Someone put Nora Jones on my iPod.

(insert seppaku tab A into entrails slot B)

The worst thing about being an insomniac, is that I'm really not a very good insomniac.

After months of sleeping 2-4 hours every night, I'm finding myself barely able to stay awake.

This is normal, but it doesn't mean I like it.

I would love to share with you the awesomeness that was my brief time at ComFest. But really, I'm too tired to make sitting under a tree drinking beer sound any more interesting than it already does.

And yesterday- watching an equine dental extraction. Also pretty freakin' sweet (in that "is it sociopaths or serial killers who are fascinated by surgery?" way), but I'd have to spend some time and energy wording it up so you give a shit.

My senior year of high school, we performed Peter Pan something like two million times. We even travelled the country Peter Panning it ("Peter Panhandling," as I used to say). To the point where it's been 11 years and I still remember some of the lines of the other characters.

One of those was "Ug-ug Wah." I am definitely feeling Ug-ug Wah.

(and yes, I do remember all of my lines. I was the fucking dog.)

And just because my last entry was serious, I need to mention:

I can't go to piano bars, because I try to request "Boom! I Fucked Your Boyfriend."

So the current thing is that most of the people I coach are trying to be done by 30, June. And most of them were on the beam and are done by now. And those who are not beamy, bright, or interested- "The Grunters," I call them, because of their preferred communication style- are not taking up enough of my time.

A typical call with a Grunter is about like this:

EW: So, what are your thoughts regarding xtopicx?
Grunter: Mm. No questions.
EW: How confident do you feel about your current decisions re: xtopicx?
G: Mm. Yes.
(crickets chirp while I try to figure that the fuck out)
EW: So you do feel pretty confident. What would help you feel very confident?
G: I don't have any questions.
EW: What changes to you think you'll make surrounding xtopicx in the future?
G: (silence)
Cricket: Seriously?

Seriously, is it really that hard to speak in complete sentences?

I swear, I'm going to start fucking grunting back.

Rewrite!

EW: So, what are your thoughts regarding xtopicx?
G: Mm. No questions.
EW: Huh.
G: (silence)
(crickets, crickets, crickets)
G: Are you still there?
EW: Mm-hmm. (the affirmative)
G: Did you want to tell me something else?
EW: Mm-a-mm. (the "idunno" grunt)

Maybe that will piss The Grunters into a position of actually speaking. Most people are afraid of dead air. I'm actually not- I can hang there in your silence forever. The absolute beauty of my upbringing is that there were many times eveything was dead fucking silent, and that doesn't bother me one lick.

Or I'll bring out "WHAT AIN'T NO COUNTRY I HEARD OF. DO THEY SPEAK ENGLISH IN WHAT?"

I've been having a problem lately. See if you can spot the pattern:

Friday:
Wake up
Make breakfast for Donna's birthday
Go to the barn
Accidentally insult a friend

Saturday:
Didn't sleep, so no waking up
Go to Cedar Point
Ride the rides
Accidentally insult a friend
Hang out with Bumpo
Accidentally insult a room full of people
Go to sleep

Sunday:
Wake up
Accidentally insult a friend
Hang out with Tooj
Have a marvelous dinner
Accidentally insult a friend
Watch most of Dark Knight
Go to sleep

Monday:
Wake up
Go to the barn
Accidentally insult a friend
Accidentally insult a friend
Accidentally insult a friend

I'm going to go silent for awhile. Apparently, I've got some weird mojo juju frank-n-beans going, and everything's just coming out wrong. Normally, I'd be under the impression that everyone is just being way too fucking sensitive and tell them to really think hard about whether or not I would want to insult them to the level they're feeling. I'm not out to hurt feelings. That's really counter-productive to me. Yet it seems that every time I make words happen, they piss someone off. I'm running out of people to insult, so I'm just going to disappear for a bit until my mojo juju comes back.

I love you all, and I'm very sorry for everything I've done to hurt you.

I've gone mad. Completely baa-baa.

