non sequitors

So Flamingo set off for Sweden on last Thursday, leaving us behind to wait for the occasional Internet Cafe update on her journal. Meanwhile, my sister called me from her work, asking if I wanted to go bungie jumping for my birthday.

"What?"

"I'm going anyway," she said frankly. "I just wanted to know if you wanted to come along."

"...Oh," she added after a small silence. "It's illegal."

I've never publically acknowledged it, but there's about $1000 sitting in my savings account, earmarked for my sister's bail should the need for it ever arise. Since this is all the money that currently resides in my savings account, I'm starting to think that maybe I should bulk it out a little for my own benefit.

For that matter, I should increase the allowance I've made for Sako's bail. Considering her penchant for travelling out-of-country, I should add at least another $1000 or so for bribes.

***

On that same Thursday, as sort of a culminative "Hah!" in the face of repeated offenses with the Pill, my period settled down and attempted to kill me.

First it was the iron claw grubbing around in the soft parts of my pelvis. Then it was the killer headache. Then it was the puking. And the nausea. And the cramps -- oy, the cramps! -- but worst of all, the gushing, the spurting, the spouting of blood that rapidly turned my fingernails white.

I stayed home from work and didn't write a journal entry. Aren't you glad?

***

This month, as I've probably mentioned before, marks my birthday. My 29th birthday, to be exact, or so my new driver's license from the State of California informs me. I check my driver's license on a fairly regular basis now, under the assumption that at some point not so far away, someone will ask me: 1) my age; 2) my birthday; or 3) my name.

None of these three are things that have found a comfortable home in the recesses of my memory. I use the last item on a fairly regular basis, or at least often enough that I no longer have to pause and consider when signing checks for peculiarly overinflated bills. The Guy, who has yet to descend to the indignity of calling me with endearments -- "sweetie" for example, or "honeybunch" -- serves to impress me with the importance of my first name. "Yuhri? Do we have milk?" "Yuhri? Do we have any juice?" "Yuhri? Are you ever going to eat this fruit?" Once my first name is recalled, the middle and last names cannot be far behind. As far as memory loss goes, number 3 is the one I least worry about.

Number 1 doesn't worry me too much either, mostly because there're just too many excuses for having forgotten it. Being female, I can turn the tables by reminding importunate questioners that asking a woman her age is simply not done.

Unfortunately, Number 1 leads to Number 2, and then we end up in Argument Land, an ugly place where I'm armed with a rigatoni noodle in unfair combat with a hungry hyena pack.

As a result, several months ago I instituted a new policy. It's sheer brilliance. To wit:

All holidays are on the 25th.

Halloween - October 25th.

Thanksgiving - November 25th.

Christmas - December 25th.

Valentine's Day - February 25th.

Easter - April 25th.

So on, so forth. Go ahead and repeat it with me. "It's on the 25th. It's on the 25th." When's President's Day? "It's on the 25th." When's Mother's Day? "It's on the 25th." Once you've mastered this response, the rest of your life magically falls into place.

For instance. My birthday is the day before whatever holiday is in August -- and don't lie to me, I know there's a holiday in August, because all the other months have holidays and I refuse to have been born in a month that wasn't worth celebrating, damn you. The Guy's birthday is two days before Halloween. Using this genius method of calculation, I can now say with absolute certainty that my birthday is on the 24th of August, and the Guy's birthday is on the 23rd of October.

Genius. Pure genius. Why I didn't think of this ten years ago, I cannot think.

***

I came home one day last week and found my stuffed animals humping.

On my bookshelf, Fred was balanced on top of my Year of the Ox beanie baby. On the CD stand, two members of my new flock were straddled on top of each other, with a hedgehog precariously balanced on top. The only one untouched was the teddy bear my father gave me for my 16th birthday, whose glassy stare tended to freak out the Guy. "When he looks at me, I feel like my dad is watching me," I told him.

"Get it away from me," he said.

So then. I eyed the stuffed animals, made no comment, and went about my business.

A few days later, smugly incapable of not bringing my attention to his rearrangement of my room, the Guy pointed out the redecorating that he had done.

"Did you see what I did to the animals?" he demanded.

"Yes," I said.

He attempted to look evil. "They're humping."

Thus, the masculine mind. And people say that wit is dead.

hearth & home

My body is all pissy again, which is why I'm sitting at work hunched over my desk. The hunching makes me look serious and hard-working, which is good advertisement should my new boss come wandering over. The reality is that I can't actually straighten up, due to the cramps that are rapidly taking over my entire lower body. I'll have to road race home, hunkered down over my steering wheel like a short-sighted tricyclist.

