lisi and the woods

For a rarity, I'm actually posting the day after I posted something else. It's not a trend, but a fluke. Seven pages of notes, remember?

The title is in congratulations to Katrina and Ken, whose daughter, Lisi, was born this month, just last week, isn't it? Five days behind the 21st is ... (hold on, advanced arithmetic...)... the 16th! Right? Right.

Happy ten-day birthday, Lisi!

***

I'm listening to Into The Woods, the Stephen Sondheim musical starring Bernadette Peters as The Witch. What a role. Don't mind me if I occasionally break into song; the lyrics are fabulous, even without the music, though that's not all that bad either.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. I called her at 11:30 pm to wish her a belatedly happy one, and excited her interest by proclaiming that she would love her present. "If she doesn't," Smurfette said when I bought it, "make sure to tell her that she should exchange it for a size ten and ship it back to me."

Now I'm all anxious to give it to her. I had qualms on the way back home from work, Monday; my sister was waiting for me at the apartment with a turkey pot pie. I showed her the skirt. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the wistful thought, (firmly smothered), that if my sister didn't like it, I could return it to the store and get a refund, which I could spend on a less expensive present.

"Oh my God," my sister said. "She's going to love that."

So I suppose good taste -- mine -- holds, and Mom's going to get a fabulous present.

And I don't regret it one bit.

***

Tara emailed last night to ask how I got the neat little pictures on my page. www.corbis.com, ladies and gents. A tremendous repository of pictures of all kinds. I used to work there, once upon a time; I did data entry for them, and recall that they finally put me in a separate office because there was always awed commentary in nearby cubicles, and heads poking over the edge of partitions to check my typing speed. I suppose I could have been the subject of water cooler conversation as well.

A la Malcolm in the Middle: "Mom? Is Malcolm a robot?"

What the hell is this thing I'm eating for lunch? They called it a vegi wrap. It tastes like green cardboard with mayonnaise. I suppose it's healthy for me, but I'm not really liking the way it's oozing pastel colors all over my fingers. Is that a tomato? That better be a tomato.

Yack. I think I just ate a fried lemon.

LITTLE RED RIDINGHOOD
Into the woods to bring some bread
To Granny who is sick in bed.
Never can tell what lies ahead,
For all that I know, she's already dead.
But into the woods, into the woods,
Into the woods to Grandmother's house,
and home before dark!

I'm not eating this. Yack. What a waste. Maybe there's a hungry termite somewhere I can hook up with....

***

The Guy Next Door, having changed cubicles, is now the College Boy, who started eager and nervous the first day and continues to be eager and nervous now, almost four weeks later.

At the second group meeting he attended, our Director-pro-tem-Manager told us that she wanted to have one-on-one meetings with us, "Just to see how things are going and to address any concerns you might have. Set it up on Schedule-plus, you should all have access."

College Boy trailed me back to my cubicle and hovered anxiously while I started sorting through notes.

"Do I have to do it too?" he asked, worried.

"Sure. Do you want help setting it up?"

His brow crinkled, and he sat down, looking even more anxious.

"But I didn't do anything."

Being fresh from college, I suppose his perspective is that any time one has to have a meeting with the principal, one is likely in a great deal of trouble. I can't blame him. That has to be one of the most gut-wrenching phrases in the English language. "Can I see you in my office?"

JACK (to his cow)
I guess this is goodbye, old pal, you've been a perfect friend.
I hate to see us part, old pal, someday I'll buy you back.
I'll see you soon again. I hope that when I do,
it won't be on a plate.

***

I'm sitting on a conference call with Australia, and the mute button is on, so I don't have to worry about the tippity-tappity of my typing interfering with business. I'm also not paying attention to the call anyway, because they're talking about stuff that I'm not concerned with. Oh, and I'm on my headset, so I'm not bothering anybody. I feel like Judy from Time Life Books, waiting now for your call.

Another childhood dream achieved. I'm feeling bitter. And I missed Buffy's premiere yesterday. I don't care because I don't watch Buffy -- gasp, I know, the horror, everybody watches Buffy, yes, yes -- but it all goes to show you, doesn't it?