Gonna quit my job and make a living off of drawing portraits of Burt Reynolds. I'm going to be a Turd Fergusonist. I don't care.

I just don't.

I felt a lump in my shoe this morning, and when I inspected it, it was a piece of cat food. Not a lick of care to be found.

I, erm, did something wrong today.

Not that that's anything different than any other day, but usually, when I do something wrong, I can cover it just as well as any cat in a sandbox.

But it's Really.
Really.
Really.
REALLY.
hard to cover your error when your error is causing your stomach to groan so loudly that your coworkers keep asking each other "I'm sorry, what did you say?" Followed by, "Oh no, I didn't say anything. Ernie, did you say something?" (And then no one knows my reply because I'm tucked off in my little drawer, meeping "oh fuck!" repeatedly and hoping no one finds me.)

Dammit, delicious palak aloo-
Why do I stuff my face with you?

Of course, I've got no one to blame but myself (haha "butt myself")(erm)- it's not like anyone forced me to be face down in a plate of spinach and potatoes, eating my way to freedom. In fact, the project manager tried to save me by requesting a conference call, to which I garbled "Charlie, I'm a little busy right now (gulpgulp) can you ring back in just a few?"

(His name's not Charlie, but I call all people who insist on communicating via speakerphone "Charlie." I'm also an asshole.)

Here I am giving my cat grief for having the roaring squats, and I'm right there! And I still have six more hours on the clock!

Please don't let me fall in aloo again. Save me- and my coworkers- from myself?

Please?

Haven't heard anything from Polly's vet yet. I'm hoping that's a good sign. I can't make words that equal the amount of guilt I felt dropping her off this morning. She has no idea what's going on.

Then again, the official cat of the vet clinic, Nova, came running over to me this morning and begged for lovins. I was standing there, talking to the tech, and Nova caught whiff of me, ran across two counter tops and a row of cages. The tech said, "Oh, sometimes she feels friendly, but she rarely lets anyone pet her, especially someone who has just brought in a kitty." Nova was already rubbing against me as she finished the sentence, so maybe this is a sign that the animal kingdom still loves me?

Harvey has staged a diarrhea coup. He gets the squirts every time things get obnoxious or stressful in the house, and since I had a bunch of loud motherfuckers over Saturday night, I'm thinking he's used this as inspiration. He gave me another pile this morning, which was probably him feeding off of my nerves. I hope it was. Mrs. Tran has recommended I give him some yoghurt to help his bowels before I go apeshit crazy and haul him into the vet's.

There is no way in fucking anywhere I should ever have a child, because I would be sepaku-ing my ass off in the front lawn the first time my child sneezes. My nickname in college was "sepaku goat" for a reason... .

But let's find something else good to focus on... how about Sunday, when I became something like the second person in history to ride Snickers? Snickers is the horse who bucked me across the county a few weeks ago when we were trying to figure out if she'd ever been ridden before. Lisa and April (the ladies who own the barn and the horse, respectively) have been playing with her, trying to get her into more shape and less freakish. A guy came out, considering buying her for a handicapped trail program (which I applaude the effort, but not the choice of horse), and he climbed on her, but was chicken shit to actually get her to move. After getting my brain bucket, I hopped up there and rode her around the arena a few times. She wasn't bad at all- she acts like no one has taught her about bits and bridles, and she spooked when the neighbour was out at his target range (ahh, the country), but she wasn't half bad.

Another random act of misplaced testicularity. Yes, I will run from a centipede, but I have no problem sitting four feet from the ground, on top of 1000+ pounds of scared animal.

Then I worked with Scarlet, one of the yearlings, for a little while, because I was supposed to work with Powder, and Powder wouldn't be caught. Powder preferred to dead gallop away from me and encourage the other babies to kick and rear as close to me as possible. As I lunged Scarlet, I realised that a horse bucking ten feet away from me doesn't really bother me.

But the centipede still does.

And cat diarrhea.

And not hearing from the vet on the day of Polly's big surgery.

And my finances as a result of the surgery (I have a plan).

