I suddenly feel better about all of the stupid things I ever did at work. Like talking about one of my old bosses in a not-so-positive fashion after having failed to successfully hang up my phone after paging someone over the work intercom. Yep, there went my comments. All over the firm. For all to hear. But they were so muffled, thank goodness, that no one could understand. That was at my last job-that's all behind me now. Thank goodness we aren't allowed to page at my current job. Gives me the willies just thinking about how easily it can all go wrong... Anyway, watch this and feel instantly better about all of the dumb stuff you ever did at work. Feel free to post your dumbest and most embarrassing here! But good luck topping this. (Oh, and disclaimer, I am feeling lazy and did not verify that this is true. I tend to think everything is fake, in case you didn't know what. So if it's not for real - sorry. It's still funny.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF6n5alsG8M

http://www.comcast.net/news/strange/index.jsp?cat=STRANGE&fn=/2006/08/28/464411.html&cvqh=itn_dogdrive

For the love. I hope that when you click on this the story is still there. Some woman in China was trying to teach her dog to drive. That's right. Drive. A car.

Scroll down to the very bottom of the page for celebrity news via digg.com. Just a little something new. Only the best for my readers. Also, if you are looking for a chuckle, check out "The Onion" in my links. Funny stuff, people. Funny stuff. (Albeit inappropriate at times - so beware if you're at work.)

I had to sign up with www.linkedin.com for a case at work –long story. It’s basically a networking website. You create a profile, people can view your profile and request to be introduced into your network and vice versa. Of course you also get bombarded with ads, job opportunities, and such targeted toward you based on your profile. So yesterday I get a notice that DreamWorks Animation is hiring for a paralegal. That’s what I’m talking about. Paralegal to the stars. Can’t you see it? I could casually “drop” my as of yet unwritten screenplays all over the place! Get discovered! Co-write a movie with Owen Wilson! Refuse to let Paris Hilton audition for it! While I’m at it, I would refuse to let Tom Cruise audition, too. I would cast Joaquin Phoenix and Johnny Depp in all of my movies. Become Brittney Spears’ new best friend. Help her stop being so dumb. Empower her to leave K-dumb. Work out with Sandra Bullock. Cause a scene whenever I’m back in town at the local Starbucks. See ya folks, I’m going to Hollywood!

So where has this year gone? I cannot believe it's August - and the end of August, at that. I swear that a few days ago it was January and I was in NYC. And March and my surgery seem so close, too. And wasn't yesterday May? Wasn't it? I hope that eventually my life's speed tops out, that somewhere ahead it pegs, and bounces against the edge of the speedometer for a bit, and then slows down. It's all happening too fast. I want to slow it down, to freeze frame. To live in the moment. To remember everything.
"Nothing hurts as bad as they say it does, Lucille. And clear, pure memory doesn't hurt at all. What hurts is forgetting." -Rich in Love -Josephine Humphreys.

Hey! Welcome back, R! My newest reader! I hope that you have many, many exciting stories to share with me about Mexico. I will be waiting to hear them! :)

Hmmmm. I find myself strangley silent these past few days. I'm not sure why. Part of it, I'm sure, is the change in my schedule. Getting up earlier, going to bed earlier. You know, the whole responsibility thing. Every now and then I give responsibility a whirl. And that's fine, as long as it realizes that I'm in charge of this whirling, and I can stop it whenever I like.

Have you ever wanted something (or someone) that you knew was bad for you? Wanted it in spite of the consequences? Spit in the face of the consequences and said bring it on? Then listen to Ryan Adams "Come Pick Me Up." He captures it perfectly. The twisted, self-destructive, co-dependent mess that you can't seem to see your way out of - and don't even want to. How can he make that fun to sing about?

I like telling you what to listen to -even though I don't think for a second there's one of you that will obey. It's still fun.