Pause while I dash upstairs because I accidentally printed out this page on a printer somewhere on campus. Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrud.

My sister says I'm going on a blind date tonight. Just shoot me now.

professional

Poor Spid II. He's dying, and I don't know why. His bottom leaves look sad and yellow, and are drooping over the lip of his pot. I would think that it's some willful display of temper, if it weren't for the fact that he has absolutely nothing to complain about. He's been watered, he's been loved, he's been coddled, he's even had a little ribbon tied on his pot and removed again just in case he didn't like it. He even has toys.

Poor Spid II. it's probably my fault somehow. I shouldn't be allowed near plants. My Golden Pothos is doing just fine, though I haven't named it yet -- have I? I can't recall, suddenly -- and it's busily extending tendrils of leaves in a greedy attempt to eat one of my desk lamps. i don't think I've watered that particular plant since the day I got it. Could it possibly be a weed, fobbed off on me as an indoor vegetable? You can never put anything past those smarmy Home Depot people.

I note that I said something about losing my job in my previous entry, and though I know quite well that nobody has had time to panic on my behalf, (thank you, well-wishers, all), I should probably explain promptly as opposed to letting the thought linger in the aether, as it were. (Hm. Mark just walked by my cubicle looking haggard and carrying an armful of small potato chip bags. He's obviously having one of those days.) The short form of the story is that my job description is going to be changing to Operations Software Engineer, or maybe Release Engineer, and that the job duties that I've been performing are going to go to a newly yet-to-be-hired Project Coordinator. I should say that the job duties that I'm supposed to be performing, since I'm not, really. What I've been doing is not detailed in the job description, since it involves actual coding and the like.

"I'm looking for a Project Coordinator who actually wants to be a Project Coordinator," the Director said wistfully. Her first one is now a tech writer. Me, I'm going to be an Engineer. Which leaves the Director-lady trying to figure out what projects she's involved in, and why she's involved in them. In the meantime, well ... if anybody's wondering, this job change is a Good Thing.

***

The Norwegian is at home in bed, sick with the flu. Smurfette, when I just called, told me that she had a scratchy throat. "But I've had it since last night," she reassured me, as though I should find that a comfort wholly disassociate from the fact that the man is viral and quite possibly infectious.

Poor Norwegian. At least he has someone to coddle and mother him.

In the meantime, Smurfette and I went out shopping yesterday to find a birthday present for my mother. Because -- (because, because, because, because) -- I hadn't gotten her anything yet, and I needed to get her something, and now I'm second-guessing myself. The present is bought. It's beautiful. But was it really worth the amount of money that I spent? I don't even dare write it out here, ($173), because it's embarrassing just to think about it. It was a lot of money. ($173.) I've never bought an object of this type for quite so much money. ($173). It's beautiful, though, and that should count for something, right? Gorgeous. Just...you know. Pricey. I could probably have gotten it for cheaper, if I'd been willing to wait. But. But.

$173.

It was a wool skirt. Wrap-around. A beautiful, dark maroon plaid. By Ralph Lauren.

At that price, it should've been hemmed with diamonds.

But it's gorgeous, and I don't regret it, I don't, I don't, it's great, she deserves it, end of story.

($173.)

Besides, what's the point of money, if you can't spend it to get things for people you love?

Christ. I'm out of my nuts.

***

My sister wants me to meet some random other person she knows. It never ends; she'll continue throwing people at my head until I finally cave in and mate with one of them. Work colleagues are starting to do the same thing, though without the same grim obsessiveness of my sister. To them, it's more of a hobby. "That's what I'm saying, that you should really get together with so-and-so," one of them will pipe up at a completely irrelevent moment. "Because you used to do this thing, and his sister's best friend's fiance's cousin did the other thing."

I feel old and tired, and I'm starting to wonder if adolescence is really worth it that I should want to hit puberty so much.

My desk is a mess. I should be ashamed.