So here's the part where I do something else that all the cool kids did, because I lack in taste and originality.

Thus, I am not a cola.

Feel free to reply to this entry with an anonny mouse question, and I shall post all of the answers in the very soon.

Thank you, and don't spooge on my bed.

Like many of you, its been very stressful. Need some love? A kind word? Need moar lulz in your life?

Comment here with anything, and I will say something nice to you.

Just make this post in your lj, so you can spread love too.

Tonight- for the first time in the Over a Year since I've been doing this gig...

They Swept The Floors.

Full on Hooverising. Motorised sweeper. Vroom-vroom. Eureka.

Whatever.

And because I couldn't vault my fat ass over the cube wall fast enough to get out, my cube was not swept.

That, or my foot stench.

Whatever (again).

I smiled nicely at the cleaning lady and she murbled something in her language to me, and it looked pretty much like a really bad gag, but I don't think she's coming back later so suck up my Cheerio crumbs.

I'll tell you the plumbing story some other time. It's a bit repetitive, in that it's like every other story I tell you. It'll be funnier once it has a dramatic punch line.

I saw this on someone else's journal, and it was desperately fun for me.

So- feel free to comment to this entry anonymously, and just say whatever the hell it is that you want to say but just can't bear to right now.

Welcome to Ernie's Free-Zone. Conveniently located near Mayor McCheese's Place to Do Sports and Stuff.

So... first, I have a confession to make. When I mentioned the "cyst" in my post the other day, I was making a huge assumption. See, during my ultrasound, the guy found some "dark masses," which he then covered up by saying, "OH, IT'S PROBABLY JUST A CYST! EVERYBODY HAS CYSTS!"

But the truth was, he didn't really know.

So I've been sweating this shit out for nearly a week now.

BUT

Hottie Male Nurse called today and let me know that they are, in fact, cysts. The Urotrash took a look at everything, and says that neither the cysts nor my stones are looking abnormal, thick, or blocking anything. Stones should pass naturally. No further treatment until 2010.

The bad news is that a cyst-bearer needs to have a CT scan next year. Dollar signs flash before my very eyes.

At least it's not my life.

I'm sorry I lied to everyone, but I would've mentioned the results no matter what.

This version is just less catastrophic, which works for me.

I'd like to thank everyone for all the nice notes and calls and everything- it definitely helped to know that there were folks out there who cared!

Hugs and kisses to all!

conundrum :

When your butthole itches in public.

I heard the title when I was waiting for Harvey's pills at the vet's this morning. Apparently someone left a spot blank on their fill-out form, and I ended up turning beat-red and trying not to giggle. (also waiting for a man named Stuart to BEG YOUR PARDON?)

I brought a spinach salad with fat free cottage cheese for lunch today. I didn't eat it. Instead, I flung it all over myself, my cube, and my floors. I've cleaned it up best I could with a rag and some Oxyclean.

Tech team wants me to work for them today. For the past two hours, we've been emailing each other as such:
THEM: Ernie, please respond to requests in the tech email box.
EW: No problem! Which requests shall I handle?
THEM: The requests you usually do.
EW: I don't mind helping out, but each time I handle requests, I have a different client or directive.
THEM: Then do what you normally do in there.
EW: So you want me to handle all the requests I can?
THEM: ...

I'm hoping they don't send anyone over here to push me around and make me guess all the special codes. Mainly, I'm afraid someone will see me in my post-cottage cheese splendor and mistake me for some kind of slob.

I have some notes somewhere. That should help.

All is not lost.

Just my mind.

Yodie just emailed me. Something in her eye broke, and she has bleeding inside her eye. She told me she can smell the blood, and it's making her gag. I asked her to name any number of other instances in which she could smell her eye. She hasn't responded yet.

I once thought I was walking on the ceiling. I've had Death wake me up in the middle of the night to give me a McGriddle. The Cabbage Patch Kids saved me from a nuclear apocalypse. I've put out a fire in a television that was never on fire. I watched a two hour special on Phil Collins that was actually a Fred Durst poster.

I have never smelled my eyeball.