See, I started on the Pill two months ago, my final attempt to get my female metabolism under control. "The reason you're irregular," said my brisk, Kaiser-assigned gynecologist, a bright young man about five years my junior, "is that you have cysts. Two centimeter cysts are perfectly normal, and not really anything to be worried about."

"SIX MONTHS!" I yelled at him, because he was the kind of young man that one can yell things at. "I DIDN'T HAVE MY PERIOD FOR SIX MONTHS!"

"If you want to be more regular, we could put you on the Pill," he suggested, heading for the door. I suspect that Kaiser has personnel standing outside the exam rooms, actually clocking how long the doctor stays with the patient.

So here I am, on the Pill.

The thing about medication, see, is that I'm not very good at it. I've never been good at it, in part due to the fact that I didn't have medical insurance for most of my natural life and therefore had no reason to take medication. For that matter, in the main, my religion frowns down on needless medicating; none of the "I'd rather die than undergo medical treatment" stuff, mind. It just . . . didn't find it appropriate for a lot of situations.

Anyway, lack of practice means that I'm fairly inconsistent about taking the Pill which, as any woman knows, has to be taken every day at around the same time.

"What happens if I forget?" I asked the pharmacist when they gave me my obligatory Medication Counselling.

"Then you take two the next day," the pharmacist said patiently.

"What if I forget the second day, too?" I asked with interest.

"You don't do anything," the pharmacist informed me, "because you won't forget the second day." She glared at me over the rim of her glasses, and I found myself meekly agreeing that no, I wouldn't forget the second day.

And, to date, I haven't. The first month I did fairly well, popping my little Pill at around the same time every day. More or less. Well, you know. Sometimes you forget and you glance at the clock and oh-my-gosh-it's-late, and you dash into the bedroom and start looking for the little foil package of pills. In the main, though, I was pretty good about it. This was only to be expected. It was a novelty.

The second month, I got bored with the whole pill taking thing. The first week, I forgot twice. My period started the first time I forgot; the next day, I woke up early and popped two pills. My period stopped. The same thing happened two days later, when I forgot again.

The following week, I forgot once. My period started. I popped two pills the next day. My period stopped.

The third week, I forgot three times. My period started. I popped two pills. My period stopped. And again. And again.

By the last incident of the third week, my period was no longer starting whenever I forgot the pill. It had, I think, started to get discouraged. "Why bother?" it was thinking sullenly to itself. "She'll just Pill us again."

So this week, when the yellow pills I normally take became the white placebo pills, absolutely nothing happened.

Sunday. No period.

Monday. No period.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded the mirror. "It's your time, dammit! It's your hour! Step up and conquer!"

My femininity remained, sulking, in the ol' uterus. "This is some sort of trick, we'll show up and then, bang, chemical burn all over again."

Tuesday. No period.

On the other hand, plenty of cramps. And a headache. Suspecting their moment had at last arrived, my period made its stealthy foray into the outside world, debuting at a rave held behind my eyes, then sending Spike and the guys down to my pelvis for some Irish clog dancing.

Tuesday night.

Period.

"It's about f***ing time," I told the mirror.

The Guy sighed at me over the phone. "It must be complicated being a woman."

***

I promised a while ago that I would share some pictures from home with you, and so here they are; none of people yet, because much as I appreciate the emailed support I get from my few (and odd) fans, pictures of people aren't a thing that I do all that often. Being fatally unphotogenic myself, I offer other people the courtesy of assuming they'll look just as Beast from the Black Lagoon-ish.

This is the house I grew up in, a two-story house in a quiet little suburb called Mockingbird Hill. The property values aren't as high as they are elsewhere, since the neighborhood is a little too close to the freeway and a little too far from downtown. However, there's a high school just down the street, pink flamingos in a yard not too far away, and occasionally the neighbors drop by to sneak surplus garden-grown, organic zucchinis on the doormat while you're away.

This particular picture is far too large to be dumped on the laps of people without broadband connection, so I thumbnailed it for those that don't have the space. If you want to see a larger version, well, I've linked it to the picture. I should warn you that it's a little large at about 7 MB, but it's a beautiful picture of the path to my house. I've mentioned before that my mother is an avid gardener, haven't I?

I bet you'd never guess Japanese people live here.

This is my Dad. That is, this is my Dad's ancestor tablet. It's a long story about ancestor tablets and family and deceased members of family. Hell, if you really want the whole explanation, just email me and I'll tell you. It's kind of an interesting worldview, having your dead always with you, so to speak.

Say hi, Dad!

This is the rest of my family. The dead ones, that is, on the paternal side. From left to right, the tablets are for my father, the Hirata household spirits, my grandmother, and my younger sister.