May we never let the things we can't have, or don't have, or shouldn't have, spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can have. As we value our happiness let us not forget it, for one of the greatest lessons in life is learning to be happy without the things we can’t or shouldn’t have.
-Richard L. Evans

I have been dreaming of plane crashes for about a week now. Some of the dreams are kind of fuzzy now, and some seem a bit silly. One still scares me. The first one was a silly one. A plane had crash landed – no one was hurt - on the interstate near the airport, and people who worked for the airport were flying over to the crash in these little contraptions that looked like flying go-carts. I was mad in the dream, saying “I knew the government had the technology to make little flying cars. I want a flying car!” I was amazed at how they weren’t wearing helmets,and how low to the ground they flew –about 15 feet or so. Silly, huh? The next couple of dreams are a bit fuzzy now. I don’t really remember what happened, just that planes crashed. The last one was way too real. It was a plane full of people, including me. Things were fine. Then suddenly I realized that I didn't hear the noise you hear when you are flying - I guess it's the sound of the engines - the humming, whirring sound. (Which reminds me, for those of you blog readers who work with me - and that's just the one of you - come in my office sometime and listen to the noise that's caused by whatever is in that room behind my office. It sounds just like you're on a plane. Hmm. Maybe that explains my dreams.) Anyway, so then I realized that other people were starting to realize that the humming whirring sound was missing. People were looking around, whispering. Then I look out the window and realize we are falling. Falling from the sky. It's one of those dreams where you see what's happening in first and third person. I feel the terror, I feel the plane careening toward the ground, but I also see it like a movie. It was horrible. But I woke up before the crash, so that's good. I think I read that dreams about plane crashes mean that you are worried about losing control of something in your life. Makes sense. More about dreams later...duty calls.

The internet is such a distraction. It's like leaving your office and having to walk through a mall to get to the copy room. Or like if the one work document you need is buried in the middle of a tabloid magazine. I have to get on the internet for work quite a bit. I have to get cases from Pacer, log into Summation, do research on Westlaw, do background searches on people, access court websites. So it's not that I'm trying to waste time, but come on -it's hard not to sometimes. My home page is Google News. Sometimes the headlines grab me, especially headlines like today about a foiled terror plot of "mass murder on an unimaginable scale." Sheesh. So, how does anyone who has the world at their fingertips ever get anything done anymore? And how do those who don't have it manage?

You hear interesting things on the bus. Like the woman beside me on Friday who called home and left this message: "I am sitting on the bus in front of the building. Please write down this exact time as soon as you get this message. Also, please put as many buckets outside as you can, because it's supposed to rain and we are going to need all of the water we can get." Huh?... And the cute, cute, little old man behind me, who was so articulate and well-spoken, so good-natured and complimentary in his conversation. He kept saying things like, "Good idea!" and "Sounds great!" He was the ultimate in pleasant -the kind of man you wish you could talk to when you call customer service and end up with some rude yapper. He spent a good 20 minutes discussing plans for traveling to and from Knoxville for someone (his wife, I imagined) to get some sort of physical therapy. He discussed travel times, how comfort had to be an issue, how this place they were going to was supposed to be the best, etc. Then he called someone else and relayed the whole conversation. Except this time he threw in, "Maybe we can stop at that nice Pet Med there and get his some treats - some of those bones he likes- for him to enjoy after therapy." It wasn't his wife getting the therapy! It was his dog! That sweet little man. It was all I could do to not hug him. But that would have meant reaching across the lady with the rain buckets -and that just did not seem safe.

Today, on August 8th, we wish a very happy birthday to K.!!! You’ve come a long way from the burger board, baby. So, K., here’s to rainy days, winter, New England, murder mysteries, crime dramas, the Ghetto Boys (Geto Boys for you whippersnappers), Tupac, David Beckham, British comedy (even though I still don’t get it), cookies, being Team Mom, documentaries, reading about the wags, agreeing to each and every crazy scheme I ever proposed, and all of the other things you love that make you, you. Remember, you are an island of sanity in an ocean of crazy. Happy Birthday!

No can do.
This Prozac moment is gone.
I've heard about enough out of you.
They're my toys and I'm taking them home.
Let's just see how you do on your own for a while,
Now why don't we?
If you wake up and shake all the apes off your back
Look me up in the shade of the trees.
Its the same old knock-down drag-out fight
The same old tunnel at the end of the light
Same old brick wall way too high to climb
Same old dead stallion carousel ride.
No more horses to ride.
All the ponies have died.
So throw down your bullwhip and swallow your pride.
My macabre Annie Oakley your horoscope lied.
This affair's going nowhere in big lazy circles tonight.
In big lazy circles tonight. *
*Floating Men

Do the Floating Men have a lyric for all my emotions? I think they just might.

"The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling throught street grates." -Dave Berry

I think I'm safe.

