Monday, December 4, 2000 at 9:59 AM

Life is funny. Months will go by with nary a change. You become slightly bored but content because everything is predictable -- the people, the daily routines, the expectations. You feel safe in a halcyon dream where the horizons are clear and the sky is open.

Out of the blue, life wakes you up and presents you with a season of whirlwind activity. More will happen in one day than has happened in weeks before, and you find yourself acting accordingly, absorbing and meeting the changes, poised and ready for more action, hoping for the best and anticipating the worst. Ah, what I wouldn't do for a real magic 8-ball right now.

Thank heavens there's such a thing as "after hours". I've been playing around with my artwork -- both 2D and 3D -- and I'm constantly rediscovering my first love. I've also been getting good feedback on my work, which is invaluable to me since I was too much of an idiot not to study it in school.

Promise to self: I'll work on the gallery during vacation. I swear! In the meantime, there's the new Jaunt Project.

Thursday, December 7, 2000 at 8:38 AM

Not that I drink beer or have even seen the notorious commercial, but Budweiser has Whassup?! in quite a few other languages on their web site. The Scottish and the Alaskan versions are kind of amusing.

Something I've been wondering about: What do people in China call their good plates?

Friday, December 8, 2000 at 10:33 PM

We decide to see a movie at a theater we haven't been to in a while. The place has been remodeled somewhat, and the change is obvious.

Says I, "They've repainted! Repaint! Repaint!"

Says he, "Hurry, before the world comes to an end!"

Says I, "But they've repainted! All is forgiven."

I freely admit it: We have warped minds.

Sunday, December 17, 2000 at 1:30 PM

I look like I tried to commit suicide by cat.

I spent all day Thursday putting together my desk (with return) using my own two hands. I've assembled office furniture before, but I don't do it daily; I had to use muscles I'd forgotten I had. It took a while for it all to catch up to me, but catch up to me it did. Then I made the mistake of trying to pick up my cat.

Pardon my stupidity, but I was dead tired and sore; I took my own sweet time lifting my cat close to me, and sometime within those precious 5 seconds, she decided to get spooked by some imagined sound and leap away, using the palms of my hands as launching pads for her powerful back legs.

Yowza.

It's amazing how deep a cat's claws can dig through flesh. Within moments I was staring dumfoundedly at loose flaps of skin and rivers of blood. I screwed up my face, the way a child does right before a tantrum or a session of unrestrained bawling, and I presented my hands to the only person I could count on to be completely unsqueamish and professional about the whole thing.

"Don't you dare go native on me," he said when my lip trembled. He made me wash my hands thoroughly before he blathered on all kinds of first aid goo over the cuts. I kept bleeding, but he was relentless. Hours later, after all the washing, blathering, waiting, and washing again, he finally bandaged my stinging wounds and sent me off to bed.

The cuts still sting, but they're also itchy -- which tells me that they're at least starting to heal.

I even forgot about my hands yesterday. I went Christmas caroling in an old Hollywood neighborhood. I never would have imagined L.A. being an ideal place to go door-to-door singing at the top of my lungs, but it was perfect. We had old Armenian ladies and their families standing at the front of their houses and singing along with us in their native language. They showered us with cookies and candy and lots of good cheer. I had a wonderful time. It helped, of course, to have a great hostess and director; Steph was all that and more. It was worth the hellish drive through L.A. traffic for that night.

One word about Los Angeles freeways: Nightmare!

A few words about caroling: I've missed it.

I've forgotten how great it is at putting people in the mood for the holidays. I highly recommend it.

Wednesday, December 20, 2000 at 11:18 AM

I thought telecommuting was supposed to be cheaper than driving to work; I was so naive.

My car has decided that it doesn't like sitting in its parking space so long and is having a chronic problem going "wee-wee" on the newly asphalted surface of the lot -- something the apartment managers really don't like and have started waving the rules and residential lease in my face because of it. Naturally, the repairs will cost about three months worth of gas if I were commuting -- and probably a whole year's worth of gas now. Let's not even mention all the long-distance calls I'm making just to make the technical logistics of remote site maintenance a happening thing. Aye.

Cat, the hand ripper, has decided that the chair I brought home from the old office building is hers and hers alone. She stares at me with accusing eyes whenever I sit down to work, and indulging cat owner that I am, I let her sit in it and I go find another chair. She is, after all, my familiar. She's inherited my clumsiness, my black hair, and my near single-mindedness for food. Heck, I even shake my little back paws dry as I step out from the shower. Therefore, she can have whatever she wants; she is my Mini Me.

Meanwhile, he mutters: "If she just had opposable thumbs, she'd find some way to get rid of us." This, from a man who has tripped over her yesterday morning and is in dire pain from a pulled muscle and a banged knee because of it. If either of us dies before the year ends, we'll know it's the cat's fault.

But damn. Ain't she cute and cuddly?

---

I'm wondering if anyone would buy mugs and mousepads from me if I went and had this image put on them. I think it's one of my best yet, and the message behind it seems appropriate for this time of year: You don't need to see to believe.

Sunday, December 31, 2000 at 10:38 AM

Today's the last day of the "old" year, and it doesn't so much feel like the beginning of a new era, but the end of a great one. Last night, C-SPAN had a marathon of Presidential Humor on -- eight years of the Correspondents Dinner and eight years of Bill Clinton poking fun at himself. I even got to see the years I missed -- Elayne Boosler doing her great bit in 1993, after his first 100 days had passed (why have I never seen that comedienne before? She's outstanding!). I'm going to miss Bubba, and if I could have, I would have voted for him again.

Now, some people may cringe at this, but I think Bill is practically perfect (aside from that Monica thing) for that office. He's great at it, he absolutely loves what he does, and he can laugh at himself. It takes a sense of humor to do a serious job well; it's a way of being able to "roll with the punches" and not get stressed over every crisis. I really do think George Bush's head will explode at the first little problem he encounters; he's just not cut out for facing things head on, which is why he escaped life through drugs and drinking. Any serious challenge during his presidency will most likely be taken care of for him, just like all his speeches and jokes are written for him. Bah. There's not one original bone in that Texas governor; if his father were a plumber, that's what he'd be doing right now.

So there I was watching C-SPAN, already feeling nostalgic about the "old" days; I think our Age of Aquarius has peaked, and we're in for a darker age with recession and a backward path in civil rights. Well, they did predict the end of the world at the turn of the millennium, didn't they? I know, I know -- C-SPAN? April watches C-SPAN? Heck. Have you seen the Prime Minister's Question and Answer Time? That can be downright entertaining.

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