Wah, wah, freakin’ wah! UGH. It drives me crazy that my husband participates in this nonsense. (In his defense, he at least is not a brainless leftist-or-die zombie to the anti-god cause. He’ll still call out bullshit. Even if he is sometimes a jackass about it.)

I have as hard a time with organized non-religion as I do organized religion. The problem with groups of people who meet to encourage a single type of behavior is that, inevitably, it all becomes a giant stroke-fest of whining self-righteousness.

As a self-righteous whiner who enjoys her whining solo, it just seems to me a little specious, this gathering of self-proclaimed “Freethinkers”. How free can you be if you’ve got all these people around you telling you you’re right? It’s like Miley Cyrus saying that she’s brilliant and talented because, you know, like, all her dancers and her bodyguards say so.

“/scoff, scoff, scoff,” she scoffed, “/scoff scoff!”

It’s nice to see the spammers still love me, even if I haven’t blogged for a month. Sometimes it’s hard to plug in. I can only take so much plugging in; my cord is old and frayed.

(That may sound wrong, but it’s 2 AM and I just tripped over the only pair of high heels I own and bruised my foot. A little pity for the clumsy person.)

Speaking of plugging in, I recently acquired a pretty orange Blackberry Curve, which does nothing for my frayed cord but is very good at maps and delivering email and telling me when I’m not getting my stuff done. I bought it to replace my slightly cumbersome planner-wallet, but I can’t get over the feeling that the Blackberry is trying to take over my body by slowly pulverizing me down to a synchronized swarm of nanobots. I only pray some of you will be able to tell the difference between Nano-Giang and the real me, and alert the authorities before the its dark plan reaches fruition.

Two days ago, my boss announced that we were going to interview someone for the economics writer position and indicated, in his own, special way, that the three of us (2 seniors and the boss) would be really grilling the applicant. I believe the term he opted for was “gangbang”. During the interview, the boss proceeded to say things like, “Financial Time Scale Tables, what the hell is that?” and “Give me a break, if your professor were grading you on how many times you used those damned buzzwords in your writing, you’d have gotten an A+!” Shock all round when the applicant decided not to take the position.

We’ve been to a couple baseball games. I like going to games, but I’m a bit tired of baseball – it’s a long season and I may have burned out early. Still, James Loney is beautiful and I love him.

We went on an evening bike ride a few weeks ago and blew three out of our four cumulative tires and rode all the way home in the dark with only one tire and three rubberized metal rims!

I watched Ponyo (cute), District 9 (depressing), Lakeview Terrace (hot), Revenge of the Sith (lame), and the original Night of the Living Dead (meh).

We took the Metrolink train down to the San Clemente pier and spent a day on the beach.

I re-activated my WoW account because Curt showed me the game-play trailer for Cataclysm.

Today, some punk kid ran into Curt’s stopped truck with a bike, dented the truck, and then fled on his bike.

On Sunday, Curt and I are going to the Queen Mary Art Deco Fair in Long Beach!

Now, I am tired and going to bed to sleep next to my husband and be thankful for what I have.

/plug out

Remember that cat – I call her Clementine – that the next door neighbors abandoned when they moved? Apparently she was pregnant. A few days ago I noticed she didn’t have her belly anymore, so yesterday morning I followed her to her nest. She’d built it in the bush on the fence growing between our apartment complex and the one next door.

Despite fierce opposition to the idea, Curt finally relented to letting me keep her in the apartment. “But,” he snapped, “it’s all you! I don’t want anything to do with it!”

A few minutes after I’d gone outside to reconnoiter, he came wandering out with a box padded with towels and fetched the kittens for me.

We brought them into the apartment with the mother, Curt giving me cross looks all the while. I teared up and explained that the ex-neighbors were assholes, and Clementine was so little and her ribs were showing and that I just wanted to give her and her kittens a chance to make up for the assholery of others. All true! This seemed to soften him a bit.

“What are we going to do here?” he asked. “There’s no way Monkey and George can sleep in here with us like this. And if we keep them outside, they’ll just scratch at the door all night long. There’s no WAY I’m putting up with all that noise.”

So then I said, “Hey, I know! Let’s pump up the air mattress and I can sleep out in the living room! That way Monkey and George won’t freak out because they’re still have one of us and Clementine and her kittens can have some peace and quiet!”