Stuart was intact, by the way. Stuart has his balls; Yodie has an eye-scented eye; Tooj has to get better so we can stalk Edvard; Carl C has one more chance to send me a family postcard from a family vacation on which I was not invited; I have cottage cheese on my shirt.

At least the lunch spies are happy. I'm now a walking billboard for healthful eating. Literally. Until I start smelling.

Someday I'll talk about Crazy Wars at the nursing home this weekend. Someday I'll tell you that I went down a pant size.

Fuck. Looks like I already busted one of those stories.

Something in my immediate vicinity smells like cheap cake frosting.

Like, the stuff we used to live on in college when we were too po' to buy anything less than cheap or more than disgusting.

I'm talking, like 49-cents cheap, not buck-seventy cheap.

It's Russell's thirtieth birthday today, by the way. I only know three things about Russell:
a) he is 30 today
b) he once sat on the hood of a car with a sign that said "1980"
c) he had blonde hair

I have no idea who Russell is. I'm assuming the cheap frosting smell is wafting over from his BIG THREE-OHH YAAAAY.

I don't know. That's what the signs say. I don't fucking know Russell.

Happy Birthday anyway, Russell. I'm sorry you got cheap frosting.

I hate it when my integrity is challenged.

And that's all today has been.

"Tell us how you really feel about xyz."

No seriously. I've had hours and hours of meetings about fucking xyz, and I still have the sense to realise that fucking xyz means just as fucking little as it did three years ago.

I want to peel off my skin, set it on fire, and tell everyone to suck my cock.

So when I was asked how I really feel about xyz?

"Well, I was with it at first, but I'm really getting sick of talking about it. We have melted xyz into something that it never meant to be, and now it's become an insult of it's original intentions."

And everyone
just
stared.

Yes, you can talk something to death. Yes, I do say exactly what I mean. Yes, it often doesn't come out right. Yes, I fuck it up quite often.

But I will never fucking lie.

And that's why it's so hard for me to play this game sometimes.

Manager asked if I was ready to come into Yet Another Fucking Meeting.
"Sure," I said. "Just let me grab a shot and a cigar."

Instead I went to the restroom and tried to pull my shit together.
Mostly there. I have this button that keeps coming unbuttoned on my shirt, and I figure if I'm going to try to be civil, it might also help to keep my tits contained.

Everything you do comes down to another person. Did you know that?
Everything you do... comes down to another person. Now, how much you care to give a shit about that is up to you. Personally? I've been fucked over enough to just roll my eyes and consider it another slice of Life ala Shit. It makes me look like an insensitive cunt most of the time, because if it's something I've already been through... well, I already have that callous. And like all callouses, it's covering a nice, raw, sensitive area that just really wants to burst open into pus and tears and agony. So I board that shit up.

Not everyone is on board with that philosophy. My coworker has no idea why I'm so jaded when I don't even know what's going on.

Everyone has a different life. It's hard to fathom, when everything you do and say and feel and think is so real to you.

Sometimes, when we start going over something for the ocho bajillionth time, and I don't think I can handle it any more, I look out the windows to the other windows. Behind other windows are other rooms, and ostensibly, in other rooms are other people. Other people doing other things.

I dream about what that room is like. I dream about what the people are doing. I try to smell their air. I try to give them life.

But everything I give them... is just a reflection of myself.

I'm just escaping further into me.

Everything is do is a reflection of me... and it comes down to another person.

Being independent in a codependent world is awfully frustrating, don't you think?

Yesterday I got all cranked up about something I can't remember, so I decided to join Lesismore at the bar for a couple.

And that was fine. Just a few drinks, still mostly sober, go home, etc.

Only Donna couldn't get warm, so I suggested she do a few shots.

So all of my plans of making Pad Thai until I felt less like cutting a bitch flew right out the window, and I ended up having stale breadsticks and I don't know what the hell for dinner.

But I still made Pad Thai. I made it this morning, when the gas meter reader woke me up (but didn't stick around long enough for me to open the door).