One of my coworkers just wandered by, and here it goes again, the mockery. On Friday, I got to the shuttle stop early, and since I was in front of Safeway and remembered that I was out of cereal, I wandered in to get a box for office use. "Maybe some Cracklin' Oat Bran," I remember thinking. I like that stuff, and it's easy as finger food. The people in my office are always willing to graze on the cereal that I bring in; the last time, (the first time), it was Corn Bran, which they all claimed they had never eaten before and instantly fell in love with.

(One of the Indian women told me sadly that she wasn't able to find it at Costco. Why, I want to know, would you buy cereal at Costco? Toilet paper I understand. Maybe even toothpicks. But cereal?)

This time, as I meandered through the cereal aisle, I noticed a '2 for the price of 1' sale happening on certain designated cereal boxes. "I'll save some money," I decided, "and get one box for me, and one box for the office."

I picked up a box of Life, and a box of generic Safeway 'Golden Corn Nuggets.' Safeway generic brand is always a hit or miss in terms of quality, but there isn't much you can do to screw up cereal, and it was free, anyway. Why not?

Until I got to checkout, I thought I was doing a smart thing. Checkout, however, thought differently. She charged me for both. "Why don't you get two more?" she suggested. I stared at her, blankly.

"I thought it was two for the price of one."

"Yeah, but these are two different brands," she pointed out.

"It didn't say anything about brand names on the sign," I argued, feeling much aggrieved.

"You might as well go back and get two more."

"I don't want four boxes of cereal. Maybe I'll just return this one and--"

The woman spoke louder and faster. (Do they work on commission?) "Or I can page someone and have them get some more boxes for you. That's no trouble." She started reaching for the phone.

"No, really. I don't need four box--"

"You might as well, since you paid for them. Here. I'll page Luke."

"I don't want---"

"(ffffffssssssst.) Luke? Luke? Customer service, please."

I was imagining myself wandering around the Excite@Home campus carrying four boxes of cereal. I was imagining the mockery I'd get from my colleagues. I glanced at the clock, realized just how late it was, and started imagining the shuttle pulling away without me.

I panicked.

"Fine!" I yelped, and grabbed the bag. "Never mind. Don't page. I'll go get two more boxes. No, no, by myself, thanks. I appreciate it. Just ... could you give me another bag?"

She hung up the phone and gave me three more bags. Just In Case. I fled.

Other people in the office have books on Perl on their bookshelves. They have boxes of software. They have manuals and RFCs and guides to LDAP and SNMP. Me, I have an O'Reilly, a plant, two boxes of Life cereal, Safeway Golden Corn Nuggets, and Cocoa Comets. How did I think I would ever grow up to be a professional?

coming up

...and I see by my last entry that I haven't been paying close enough attention to the passage of days. In short, the last time I wrote was last Friday; now, exactly seven days later, I have seven pages of notes to transcribe into journal entries in under an hour. Can she do it? Will she do it?

I'll drag it out during the course of the day and maybe transcribe what's left at some later date. "Quality," quoth she, "not quantity." Which takes me to the fact that if you type 'penis' in as an initial password for most systems, the system will respond with a variation on 'entry is too short.'

Launchcast -- darn you, Flamingo, for addicting me to this heinous thing -- is stuck again, but just a moment ago it was playing Tears for Fears: Everybody Wants To Rule The World. I have an irrational affection for that song, hooked inextricably in my mind with that movie "Real Genius". It's next on my list, and the hardest to find, for all that; either it's an obscure video, or it's out of print. I pad into video stores with high hopes, only to be turned away in disappointment by pimpled teenage clerks who look blank when I ask the question. I mention who's in the movie, and I see flickers of remote comprehension when I mention "Val Kilmer" and "Broods, from the Pretender." You realize that there is a class graduating from college now that wasn't born yet when Star Wars came out?

So. Catching up on notes....

***

Stomp was fantastic, incidentally. That's in my notes too, but only as a side note. It was a great show; I fell madly in love with the lead dancer, primarily because he was so dynamic and good at what he did. In college I used to do the same thing: I would go to a recital and be completely blown away by a fantastic performer, and even knowing that the person -- there's a specific one in mind at the moment -- was a jackass or reclusive or, well, gay, I would still be madly in love for about two or three hours. Or do I mean lust? It's hard to say. Talent has a tremendously stirring effect, I must admit.

