my ass broke off.

I'm going to descend into blogdoom for the rest of my trip here, folks. I apologize in advance. (Blogdoom? Did I mean that? I think I might have.)

New Jersey.

Hell has frozen over, my friends. At least I now understand why I'm getting married.

The trip was remarkably without incident, though there was an alarming moment in the San Francisco security line when they wanted to swab my laptop down. They do this periodically when I'm passing through; it's like a courtesy nod to drug dealers. See? We're not profiling drug dealers. We're testing this token, harmless, fat little Asian chick too. Except the fat Asian chick remembered that we'd made mochi a couple of weeks ago, and that there was rice flour everywhere and does rice flour show up as a toxic substance on a cursory scan? After all, “risin” sounds an awful lot like “rice.”

You might be surprised to hear that I actually did quite well in high school chemistry. This homonym-based toxin classification system is something that I developed in my mostly sciences-free college years. Music school, you know. The most toxic stuff we did was ground up plastic piano keys.

Anyway, I made up my mind to ask the security agent if risin would show up on the little swab she was doing, but by the time I had the question all organized in my brain so I wouldn't sound like a complete jackass, she'd already finished and was waving me through. In retrospect, it probably wouldn't have been a good idea. I mean, you could be the most unsuspicious security guard in the world and still be a little perturbed if someone asked you about your detection ability for a specific toxic substance.

(Added at 10:54 pm, January 13, 2004 -- Except it turns out I meant "sarin," not "risin," which doesn't even exist. So all that would've happened is I would've looked like more of an idiot than I would've been even asking to begin with. Kind of glad I kept my mouth shut. For once.)

The night before...

Me: “Will you miss me?”

The Guy: “I won't be missing the abuse I get while you're here.”

Silence.

Me: “What?”

TG: “Nothing.”

Me: “See, you say these things and then they're out there, and there's no putting them back.”

TG: “Like testicles. They're just hanging out there, but nobody ever wants to talk about them.”

Which you have to admit, as a diversionary tactic, wasn't that bad.

It's possible I wasn't reading between the lines when the New Yorkers advised me to bring a sweater. “It's a little cold,” they said. Bastards. Every other time of they year they can tell me exactly what they think. “Your software sucks.” “You suck.” “This entire situation sucks.” But for my trip to New Jersey, it was, “You'll want to bring a sweater. It's a little cold.”

It's not a little cold. It's a lot cold. It's colder than the IRS on tax day. It's colder than Ann Coulter at a welfare mothers' rally. It's colder than the Bush Administration towards civil rights. I scratched my ass on the way to the car yesterday morning, and -- I kid you not -- it broke off. Clattered right to the cold, icy ground, where it shattered into a million tiny pieces of frozen ass. Bits of my rear end now seed New Jersey turf.

Fortunately, the destruction of half my ass still leaves me with a full-grown shut-in's allotment of cheek meat, so I'm still sexy. However, it's New Jersey sexy, so all I'm currently attracting is a few garbage disposal trucks and a truculent carjacker.

Damn. I just took off my jacket and I think my left nipple snapped off.