driving with a flat and no spare
Monday, Oct. 30, 2006 at 9:48 a.m.
On this day in 1938, CBS radio announces that glistening, black-eyed Martians have landed at Grover's Mill, New Jersey. Luckily for the extraterrestrials, the news is announced during a Mercury Theatre program and later discounted as a work of fiction. Needless to say, the event causes widespread panic before the government manages to clamp a lid on it.
Thinking about this always makes me laugh. But then, on the other hand, I went through a short period where I thought Blair Witch Project was a documentary, which proves that I am as gullible as the next person, and maybe even more so.
Gah! Monday again? Thank GOD I took Friday off as a sick day, but the buttstink of it was I actually did have a case of PINK EYE, pink eye for chrissakes, and I had to go to the DOCTOR for a script for eyedrops. Feh. However, I was called back by the nurse before I even finished writing my co-pay check at the front desk. I was in and out in ten minutes. Not too shabby. But it still annoys me a bit to have to come in when you know precisely what the problem is. Like when I have my yearly sinus infection � which it now occurs to me I haven�t had yet this year � I feel like I should only have to call in, hock a loogie while I�m on the phone and the nurse should call in my scripts. And you know that sinus infection loogies are the worst, those semi-solid lumps of matter with various hues of various colors.
Eww.
Anyhoo, I spent the rest of Friday watching my further pseudo-hentai movies from Blockbuster, and also watched a couple of episodes of Gilgamesh, an odd anime series that draws slightly on the actual story of Gilgamesh and his buddy Ekindu, well, at least the part of the story that doesn�t involve the prostitute. Anyway, it�s odd and interesting and is drawn differently from your normal anime features with the big Bambi eyes and all. However, everyone is extraordinarily tall (aside here: If you�ve ever taken figure drawing, you�ll know that the human body is generally 7 heads tall, but you�ll find in Japanese animation that everybody is about 11 heads tall) and look like they�ve ridden on the Willy Wonka taffy puller a few too many times.
But now, at least, I�ve gotten the blockbuster.com queue down to 996. GADS I am so lame. I�m getting movies that I have no recollection of placing in my queue, and no idea as to why. Sure, it makes it a surprise every time I pop one in the DVD player, but the Hubster (who thinks I�ve gone off the deep end anyway) constantly questions the necessity of the movies in my queue in general. He still hasn�t forgiven me for that slash hentai from a week ago.
Saturday was a fun day, as the Hubster and I got back in the car and drove to Tortilla Flat, which is a little stagecoach stop on the Apache Trail, with a population of six. Yep, I said six. There is a general store, a tiny museum, and a restaurant where the bar stools are saddles, and there are thousands of dollar bills and business cards stapled to the walls. We also went on a short hike and drove the entire Apache Trail, all 38 miles of single-ish-lane dirt road that twists and turns all through the mountains, and ends at Roosevelt Dam. We drove back through Globe and Miami, which are two more copper mining communities still in operation, for the most part. In fact I just read that another copper mine opened in Safford. Of course, copper mining is not like coal mining at all, being that copper mining is more of a strip mine operation, but even with the old-style mines like Bisbee�s Queen Mine, it was always, always safer to mine in hard rock rather than coal. And truth be told, mining in the US is still a safe operation when you compare to say, China, where they average 16 deaths a day.
Anyway, in two days the NaNoWriMo begins, and I am heady with anticipation and dread. I have outlines going and little notations but largely, the whole thing is mainly floating around in my head like a half-formed fetus. In my head. (Where would that be squeezed out from, I wonder.) I don�t know how much I�ll be updating as I tend to do all this at work, and it is just my luck that in November I go back to being on my own anyway, or even worse, I�ll have to train a noob how to answer the damned phone, which is always perilous because my stupid manager likes to sabotage people by asking them about things that they�ll never have to know, or know about only once every 216 days or so.
I feel like I�m driving this road a lot, don�t you?
