Sunday, January 28, 2007

And this is an edited list

I watched Good Morning, Vietnam with Daniel last night (who liked it a lot), and I kept thinking how young Robin Williams, Bruno Kirby, and Forest Whitaker looked. Does that make me old? Oh, hush.

I've tried to start an entry three or four times, and I keep deleting them. I think I have a low-level general pissiness going on, and nothing seems to satisfy me. I'll type a few sentences, and then think "Oh, who wants to read about that?" Does that ever happen to anyone else?

For lack of a topic, I'm just going to list some things that are bugging me, in no particular order of importance:

  1. The newspaper changed the format of the Sunday insert for the TV schedule. It's much bigger yet more difficult to read, and the arrangement of each day's listings makes no sense. For example, on one left-hand page are the entries for Tuesday night's cable channels; on the right-hand page are the Tuesday night AND Wednesday night network channels. To see Wednesday night's cable channels, I have to turn the page--and that's just not right. And, AND, there are no show descriptions now. Hmmph.
  2. Speaking of the newspaper, would it kill the delivery adult to toss the paper somewhere in the vicinity of my front porch? This morning, I had to scurry outside, in 10 degrees, all the way down my front steps and halfway down the sidewalk to my next-door neighbor's house--while wearing pink pajamas and a huge fuzzy white robe.
  3. Daniel called me the other night from a friend's house. When I answered, he said "Hey, Mom. It's Dan." Dan?? Dan who? I have a son named Daniel, who only a few months ago corrected people who called him Dan. I don't like the name Dan. Dan's a breezy jock who likes to have a few brewskies with his buds. Gah. Freakin' Indiana and its residents' propensity for shortening names in any way possible. Ever since I moved here, teachers and other adults have tried to shorten Daniel's name, and in the past few years, kids at school have, too. I'm not sure whether Daniel's caved or wants to establish a new identity; either way, it upsets me.
  4. I pay most of my bills online and do about 95% of my work on the computer. Why, then, do I still have stacks and stacks of paper in my office??
  5. I've had it with trying to turn over in the middle of the night and being unable to move because a 13-pound cat is draped across my legs. Not curled up sweetly next to me, not lying at the foot of the bed--across my legs.
  6. Holly now snores even when she's AWAKE. I have to turn the TV up to deaf-person levels to hear it above her floor-rattling snores.
  7. Jon's closing the used bookstore at the end of February because he got a great offer to buy the building and, he claims, he's ready to retire. Where am I supposed to get all my books now? His store was within walking distance, plus I got Daniel's 15% employee discount. The place also functioned as an old-fashioned general store; I could hang out there for an hour drinking free coffee and get all the town gossip and news.
  8. Gene, the guy who lives behind me, across the alley in back of my garage, has three grown sons who leave their giant trucks and a freakin' BOAT parked in his driveway, which is approximately two feet long. Therefore, their big-ass vehicles stick partway out into the alley, which means backing out of my garage and into the alley requires excellent hand-eye coordination and split-second timing to turn the wheel at just the right moment. My skillz in both areas? Not so mad.
  9. Now that this winter is finally turning cold, my hair is one big ball of static electricity.
  10. One of my clients lost an invoice I sent in December. Even with an expedite order on it, I won't see the check for another two weeks.
  11. The pain-in-the-ass author I wrote about a few weeks ago is a week behind now on a chapter, and I just found out from another author on the team that he's having surgery for an "old war injury." I don't know what "war" he was in; he's too young to have served in WWII or Vietnam, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't involved in the Gulf War. The other author informed me that PITA author will probably have to drop out of the project. I can't wait to pass that news along to Kid Manager. The poor thing will plotz.
  12. Several movies up for Academy Awards are just now hitting theaters around here. Once again, I'll be watching the Oscars having seen only a handful of the nominated movies. Oh, well. Ellen DeGeneres is hosting, so that's some comfort.

That is all--for now. Heh.