Which reminds me that I talked to Tara late on the phone on Wednesday, and during the course of the conversation I mentioned that if she knew any single guys, she should set me up. "I should start dating soon, I suppose," I said.

There was a small silence on the phone.

"I wish you would warn me when you're about to say things like that so I can be sitting down," she said, plaintively.

My sister has been furiously pushing me to "meet" (in the romantic sense) some guy her boyfriend knows, who sounded cool -- sounds cool -- by her description of her interactions with him. Apparently one day they went to lunch together, just this guy and my sister, and while they were at the restaurant, the guy bought several random, completely unknown people lunch. Which I think is cool, because I've always wanted to do that, and just never had the money.

My sister had been pushing, I should say. The other day, she came to visit me and said, sheepishly, "I finally found out how old he is." All this time she's been vague about his age. "I don't know how old she is," she'd declare. She was evasive about his possible age range as well. "A little older, I guess...."

"So how old is he?" I asked, when she told me she'd learned his age.

"Um. Fifty-eight."

My father is fifty-eight. My father is dead.

"But he's really cool," she wailed, while I just looked at her. "He acts so much younger!"

"Your sister makes me laugh," Smurfette giggled, when I told her the story last night. "At that age, I suppose everybody looks older. You're older, he's older -- from her point of view, I suppose it makes perfect sense."

***

So, Smurfette is back in town; she came in yesterday afternoon. Today at two, the Norwegian touches down. I'm quite excited, actually, and I'm sure she is too. Last night we talked for several hours, something we haven't done in quite a while. A long absence does that, I suppose.

The outcome of that conversation was that we've both decided we do not want to be living in the tenement any longer, so we'll (hopefully) be moving soon. Where to? "Redwood City," we supposed. It seemed logical, though she hasn't yet found her next job.

"I want something that I'll enjoy," she explained. I can't blame her. She's had two cruddy jobs in a road, and at this point, she needs something fun. Something like my job.

Which, by the way, I'm losing.

That's another story altogether.

The Norwegian is going to be in town for two weeks. My sister is still in town as well, though she's staying at a friend's place this time. And my mother's birthday is coming up next week, early -- gods. What am I going to get her for her birthday?

It's time to go shopping again, (alas!), and spend some hard-earned money. But it's for my mother, which takes the pain out of that; I figure, I only have one, and she only has one birthday a year, so why shouldn't I indulge from time to time to punish her with joy?

My strange little mother. Everything has to be justified.

"...Because your grandmother is coming to visit," she told us when she had Japan TV installed, guiltily forcing herself to believe every word of it. "I'll be teaching and she won't have anything to do, so I'll install Japan TV and she can entertain herself watching television."

Or: "It's good for your health," after becoming addicted to broccoli and forcing us to eat it for six solid months straight. Or: "I need to watch the audience to study American humor, and see how it's different from Japanese humor," when she wanted to go to a showing of Shall We Dance and ended up laughing herself sick on the wages of it.

Now she's addicted to a Japanese soap opera, shown at 4:30 am on Japan TV. She wakes up for it daily, plasters herself to the television screen, then hoards up a backlog of storylines to inject into our unwilling veins when she gets us on the phone.

"It's fascinating," she tells us, brightly. "Japanese culture has changed so much since I lived there. I need to keep up-to-date so that I won't be conspicuous when I visit there."

conversation

The Flamingo's new page design looks good. (It looks familiar, too, ahem, though she's made Improvements. I could make Improvements. Thing is, I'm lazy. So I'm not going to.) Along the same lines, if not quite, I glanced over her journal yesterday and picked up the word "Launchcast." I should really check that out someday, I thought vaguely to myself, and puttered online to log on.

I have speakers on my laptop port. So there, basically, went the first hour of the day. I learned new things, though, in my latest dip into the modern world. One: I like Savage Garden. Two: I just don't get ABBA.

On the other hand, Loreena McKennitt is pretty cool. It surprises me how much I know about contemporary music, in the non-classical sense; I even experimented with a country western song, before loathing prompted me to erase that entire genre from any future relationship with my speakers.