Of course, I'm really doing a disservice to all actual Pad Thai to call what I make "Pad Thai." That's really just what it's most like. It's whole wheat noodles, and veggies, and a whole loaf of tofu and some garlic and two teaspoons of peanut butter, and a little black bean paste, and some spicy sauce that doesn't have a single word in English on the label, tossed together with an egg cooked on top.

It's fantastic, and I've been gnawing on it all day.

Harvey sat on a little stool next to me while I made it, so he now knows two dishes- macaroni and cheese, and my approximation of Pad Thai.

I'm here until 8. Can you believe it?

I saw a robin this morning.

I mean, 'tis the season and all that, but robins were always significant to my father's side of the family.

The rule was that my grandfather would award a quarter to whomever saw a robin first.

So when I walked out the door this morning, and a robin hopped right across my path, my very first thought was "OOH! ROBIN! QUARTER!"

I called my father and told Carl C that I had seen a robin. "Quahtah!" I gleefully shouted into the phone, using every ounce of the New England "rah" that has been passed down from Carl C's side of the family.

"Well, I hate to tell you, but when I got the paper this morning, I heard a mess of tweeting." He paused to immitate a robin (or eight- it was kind of a mess of whistling coming through the phone).

"Does that mean you get the quarter?"

"'Fraid so. Gonna have to call my Dad and tell him the robins are here!"

Only... Grandpa hasn't been with us since 1998.

I haven't seen him in eleven years, but every time I see a damn robin, I sure think about him.

My ex from a few exes ago came over yesterday morning and this morning so we could watch Maury together.

No, really. Just Maury. We're trying to be friendly to each other.

It's really kind of anti-climatic to watch Maury by yourself. Harvey doesn't really care much when I tell him "that bitch needs to check herself and sit down, or Maury gonna take her out!" He just kind of looks at me with a "Wow. Aren't you cultured. Feed me" look.

And he's right. I should be awfully ashamed of watching Maury, but if people aren't ashamed of all the things that I think are dorky, then I'll continue not being ashamed of all the things that you think are dorky. Then we can all laugh about each other behind our own backs, and everything will be terrific.
***************
My Urologist's office called me this morning to tell me my ultra-sound was this Thursday. That was a surprise to me, because I didn't know it was May. Hottie Male Nurse has failed me. We talked about this, HMN and I, and still, it turns out that "May" is just another way to say "March." I haven't picked it up yet, but now I'm worried that my Lortab will turn out to be 'Shrooms.

At least the street value of my prescriptions will increase.
***************
Party last weekend was fantastic. At one point, we had a Hummer on the front lawn and the back lawn was on fire. I was in the Hummer, and I'm not sure about the fire. I tried to pretend it wasn't there.

Everyone got pissed at one point because I said we couldn't burn the mouldy drywall. Now, I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that inhaling burning mould spores isn't going to infuse your bloodstream with vitamins and minerals. That just seems like a bad idea to me, and while I did get Harvey's meds refilled last week... I still just don't think that's something one should do.

Instead, they took the Mexican ninja next door to the vacant house and... I don't know what they did, but they came back and built a fire. I had my doubts about the Mexican ninja, but since I had no idea what he was doing, I guess he really was a ninja. Then he got trashed, and we brushed the dirt off each other's shoulders for about an hour and a half.

Daddy Triangle and Daddy Hexagon decided they were sick of their life-sized Egyptian statue, so Swin now lives in my living room. He's not only a fantastic statue, but he's also a decent security system, because if you look in my window, you just see a muscle-bound black man standing around in my living room. That's my Swin!

Pictures forthcoming. I need one of those omfuckingcable things that connects the computer to the camera and makes the pictures go over to the computer.

Bushwood is terrible with the technology.
*****************
Guy who did my taxes was borderline retarded. I basically paid to teach myself how to do taxes. It took us several hours... the first 30 minutes consumed by waiting for the original specialist to help us, only to find out that she was in the hospital and hadn't been able to call in. I'm hoping we didn't fuck up.
******************

And all that shit.