlocked posts are about them; all my locked posts are about what it's like to graduate from college and be thrust blind and naked into the real world and poked at with frightening and incomprehensible concepts like "co-pay," "loan deferment," and "escrow."

One word that well describes me is "dazed."

( A Short but Writerly PSA. )

Anything else? Any questions? Everyone's drinks topped off? Good, good. You all gather your thoughts. I myself will be scrubbing dog pee out of the couch.