***

I go to Stomp tomorrow with my Director and a group of people, which is great in a sense because it'll be a night out and I get paid on the same day, so I can actually enjoy myself without thinking about how much I'm spending. On the other hand, there's a definite disadvantage in the fact that I can't bring Quirk to work.

I meant to bring him today. People at work asked me to. "You have a hamster?" the vegetarians asked. "What is a hamster?"

They're from India. I mocked them for not knowing what a hamster is.

"They're rats," I told them, deadpan. "You put them in soup."

"With tails? You keep it as a pet?" one of them asked, looking worried. They're never quite sure to take me seriously or not; I keep warning them not to, but they persist, Just In Case. Every now and then I throw them by being serious, and acting like I'm not, which then confuses them further.

"No tails," one of the engineers said, wandering by. "They're small, about yea big, and they're fuzzy. Kind of cute. Cats like them."

"I'll bring him by and you can have him for lunch," I offered.

They left. I keep warning them about the Japanese sense of humor, too. Nobody ever listens to me.

***

September 15, 2000

I have to leave soon to go to Stomp. This will be, perforce, a short entry. Launch cast is tooting in my ear; I set Into The Woods at an insanely high rating, so of the last three songs, two have been from that album. I have to remember to water my plant before I go. I'm noticing that leaves are starting to fall off, which to me just suggests that it hasn't been getting enough water.

One of my group mates came by and stared at Spid II for a while. "It's dying," she accused me.

"It hasn't had enough water," I said, apologetically.

"No. It looks like you've given it too much water. See? It's not drying up. It's turning yellow---"

I set my jaw. "It's a tropical plant. It needs more water."

She shook her head sadly and wandered away, murmuring something inarticulate about hamsters and plants. I don't think she thinks I'm a good mommy. I have to go get another bottle of water. This one is empty....

....later

There are Things happening that I'm not allowed to talk about, darnit, because 1) they're not My Things, though I was directly involved in making them happen, and to talk about some of them would only prove embarrassing for the other people involved if things didn't work out according to plan, and 2) I signed some sort of confidentiality agreement that prohibits me from talking about the other things.

Crud. You'll deal with the disappointment, I know.

Darn it. I have to shut up and close down; it's 5:15, and my ride is supposed to be here any second to go to dinner and Stomp. My tummy hurts.

ants

The ants are back.

(Dammit.)

It's not my fault, though. After I cleared them away the first time, they boycotted my kitchen for the rest of the week. Then, last night, I came home to find that the building manager had come in to my apartment to "fix" my stuck window in the kitchen, and had left a thick coat of dust and paint chips all over the room.

The ants were exploring. New stuff. Redecorating. Sensation in Bugsville.

After four weeks, the kitchen sink is still leaking, sending a steady stream of water through the cabinet into the roasting pan that Smurfette plugged beneath, for water collection. The ants seem to find that fascinating, as well. Every time I go near one with a piece of paper -- maybe they have bad, hive memories about me and pieces of paper? -- it ducks behind the sink, ostensibly to investigate my plumbing problems.

I'd like to note that every time I see the manager, he insists he's going to fix my sink: "Tomow." I've been translating that as 'Tomorrow,' but maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe it's actually Tagalog for: "When you grow round, firm breasts like canteloupe and pink pigs do somersaults in the blue San Francisco sky."

I should buy a dictionary.

***

On Friday, I went in to work and was greeted by a sign in the glass door. "Electricity is not active in buildings 450, 440 .... Pacific Gas & Electric is aware of the problem, and working on a solution. Estimated time for resolution for Building 450 is 8 - 10 hours. Resolution for Building 440 is ...."

And so on.

My building, (which just figures), wasn't listed, and I came in to a near deserted floor. Which is the way that it should be, again; it's a relatively new building, the one that I'm in, and it's sparsely populated.

One of my coworkers met me at my cubicle entrance with big eyes. "Did you see that there is no power anywhere?" she asked.

"Yup. Good thing we have power, I suppose."