Then my husband turned his big cow eyes at me and said, “You mean we’d sleep in separate beds? We can’t do that…”

And that’s how my husband, the cat opposer, and I spent the night (and possibly the next few weeks) sleeping in the living room. :)

Mary Murray walked the halls of the house at night, and her eyes were accustomed to its many shadows. Six hundred and six pools of darkness on the ground, six hundred and six shifting with the moon. Mary walked, and she counted softly as she went.

Three hundred and thirty as her footsteps made no noise across the library floor. Four hundred and ninety at the end of the great gallery.

Mary turned and walked up the great stairs, and there were five hundred and fifty eight. She slowed as she approached the hall where they slept, and walking, counted five hundred and eighty seven.

At the end of the hall, she made her last turn and slowly took in the shadows of the last bedroom. Six hundred was the moonlight on the lamp, and one more was the toy horse by the little bed.

Six hundred and five, and she was nearly done. Six hundred and six, and Mary shut her eyes, breathed a soft sigh of relief, and turned to rest for the night.

Behind her, the little boy’s breath suddenly caught in his throat.

Mary whipped around, and saw another shadow emerge from behind the toy horse. She watched in horror as the shadow grew, and enveloped the little boy in its darkness. Her hands clawed the air searching for a hold in vain as she screamed. And screamed and screamed.

The constable stepped outside the room, visibly shaken. He stepped aside as they took the small, sheet-wrapped body out of the room. Even so covered, he could see the red blood blossoming through, and felt his stomach turn again. He turned to look at his superior officer, and asked, “I don’t believe in ghosts, but what are the odds, chief? Happening again in the same house, and everything just like that Murray girl’s murder eighteen years ago?”

The inspector turned a stern eye on the constable. “Don’t you mention a word of that, or I’ll have you demoted. They’ve already had to call in a doctor for the mother.”

“Yes, chief.”

The two men walked down the hall, solemnly following the body movers. The door to the master bedroom was ajar, and as they passed it, the constable saw the mother sitting in the bed, rocking back and forth with wild eyes, thrashing at her husband, at the doctor, and shrieking at the top of her lungs, “Six hundred and seven! She counted six hundred and SEVEN!”

I’m very tired. I’m going to bed. This is poor, but demonstrative. Whee!

Cara stood in front of the car’s open window, and considered her options. If someone saw her do it, she might be arrested. She imagined herself behind bars, having to explain to her husband (or worse, her mother) why it was she’d been arrested. Did you have to post bail for jail? She didn’t know.

Of course, if she didn’t do it, they’d never learn their lesson.

Anger bubbled up inside her, remembering the obnoxious group in front of her. Crowding the trail, letting their dog bark and lunge at passers-by, obnoxiously hooting, leaving their mess scattered haphazardly around them.

She’d been behind them, witnessed it all. She’d also witnessed them all leaving their huge SUV earlier in the day, saw how they’d carelessly left their windows down, just enough.

It was meant to be, she told herself.

And so telling, she wound up her fist, and threw the entire bag with all her might. It sailed through the air, catching in the opened crevice. The trash spilled out into the car, soda splashing and fizzing, dirt mushrooming, wrappers fluttering.

Satisfied, Cara smiled , got into her own car, and drove away.

Ah well. I tried! ;)

“Well,” Dinah sighed, sliding into the booth, “So much for the phone. Storm’s knocked it out, as well.”

Across the room, Clara stamped her feet and cursed. Dinah’s lips curled irritably, and poured herself another glass of wine.

“No wonder there’s no one else up here. Leave it to Dinah to plan a snow weekend during a blizzard,” Clara groused, shooting an accusing look at her sister.

Clara’s husband, John, wrapped his arms around his wife, patted her head, and spoke calmly. “Take it easy, sweetheart. The radio said it would be just a small snowstorm – few days at the most. We’ve got plenty of food, plenty of firewood.”

Clara shut her eyes, seemingly soothed by her husband’s ministrations.

Dinah brought the wine glass to her lips and slowly tipped it backwards, her eyes moving from her sister’s head to John’s rugged, angular face. Their eyes locked.
Dinah’s mouth opened, and she ran her wine-ripened tongue slowly over her lips.

Over Clara’s head, John’s eyes were burning into her, following her every movement. She could see his grip on Clara tighten unconsciously. Clara snuggled into him, mistaking his rapture for affection.

Smiling to herself, Dinah raised a finger to her mouth, a signal to be silent, patient. After all, the blizzard was going to last at least a week and there was plenty of time for silly, stupid Clara to have her unfortunate accident…