Paula emailed me the other day asking if she could hire me to knit her baby a little outfit for the winter...little did Paula know that I have been itching to knit baby clothes for a long time. They're small, they're quicker than knitting big people clothes, and they're just so damn cute I can't stand it. I laughed a maniacal laugh and told her I'd do it for free.

Of course, I hesitate to make baby things. Last time I knit myself a pair of socks out of pale blue yarn, people kept looking at me slyly and asking why I needed booties. I would deal with it by looking at the sock in progress, already wide enough for a grown woman's foot and plenty long, and then I would ask them what the hell kind of mutant baby they imagined I would be having if I WERE pregnant, and did I LOOK pregnant, not that you should be one to insinuate anything with THAT gut of YOURS, thank you very much. That would shut them up, as calling people fat generally tends to do. You may think this is overly neurotic and self conscious, but I swear it is not. If you are a knitter yourself, you know that people tend to get pretty nosy about what you are making. I couldn't even make man sized socks without "ooh, are you pregnant, sweetie?"

So now that I will be making actual baby things I will need to be on double defense mode. Also, I found some cute patterns that will rock for Christmas for one cousin and for the upcoming newborn another cousin is about to have. I'm going to be a baby clothing machine, and I'm afraid people are going to nag me more than they already do.

Perhaps I should stop eating at Taco Bell for awhile. I've gained five pounds, and...well...perhaps I should just try to stay skinny for a little while longer. Or I could make myself a t-shirt that says "I'm still menstruating." I could wear it while knitting little hats and footies and pants. It wouldn't be subtle, but it WOULD be hilarious.

Jen's advice is to keep the baby knitting on the down low, but I say screw that. My sweaters are not mobile projects, and they tend to drag in thing like my martini and chili cheese fries.

Oh man, I just had a mental image of myself sitting at the bar in a baggy shirt, knitting on some booties totally drunk, while some poor misunderstanding soul looks on in horror. Fantastic.

One of my mostest favoritist authors, Zelazny was born in Euclid, Ohio.

The other day I learned that in Euclid, Ohio there is a street named "Corwin Road."

(Corwin is the name of the hero/anti-hero in his Chronicles of Amber.)

Is it wrong that I kind of want to drive by and see what it looks like?

Why do they even bother interviewing college-to-pro athletes? They all say the same thing:

"I'm really excited to go pro, I'm gonna get in there, train hard, and win some games."

Blah blah blah.

Just once I'd like to hear an athlete pubically ponder "do you think the aerobic benefits of having sex with hookers would override the obvious detriment to my reputation?"

Or "I think I'll make weight if I keep riding the H train."

Or maybe "sorry I'm late, I'm just soooo hungover."

I guess the real question is: why am I even watching ESPN in the first place?

Bryan and I were talking a walk on Saturday when we passed a tiny house on the corner of our street. I've always loved this particular house because of its low slanting roof, natural timber fence and stone walkway. It reminds me of a little cottage of the sort you would expect to see in the foothills.

As we passed, Bryan remarked that HE always liked that house as well, for the same reasons I liked it.

After some brief discussion, it turns out that we both always wanted to live in a cabin in the mountains, where it's foggy in the morning and mild in the summer, and where people don't care whether or not you drive a Lexus or have a fancy job title. We want to live somewhere where it is perfectly acceptable to yell "tarnation!" when you drop your firewood on your own foot, and where you don't have to have the same type of mailbox as everyone else on the block.

I called Skipper and discussed the idea with him. Then we spoke with Jenny and Joe C and Ali. And now I'm looking up the cost of living in Appalachia. I'm thinking we'll see what area has a good cost of living and high forest/mountain to dwellings ratio, but also has proximity to things that we need...such as healthcare and pharmacies and jobs. Then we will give in to our Scottish ancestry and move to the foothills, where we will develop quaint accents and learn how to jig like the moonshiners do.

Who else is with me? Mom and dad?

Fractal Robo-tripping!

Here are some pics of the day Sprocket climbed up me and decided to take a nap on my shoulders. I bent forward so he would be more secure and remove his claws from me, and he decided to lay down. I couldn't remove him from my back because I refused to put down my beer.




























Here's a little of this morning. I attempted to make waffles. Unfortunately, when it comes to the waffle iron I am no GIR, although Steve ate my waffles with Zim-like enthusiasm after a little bit of taunting.




























How do YOU feel about inter-species love?

















Lastly, here's Steve entertaining himself for five whole minutes.

When Lovell, Mike, and I were in ninth grade, we passed much of our time in school by creating little characters, variety shows, stories, poems and fake "game shows" for our own amusement. This was back before any of that ADHD medicine or rampant Prozac dosing, and I'm pretty sure that often times we were a little too creative for our own good. Lovell is good with voices, so he was the character dude. He had a few favorites---a drunken Scotsman named Hamish McMxlvii (inspired by a string of Roman numerals), and a Chinese pizza parlor owner from 1980s New York City. The pizza guy would yell at his imaginary customers in angry fake-Chinese, and would insert recognizable phrase here and there with finger-quotes. "Coca-Cola," "Kentucky Fried" or "crazy round eye" were amongst the favorites.