"They sent everybody home," she informed me, wistfully. "In the buildings where there is no power."

"Crap."

I keep meaning to go through and introduce my coworkers, giving them nicknames and the like. Somehow I never get around to it. Somehow, too, people keep leaving and coming and leaving. Our manager, just the other day. Now, the next one; one of my fellow workers was talking about moving to a different group. "Because there is no direction for us," she told me, when I protested, and added, sadly, "I like this one."

It's partly a morale issue. Speaking of---

--have to go to another meeting.

***

Phone call from my sister.

"I thought you were going to be home early last night," she said. "I was waiting outside for you and stuff."

(There was a message on my telephone machine from her. Time: 3:45 pm. As if.)

"I told you Monday was a bad day for me," I said, patiently. "Besides, I was home by 7:30. What do you want from me?"

"I wanted to take you out to dinner or do something."

"Why?"

"Yuhri! I wanted to bond!"

"That's not my problem," I said, feeling aggrieved. "I told you before, Monday and Tuesdays are bad."

"How about tonight? When are you coming home tonight?"

"MONDAY and TUESDAY are bad. Today is TUESDAY."

"It is? What time are you coming home?"

"I have class."

"What time are you coming home from class?"

"Uh. Ten o'clock."

"Ick."

"Can we just do this some other day? Maybe tomorrow? Can you do Wednesday?"

"No. Tonight."

"I'll be tired, though."

"Okay, so I'll buy you dinner, and...."

"At ten o'clock, you're going to buy me dinner?"

"I'll make you dinner, and you can sit around and watch tv and veg or something."

"Why are we doing this, again?"

"So we can bond. Oh, and I'll bring you some red wine for dinner."

"I don't drink red wine."

"So I'll bring you red wine for me. And dinner...."

***

Smurfette is coming back to town on the 21st. I should clean the apartment or something. Somehow, I just can't quite work up the energy to care.

As anybody who knows me well can attest, I have a notorious difficulty with the simple task of clinging to a single subject and following through from end to end in a conversation. Like Masako, much of my conversation tends to be spotted by diversions from the main track, by tangents, by forays into the unknown, and by complete hops off the road of purpose altogether. "--And I can't get it to work, so it's really frustrating. I suppose if I just remove the record deliminator, I could . . . hey, is this a rubiks cube? Does it work? Can I play with it?"

Those are my conversations, the ones that I produce. Everybody else in the office has rolled their eyes, looked resigned, and steered me gently back to the topic before I get too excited by bright colors and shiny objects and disappear altogether.

Until now, that is.

On Friday, I was patiently explaining to my coworker that the reason I was having trouble with a Perl script I was writing was that it was doing this and this and the other thing, when in fact I wanted it to do that and the other and this new thing, and could she help me?

I fell silent, looked at her expectantly, and she stared back, blank.

"What day is it?" she demanded, abruptly.

Normally, please understand, she's a one-track mind. Tenacious. She forges her way through the twists and turns of my normal conversational patterns and emerges, unscathed and triumphant on the other side, information in hand. If Ruth had had her determination when she was gleaning that floor, she'd have emerged with an entire silo of wheat.

"Uh. Thursday."

"What's the date? Is it the 9th?"

She turned away to check on her computer, and I peered over her computer, hopeful. Who knew, maybe she was following some solution for me that I couldn't quite see yet.

"It's the 8th," she decided, and refocused on me, blinking. "The woman on the train punched my ticket for the 9th. Does that mean my ticket is good for tomorrow, too? Probably not."

Another small silence fell, while we stared at each other. Disappointment was starting to gather on my face: it wasn't a miraculous solution she was offering me, after all.

She blinked. "What just happened?"

"I think you had a Yuhri moment."

"How strange. I've never--- what were we talking about?"

I started to laugh. "Have you ever done that before?"

"Never," she swore, and started rubbing at her forehead.

"I'm contagious."

