a little competition

I told the people at work that I wanted to exercise.

"Why don't you, then?" they asked.

They don't understand the obstacles that rise in the face of all good intentions -- especially mine -- when the intention doesn't necessarily mesh with preference. My preference is to never move, to live as a small slug in the bottom of a couch, a terminal and internet connection on one arm, and a remote control in the other. What the remote control would hook up to, (VCR, DVD player, TV, radio, CD changer) is anybody's guess. The point would be that there would be very little movement involved. At periodic intervals, the Library of Congress would send me some new trifle for my amusement, and I would take some time off of my sedentary pleasures to actively engage my mind in some piece of literary trash. Then I would get back to the humdrum of screen-staring and brain-melting.

As I say, my character is not inclined towards exercise.

"I hate to jog," I told them, "and I don't like to walk unless I'm going somewhere. I don't like bicycles unless I've got somewhere to go, and I don't own one anyway. I'd rollerblade, but I keep falling down." -- that's another story, remind me to get into it later -- "I don't like aerobics, and I don't like classes in the gym."

"Do sports, then," they advised. "Do you like sports?"

I gave it some thought.

"I like tennis. I used to be," I lied through my teeth, "pretty good at tennis, once upon a time."

And so today, College Kid brought in three tennis rackets, we picked up my fourth, and we trotted over to the tennis courts behind the Fire Department to try our hand at tennis.

I suck.

I suck bad.

"I can't understand it," I whined, (thunk), and smacked a fuzzy yellow ball across the net again to bounce off of the gate. "I used to be good."

With the exception of College Kid, all the others were suffering as well. They weren't very good; one had never picked up a racket, and the other hadn't played in years. College Kid stood at one corner of the court, a hand in his pocket, the racket dangling from the other, and every so often stretched an arm with minimal effort to SMACK! send another drive hurtling across the net at somebody's head.

"We can split up," I decided after a few more rounds, during which I began to develop a positive antipathy for fuzzy yellow things everywhere. (Chickens. I kept thinking about chickens. Legless, headless chickens. Bouncing. Everywhere. Bounce bounce cheep.) "I'll coach Indian Woman, and you two can just play--"

The inappropriateness of me coaching anybody in the art of tennis is absolutely indescribeable.

College Kid shrugged and wandered over to the other court where, despite having the sun blazing in his eyes, he managed to drive Senior Tech Dude into the dirt. Me, I attempted to teach Indian Woman how to hit the fuzzy yellow ball over the net at all.

"You need to tilt your racquet like--"

"You're hitting too gently. If you swing--"

"Wait until it's coming down, then hit it. And if you--"

"You're getting better. Good! Good!"

"No," she said, sternly, "I'm not." Thump.

As it happened, I was on ICQ, (I use it for work only, actually, so don't ask), talking to our Australian partners earlier in the day. College Kid came around the corner and asked me if I wanted to play tennis; I jumped at the chance, and cheerfully told the Australians that I was going to go.

"I'll ping you guys again when I get back," I told them.

An hour passed on the courts before I got back.

"Sorry," I said, when they teased me. "I had to get exercise, you know?"

A half-hour later, College Kid came around the corner again.

"Come on," he said. "We're going to go play ping-pong. Do you want to come?"

"I've got to go," I told the Australians. "I'm goin to go play ping-pong."

The Australians were momentarily silent.

Then:

"Where the fark do you work?"

"In fact, when the fark do you work?"

I was gone for another hour and a half. When I came back, the Australians were eating quiche.

My sister will be so proud; I got at least two and a half hours of exercise today. I've discovered that I'm competitive. I knew that. But I'm competitive at sports, even. I'm anticipating the day when I'll be good enough to roller-blade that I'll be able to play street hockey. Yay!

Go ahead. Tell me I'm nuts.

In other news, thanks, Ourrie. I got the present you sent me at work. Gorgeous card. I put it up on my shelf next to my picture of my mother.

Some guys came by earlier in the year and wanted to take her picture away with her. "Damn, she's a babe," they hooted. "Is she available? Who is she? I'd date her."