Looking back, I'm shocked that we managed to get As in all the classes we imagined our way through. Sure, we had to go to the school counselor a few times, but who doesn't have to do that in high school?
















Lovell and Mike loved the pizza guy character so much that they often discussed what a REAL crazy round eye pizza would taste like. So one day, in their early twenties, they put together a concoction so unbelievably excessive that it instantly became a favorite food.















Here's a loose recipe:
















Start with a pizza crust. Either buy one, or make one and pre-cook it. It MUST be pre cooked. It should be the biggest crust you can find/make.















Get about 14 oz of pizza sass. Make it, buy it, whatever. We found a "cheese" pizza kit at Aldi for $2.22 that came with sass and crust mix, along with a tiny little pouch of fake cheese.

















Spread half the sass on the crust. Cook a pound of bacon and a pound of sausage. Crumble both over the crust. Add a pound of sliced pepperoni. You can substitute chicken if you want a white pizza. Whatever. Essentially you want something like three pounds of meat. Cover this with the remaining sauce.

















Slice olives, green peppers, onion, pineapple...whatever else you like on pizza. Next time I'm going to add a small can of anchovies.












Top it all with a whole bag of sliced mozzarella cheese, grated parmasean, feta....The goal is for the finished product to be about six inches thick at the center. It should look like a quivering haystack when you are done.














Heat the oven up to 425 and cook for 15-25 minutes.















You'll need a knife and fork to eat this pizza. Serve either with cheap beer or generic soda. MMMM. I already have a southwest version planned out, with a tangy southwest sauce instead of pizza sauce, and maybe some cooked shrimp and sour cream. You probably shouldn't eat ANY version of crazy round eye pizza if you're on a diet or if you think eating to excess is irresponsible. Pffffft.

I can't imagine a pizza delivery person trying to carry a stack of these.

This morning I awoke to a house full of hungry men of the human, feline and canine variety. I was elected Queen of Breakfast, so I put my hair in a ponytail and threw a coat on over my pajamas for a quick trip to get some McBreakfast for Bryan and Joe C. Joe C.'s car was last in the drive, and I was parked next to it on the sidelawn. Using my catlike skills I maneuvered my car around a grove of trees, past his bumper, and directly over a bag of trash and a green garbage can which had fallen over sideways during the night, effectively blocking itself from my view. I didn't notice the trash until I'd backed onto the street and the noise alerted me. So I had to get out and crawl under the bumper to pry the trash can loose. The bag of trash had been deposited in the middle of the road intact, but also in the line of traffic. I did a mini walk of shame around a few oncoming cars to pick up the bag and deposit them both on the curb.

Let me state that I am a good driver and this was an unusual incident. The combination of high back bumper, horizontal camouflaged trash receptacles and my attempting to drive five minutes after waking up was surely the issue.

That was bad. On the way back from McDonalds I realized I had a voice mail from Nicole. It turns out that Laura and Nicole had come to town last night---for some reason I'd misread their emails ALL MONTH LONG and I had blocked all of the 14th off for their visit. I'm not sure how I mistook 4 for 14. I must have looked at the date a dozen times, yet there it was on my google calendar: April 14, Laura & Nicole. At ten in the morning, the last thing you want to feel like is an illiterate bad driver. I was extremely disappointed in myself and really ashamed.

The day was pretty uneventful for the next few hours. Joe C and I talked internet wrestling, he left to go home and Bryan and I did some gardening (arguing), and then I took off for the library and the sto' for some lasagna fixins. For some reason the sto' was packed, and I was in a hurry. I grabbed a large tin of spicy paprika and put it in the cart, not realizing that the lid had rusted off or something. As I placed it in the cart, there was a huge paprika explosion! I wouldn't have been surprised if there had been a "fwooooosh" sound effect. Paprika burst in a red cloud EVERYWHERE! I still needed paprika, so I shifty eyed a little and quickly replaced the broken tin with a new tin, and then looked up to see if I could spot someone with a broom. The entire aisle of people were silent and staring at me with slack jawed expressions on their faces. Including the kids in those carts that look like little cars. Like I'd dare to blow up a tin of spices and just leave it like that, right? Like NO ONE would notice that I was covered in red powder and was making a trail of spicy goodness everywhere I pushed the cart. So I muttered "be right back" and ran up to customer service to explain. The goth girl behind the counter rolled her eyes at me and laughed, and I sort of scooted away with my head down to hide out in the birthday card aisle until it was all cleaned up.

Then some drunk people in line behind me insisted on going through my whole cart full of groceries and commenting on what I was buying while I was getting rung up. I told them that if they were that interested they could offer to pay for some of it, and that sort of shut them up.

I'm still sort of red. Not in the face, but all over my pants from the spice aisle.

I know I've been a little tense lately, but damn.