***

I bought a copy of the Dark Crystal last Sunday on my way home. It was a good day; I spent the first half of it at the Dojo, then went to Golden Gate Park, where I and 30,000 others sat in a sunny meadow and watched the San Francisco Opera and Orchestra perform selections. I got sunburnt. It was thoroughly satisfying; they did my all-time favorite trio, the final one from Rosenkavalier. If you've never heard it, I highly recommend it. The other favorite ensemble of mine is the quartet from the Marriage of Figaro, but they didn't perform that one.

One of these days I'll start telling opera stories in my journal. That's for another day.

As I said, I got a copy of the Dark Crystal on my way back home, something I've been planning to do since I picked up Labyrinth at Target a few weeks back. The two of them make a new, happy duo on top of my television; I have to confess to a feeling of some disappointment when I watched the movies again, though. When I first saw them, I was young and easily impressed. When I saw them again the other night, a little niggling voice kept harping on discrepencies and flaws in the filming.

Look at those beetle things, it complained, bitterly. You can see the puppeteers' legs.

Or: That's not a him. That's a person, dressed up like him so they can film it running.

Or, worst of all: That's a puppet.

Suspension of belief. I used to have it, somewhere. If anyone's seen it roaming around, please send it back to me?

two by two, hurrah!

There was a small package sitting on my chair when I got back from lunch today. It was a package from my friend out in -- bother. Where is it? I'll have to lean over now and fish the envelope out of the recycling bin -- Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. How odd. I know someone in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Oh no, wait. Ardmore, Pennsylvania, which isn't much better.

(Bryn Mawr?)

Birthday present.

Thanks, Alex.

***

I came home on Tuesday thinking vague thoughts about cleaning up the apartment. I'm always thinking vague thoughts about cleaning up the apartment; I have difficulty actually following through with those plans, excepting those occasional spasms of energy when I rip through the place, scrubbing things down with a ferocious, fanatical hatred of disorder that fails to sustain me through the course of the week. The dishes had been piling up in the sink for a while, though, and the kitchen needed work. As I say, I was thinking about doing some housework.

So I walked in the door, put down my stuff, looked longingly at my bed, then hauled myself out to the kitchen to inspect the pile in the sink. "If it isn't too bad," I told myself, "I'll just let it go for another day or two."

The pile wasn't bad. In fact, as far as piles go, it was a rather unspectacular one: a midget of its kind.

What was bad was the train of tiny ants marching solemnly down the wall and across the kitchen counter.

Ants are all well and good -- I have my own affection for the insect world, and ants are high on my list of Good Bugs -- but there are times and there are places when ants should make their appearance, and in my kitchen after a long day of work is not an appropriate time or place. Investigation revealed a parcel of crumbs stationed on the kitchen table, beneath a little basket. Behind the basket was a piece of chocolate that some idiot had left behind, partly open. Cursing sourly to myself, I scooped the ants up, one by one, and flicked them out the window. It took me ten, fifteen minutes to clear up the caravan enough that I could do my dishes without hurting any of them. It took me a total of ten minutes to finish washing the dishes and wiping down the counter, and another ten minutes after that to herd the next company of ants out the window to join their buddies.

Remembering 'A Bug's Life,' (I really need to watch the Discovery Channel more), I attempted to confuse the ant train by placing bottle caps and toothpicks in their path. The ants were unimpressed. Apparently, Disney is not a big franchise in the insect kingdom. Soapy water did the trick; I built little toll bridges across their accustomed path, and that did the trick. Baffled bugs paused at the walls of foam, dithered uncertainly for a moment, then turned around to hike the long road back home. "This isn't on the map," they told each other, irritated. "The occasional spoon or fork is one thing. When the creature from the Palmolive Lagoon comes out to block the path, that's something else altogether. We're Union. We don't need to put up with this. We need to go talk to Management."

Armed with a soapy sponge, I built my walls progressively higher up the wall until eventually, I'd blocked off even the pinprick hole they were using as their entrance. I was triumphant. I went to watch TV.

When I came out half an hour later to get a drink of water, I found the same trail of gravely marching ants trickling down my wall again, headed for their old sources of manna. Management had sent out another group of ants to verify earlier reports of foam dikes and sponges. "That's what comes of sending drones out, unsupervised," they told each other, wisely. "They cut loose and start smoking things."