OK, so my post about the woman with the lovely accent lost a little steam over the past few days, and now I don't really remember the conversation. That's what I get for postponing the ending, but I had to go, people, I had a meeting! It was something about phobias...something about someone who was so scared of something that was in someone’s backpack, that they must have an acutal phobia. There was more detail...but it's gone now. If you are interested in phobias, check out the book 'The Pop-up Book of Phobias." According to Amazon…"Brought to life by outrageously macabre artwork and startlingly innovative pop-ups, The Pop-up Book of Phobias is an engineering marvel and cult classic in the making--an offbeat…treasure..." I saw the book when my other half and I (I really need to think of something else to call him...other half is so banal...maybe I will call him king…he would like that…he likes to think he is king of the castle…or how about RickyBobby…yeah that’s better…hehe) So RickyBobby and I were looking at houses with his brother, and this one house, which was actually the house he ended up buying, was so very very cool. It had the coolest furnishings- lots of antique-looking furniture…only not the fragile stuffy kind that you are afraid to touch, but good sturdy furniture that looked like it had enjoyed a nice long life in family after family and had the dings to prove it. The walls were adorned with 8x10 black and white photos of two adorable little girls in various candid moments –on a swing at the playground, at the beach, in a field. The kitchen had managed to attain the look of casual beachside cool which can be hard here. And books! All kinds of books! There were books everywhere. But the one that I could not resist opening, even after repeated requests from RickyBobby that I stop being so nosy, was the Pop-up Book of Phobias. The outside of the book looked well worn and old. I thought it was an old, old book about phobias and expected it to contain antiquated ways to confront your phobias. I must have glazed over the pop-up portion of the title, so you can imagine my surprise when I opened the book and a phobia literally jumped out of the book headed straight for my face. I can’t remember which phobia- it might have been fear of heights-but I decided then that this was a book I had to get. (Which I have not done yet…but it’s on my mental calendar, and I will get it someday.) Do you have phobias? I have a laundry list of made-up phobias (so don’t be offended if you have a real phobia, I know mine are bogus)…cast iron, (stuck my finger to a hot cast-iron skillet as a child), tornados, driving in the rain, drowning, flying in things that do not have jets (you will not catch me in a prop plane or a helicopter unless it’s some sort of emergency or I’m unconscious), partially hydrogenated oil, haha, this giant teddy bear that my mom has had since a teenager(Don’t get that one at all. My dad won it at the fair for my mom when they were dating. It’s black and white and about 3 feet tall. Growing up, it was always on the top shelf of my closet, and I was always aware that I was avoided it, but I never really knew I was so scared of it until my mom and I were cleaning out my closet when I was around18. She asked me to get it down from the shelf and I refused to touch it. You can imagine that she was very amused by this. She didn’t understand that I really really did not want to touch the bear. She threw it towards me, expecting me to catch it. And I did what? Screamed and ran! Oh my goodness it gives me the creeps! Even now, thinking about it I can hear the way it makes this crinkly sound when you touch it, like it’s stuffed full of tissue paper. And I just realized that I was squinching up my whole face like I just caught a sniff of bad eggs or something. Oh, that bear…) So, what scares you, Constant Readers? The length of my blog entries, perhaps? :)

I walked into work today behind a woman having an impassioned conversation on her cell phone. I couldn't help but listen. Not only because I am nosy (or interested in people I prefer to call it), but also for two other reasons- her accent, and the topic of the conversation. She had a beautiful accent that I think was Jamaican, and it made everything sound so much more interesting. It's really a beautiful accent-the inflection, the cadence of it. It's been overdone and poorly imitated on TV and in movies, but this was music to the ears- lilting and melodious. It sounded like another accent that I could not quite put my finger on until I consulted my best friend Google and found out it's Irish. According to Wikepedia, "...in many ways the [Jamaican]accent bears great resemblance to that of southern Ireland, particularly Cork, which is possibly a result of the historical influx of Irish immigrants to Jamaica when both were British colonies. OK, enough about the accent...I know you are dying to know the topic of the conversation..but I have to go....more later....

Feeling a tad uninspired lately. Feeling a little tired and grouchy, a little whiney, actually. Then I watched Baghdad ER last night. That will put you in your place, and quickly. God bless those boys and girls, and let us get out of this mess. Which reminds me, K., where/how is Caleb?