...which was just disturbing.

little blurp

Blurp (noun) - A short, unconnected thought or story, taken from the juxtaposition of the words "burp" (as in "mental burp"), and "blurb" (taken in the journalistic sense of copy.) Origins: Yuhri's sad little brain.

Once upon a time there was a young woman who had a tendency to drop in and out of life, sort of the way fairy godmothers make occasional, cameo appearances in overly-blessed young ladies' lives to make a big cockup out of karmic justice. This young woman happened to have email and work in a very big, very important computer company that had really perverse stock.

One day, this young woman opened her email, courtesy of a mediocre ISP located somewhere in Phoenix, AZ, and discovered within an email from a web ring mistress.

"How odd," our heroine thought. "I don't remember---"

The email announced to our heroine that she hadn't updated her journal in over a month, and if she meant to continue being on the web ring, she'd better get her ass in gear.

To which our heroine said, "What web ring?" And, "Over a month?" And then, finally, "Shi---"

...and so here we are.

The Chicken Family is no more. We'll miss them, I know. They were the light of our lives, and the entertainment in our Corn Flakes. However, to every sitcom an end must come, and while they might some day be syndicated in another form or on another station, for the time being they are gone into the misty distance. They will not be bothering me any more.

On December 1, more or less, I moved into a new apartment. I have a really spiffy new roommate, one that I'll come up with a nickname for, eventually. It's a nice apartment. It's got a good carpet, it's got blinds, a living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a tiny little kitchen, and a doorbell. It even has heat. Of the amenities, it was the heat and the doorbell that impressed me the most; the things that one takes for granted during the normal course of life tend to become objects of desire when one moves into a tenement.

Chief among the amenities is the fact that the Chicken Family is not there. It was a sad leavetaking, though. I could tell that they were upset at the thought of losing me. They demonstrated this by not slaughtering any chickens for at least a week.

Shortly before my last day in the old apartment, I went to fulfill a long-standing dream of mine. I bought Chicken Run on VHS and gave it to the Chicken Family. It was sort of awkward, because I wasn't really sure where in the neighboring apartment building they lived, much less how to get into the building itself. I determined that the best way to give them the tape was to hurl it across the alleyway from my kitchen window into theirs. Naturally, it would be an expensive error if I missed their window and the tape ended up plummeting down two stories to smash on the concrete below. As preparation, I spend several minutes balling up pieces of paper and lobbing them at the Chicken Family window. (They weren't home.) The majority of them missed; a few sailed through with inches to spare, and disappeared on what I presume was their kitchen floor. At some point I determined that this was a pointless exercise, and threw caution to the winds. Practice wasn't making any perfection, and the tossing of napkins was hardly comparable to tossing a video. I took a breath, aimed for the glass, and let loose.

It was a good throw. The tape got stuck in the grating. I imagined the Chicken Family coming home and discovering this bizarre change in their home. "Look," I thought Mama Chicken would say to Papa Chicken, finding little bits of paper balled up on their kitchen floor. "The ceiling has been crapping on the floor again."

"There's a thing in the window," one of the Baby Chickens would say. They would all trot over to investigate.

"How very strange." The Parent Chickens would wag their heads over the mysterious package, and pry it out of the window grating.

"Go into your rooms, children," Mama Chicken would say to the Baby Chickens. "It could be a bomb."

"Awwwwww....."

They probably think their mad Chinese household gods spent the morning hurling video tapes at them. They wouldn't be too far wrong.

I drove up to Seattle for Christmas with my sister.

On the way, we passed through a town called "Weed", in Oregon.

The picture comes from that. Australians sent it to me. They think it's funny. Well. Let's be honest. I think it's funny too.

At some point, I'm going to be changing my email account from the one on primenet to the one at home, which is literally, @home. I haven't come up with a thingy yet -- what's the word? Login. -- but once I do and get my webspace set up there, I'll probably be transferring everything over. Just so you all know.

Turtles. I really like turtles. I ate a salad for lunch and now I'm hungry again. This isn't a good sign. I'm determined to lose weight before Tara's wedding, but dammit, how'm I supposed to do that if I'm always hungry? Sucks. West Wing is on tonight, though.

...rerun.

I've solved my rubicks cube. Damn, I'm smart. One of these days I'll manage to solve the one that Flamingo gave me, too.