so, i'm not going to be very good company over the next month, what with the novel writing and all. also, i'm considering buying dark room equipment, so there's a good chance i'll be completely insane and creatively tapped out by the end of november. then again, i could chuck both ideas tomorrow in favor of redesigning my web site. i have that freedom.

oh, remember how i was telling you about the woman with no arms who rides my bus? (that was on september 27.) well, i've been wondering how her cigarette was lit ever since i saw her smoking for the first time. she was at my stop again last week, and i saw her sit down, put her purse on the ground, take out a cigarette case, pull out a cigarette, and light a bic lighter all with her feet. i feel like it's rude of me to take so much notice of this, but it's just so rad! i usually can't even light a lighter on the first try, much less with my toes! i continue to be amazed by -- and thoroughly impressed with -- her competence.

hey, it's almost november, which means i get to start my novel soon! yay me! (and the 3000 or so other people who signed up to sample nanowrimo's particular blend of insanity). at least if i go insane, i'll have company.

ever since i found out about nanowrimo, i keep thinking about the novel i will write during the month of november. everything seems like fodder for a crappy, hastily-written novel today. i better not write too much about it here, or i won't be able to use it (or it will be cheating, which would make me feel bad). maybe i'll write about a girl who's trying to write a novel in a month. what a cop out that would be! still, this thing is all about quantity and not quality. make shit up? i can make shit up. (exhibit 'a' being this web site.) did i ever tell you that i got the award for "best b.s.-er" my senior year in high school?

today, i am happy because there are new asian drink reviews out at noapologiespress. also, it looks like gene ray has been updating again. you probably wouldn't understand, though, because you maybe academically retarded, and you were educated stupid by cowardly academicians who won't allow time cube debate. if i said all that in a larger font, i bet you'd be more inclined to believe me.

in other news, i just signed up to drive myself crazy during the month of november.

the towels at the luxor in las vegas smell just like the towels in the burn ward at st. francis hospital in san francisco (or at least how they smelled in 1980). the smell of the towels wasn't something i'd have come up with on my own, but while drying off my face, there it was, a smell i haven't smelled in almost exactly 21 years. scent is a funny thing that way. oddly, after the towel experience, i picked up a book my friend duane loaned me. the book is called perfume and it's all about olfactory sensations, which made me try to think of more smells from the burn ward, but mostly it's the towels that i remember now. the other smells i remember, i've remembered all along. they're icky smells.

vegas was fun, though. i met my mom down there and we played a lot of slot machines, saw a comedy show, gawked at the water show at the bellagio, and ate krispy kreme doughnuts. mmm. krispy kreme. vegas, as duane pointed out, is so very, very wrong. it's deliciously wrong. all those lights, all those swimming pools and water fountains and ice machines, all the seafood buffets... it's all in the middle of a desert. it just shouldn't exist. by night, vegas is a marvel of lights and sights and sounds. by day, it's a little bit ugly. it's the city you woke up next to.

the mom and i didn't make it off the strip at all, which was okay because it's not like you can really see it all in two days. but i'm a little sad that our trip was almost entirely devoid of elvii -- i feel a bit cheated. guess i'll just have to go back...

once upon a bus ride...

a funny old man got on the bus today and sat in the seat behind me with a loud attempt at clearing the phlegm that gurgled in his throat. "are you a student?" he asked me. "do you go to the college?" i told him i didn't. he asked if i ever did, and i said no.

clearly, a change of subject was in order: "did you ever watch the lone ranger on tv?"

"yes."

"well, it wasn't 'heigh-ho silver, and away!'" he told me. "it was 'heigh-ho sliver and a-whee!'"

i'm tired and grumpy and not really sure what the world is coming to. i saw my first gas mask on the bus today. i say first, because i expect to see more. the woman in front of me told her seat mate that she'd seen three on her way downtown. three people wearing gas masks. surely, there are more. all i can say in response to that is some unutterable groan, some non-english, entirely human sound of despair-and-sadness-and-anger-and-what-the-fuck-is-going-on-around-here-anyhow? it makes me want to read stephen crane poems and drink hard alcohol.

A man feared that he might find an assassin,
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.
-Stephen Crane

dear bus driver from today,

i don't like you. you are grumpy and unpleasant. it's not just because my usual bus driver smiles at me when i get on the bus, instead of scowling. it's also because you almost hit that car when you were turning the corner and didn't even really slow down. and when that one guy wanted off because you were taking an unexpected detour and you said, "no" and went another four blocks, that was just plain rude. you could have let him off.

i don't like you because there was that one lady who was clearly late for something and she knocked on the window while you were at a red light and you ignored her. i don't like you on behalf of the other lady, who ran up just as you started pulling away, and you didn't stop for her, you just kept right on going. that's just ridiculous, not stopping like that. you probably saw her running up before you even started to pull away, but kept going just to be a jerk. well, you've succeeded.

you're just plain mean, bus driver.

bite me,
bus rider

i spent the weekend with my family, and got to see my nephew who is now eight months old. on top of being the cutest baby in the world, he's also an incredibly happy baby who doesn't cry much. my sister and her husband are very lucky parents (and good ones).

i'm having a hard time determining how i feel about this war we're in. the air strikes, the uncertain movements of terrorists within our country... it's somewhat scary in the back of my mind, but there's this cup of coffee in front of me that smells good, and my workstation in this office building that is familiar and unchanged. the people wearing u.s. military uniforms and dropping bombs have very little to do with my life, and, selfishly, i kind of hope it stays that way.

by the way, susannah, i did check out lemony snicket. bought book one yesterday, in fact. i will read it as soon as i've finished "haroun and the sea of stories", which i would recommend to anybody who likes a good story.

i'm trying to find time to finish the site i made for rob's shirts. poor rob wore a pink shirt to work one day and got a load of crap for it. he then got crap for just about every shirt he wore, and so we decided a method of tracking the shirts was necessary. so far, i've been manually updating the database, but it would be much cooler to do it automatically and have a field for today's shirt, etc. too many ideas, too little time...

oh, how i love the web! the freaky bug that chris found has been identified as a house centipede. two people e-mailed me suggesting it was a silverfish or perhaps a firebrat of the thysanura family. i looked up the term "thysanura" on google and ended up on this page. i thought the freaky bug in question had way too many legs, so i e-mailed john meyer, who created the page. he promptly replied that it is a house centipede, and told me that they're relatively harmless. they tend to live in drains and sewers where they feed on other organisms.

i had a crazy dream last night about the word syzygy. what a cool word.