I was irritated by this point. When did a cup of water turn into a production? Somewhere in the middle of scooping this next wave of ants out the window, I went a little mad and started squashing. Squish. Squash. "Take that." Squish. Tiny ant bodies crumpled under my paper towels. Squash.

All in all, I slaughtered twenty or thirty of them before my conscience struck, and I started scooping them out the window again. One of them bit me. Poor thing. I squished him, too.

That night, by way of karmic redress, I suffered terrible nightmares and woke up sweating and upset.

I blew up a building full of people I didn't like. Boom. They were gone. Okay, so maybe I was tricked into it, but somehow I knew exactly what I was doing when I pushed the button. All dead. Pieces of building flying everywhere, police, ambulances, medics--

--and after the explosion and the massacre, I was promptly remorseful. I tried to turn myself in, but people kept interrupting and pulling me away. Well-meaning people. "Are you crazy? You want to turn yourself in? Shut up. Shut up!" The police wouldn't listen to me.

"It's a terrible thing," they said, wagging their heads sorrowfully. "Terrible. Terrible."

Five minutes after I woke up, I brushed my teeth. I forgot all about the dream until I spied an ant on the shuttle bus.

"At least I was willing to take responsibility," I told it, sternly. I let it crawl across my hand, since it seemed determined to do so.

It bit me. So much for remorse.

***

I've been saying for a while that I wanted to buy more plants, so on Friday, the Guy Next Door (next cubicle, really, though he's changed cubicles since then), drove the New Guy and I to Home Depot.

"Are you going to take back Spud?" he asked me, hovering over a Spid-sibling in the nursery. "Because I've kind of grown attached to him. If you're going to take him back, I'm going to buy a new Spock."

"SPID," I snapped.

I let him keep it. "I'll buy you a new Sput," he promised me, and paid for one of my plants, a bigger, more robust version of the original. I've named him Spid 2.

The other plant is now housed in a massive clay pot on top of my cubicle ledge, a hanging Golden Pothos on steroids. I've yet to name him. The others in my group, who remember when I went shopping for two helium balloons and a card and ended up coming home with forty dollars worth of plants for people, regarded my new acquisitions with bemused amusement.

"How many plants is going to be enough plants?" they asked me.

I told them that any plant I keep is doomed to die eventually. They nodded, unsatisfied, and have taken to hovering protectively nearby whenever I approach either of my new plants with a water bottle.

***

Incidentally: my manager -- my old manager -- has his last day here tomorrow, and so we went out to lunch today with our entire group. "Buy him a present," our new technical team leader suggested, and all eyes turned to me. I've somehow become the official Present Person for the group.

"I'm going to buy him a kite," I told them.

"Haha," they laughed. "Yuhri, you're so funny. No, seriously. Go get him a present."

"I like kites," I insisted, and became quite obstinate on the subject. "They're neat. They're fun. They're colorful. They fly. I'm going to get him a kite."

"What will he do with a kite?"

Duh. "Fly it."

"You're very strange. But really. Go get him a nice present. You're good at picking out presents."

"I'm going to get him a kite."

"Whatever."

They didn't think I was serious. I was serious. I bought him a kite. I showed them when we came in to work this morning; they regarded it with some astonishment, laughed helplessly, then meekly paid up. It wasn't cheap, this kite. I ogled it in the kite store with lust in my heart, and dammit, he'll enjoy it. He will. It's a stunt kite, a two-handed deal with the capacity to swerve, dip, even go backwards if you want it to. I got him an instructional video, too.

"I told you so."

"We didn't think you were serious."

That should teach them.

"I only lie sometimes," I explained to them, kindly. Early on in my career here, I told them that I'm a liar. I bend the truth with an arbitrary, if democratic, unconcern for the state of my immortal soul. I lie for stupid things. To wit:

"Hey, you seen that movie, you know, the one with Brad Pitt?"

"Yup."

And what the hell's that all about?

I'm tired of writing.

(On my file cabinet is a new bumper sticker, purchased at Seattle's Bumbershoot. "Earth is full. Go home.")