...and here is my backyard, in all its greeny splendour. Depressing, isn't it? Just look at all that lawn mowing that has to be done. Is it any wonder that my sister and I both have debilitating hay fever? Remind me sometime about my mom's issues with mowing the lawn.

The thing with pictures, see: they take up space. And bandwidth. But they're good to have, just in case, you know?

Welcome to my home.

Posted by yhirata at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

about marriage

Last night my roommate came home from Los Angeles to find the Guy and I sprawled out on the living room couches, playing a video game. To be accurate, the Guy was actually playing the video game; I was playing more of a spectator role, which is rather like admitting that one habitually watches curling tournaments on television, possibly one of the most useless wastes of time there is, right behind writing online journals and voting.

At any rate, the roommate came home, lugging her luggage behind her, and halfway through a conversation about how clean the apartment was, she suddenly lifted her hand, showed me its back, and wiggled the fingers at me. The age-old female sign for:  ring.

"Hey, Yuhri," she said, and grinned ear to ear.

I blush when I consider what I did next. I think there must be some kind of deeply conditioned Pavlovian Hound instinct deep inside female minds that links the optical trigger of a diamond ring on a certain finger on a certain hand to high-pitched shrieking and the agitated hopping of diarrhetic parakeets. After all the uncontrollable squeaking and jumping about and hugging had ended, I'd like to say that I very gravely extended my hand.

"Congratulations," I said.

I'd like to say I did that. Unfortunately, I can't. I did nothing of the sort. I hugged her madly, squealed, and then sprained her finger by peering at the ring. For the sake of posterity however, I'll steadfastly deny that I'm really capable of acting like a pre-teen at a Britney Spears concert.

Later that night, I discovered the Guy staring morosely up at the ceiling. I poked him; in our vocabulary, this is a shortcut for, "What're you thinking?"

"Everybody's getting married," he said gloomily. "That ring must've cost him a fortune."

I yawned. "Not that much."

"It had to be at least a carat," he insisted.

There was a note of alarm in his voice. I couldn't tell if it was over the thought of my roommate getting married, or because marriage appeared to be stalking him, one foot at a time.

"That ring must've cost, what. Ten, fifteen thousand dollars?"

I yawned again. "Unh."

***

Oh, yeah. If you're in my book club or you know my roommate, not a WORD, you hear? No emails, no broadcasts, nothing. Shh. It's a secret until she tells it, or I'll get hurt.

***

A couple of weekends ago, some of the Guy's relatives came into town from England: his aunt, his uncle, his cousin. They met up with the son of their nucleus, currently working as an unpaid intern in San Francisco, and with his wife joined us for dinner at Ebisu, a popular sushi restaurant in the Sunset district.

Of course we went on a weekend. Of course the restaurant didn't take reservations. However, they did have a waiting list, and we called ahead at 5:30 to seat seven people at 7:00 pm. This was why we spent 7:00 to 7:15 standing outside the restaurant, jiggling up and down while waiting for his relatives. "Do they know where it is?" I demanded. "Do they know what time they're supposed to be here? Do they know--?"

I hate it when I'm late. I hate it when other people are late.

Wait. Stop. Correct that. I hate it when I'm late to things I care about.

Like food.

"They'll probably get here in their own sweet time," the Guy said irritably. "Late. British people are always late. I hate the British." I've come to the conclusion that the only people that the British hate more than the French are the British. The Guy is no exception.

As it happened, his family was just in time; the tables that were designated for us didn't open until about 7:20 anyway, and by the time they'd warmed up enough to care, the dawdling group hogging all that space was just about ready to leave. It had been the relatives' idea to go out to sushi, since the uncle had decided that this was what he wanted. "He loves shellfish," the Guy said, gloomy, earlier in the week when the decision was made. "He had a heart attack from eating too much shellfish. There's a lot of cholesterol in that stuff."

His uncle turned out to be a ruddy-faced, charming Englishman with crooked teeth; his aunt was a short Asian woman with the engaging, continental bluntness of the Mauritian. The Guy reported that the two of them had raised him when he was younger. "They let me eat anything," he informed me, cheerful now that the delinquent family had made their appearance. "Chips, crackers, anything I wanted."

...which certainly explained his affection for them.

The uncle sat down next to me in the crowded restaurant and leaned into the menu, looking mildly interested. "I'm not really familiar with sushi," he confided ingenuously in a British accent that was positively edible. "Exactly how do we go about doing this, then?"

"Go about doing what?" I asked blankly, and peered suspiciously at the Guy across the table. They're not familiar with sushi? What the hell does that mean?

"Do these little things make a full meal?" wondered the uncle, peering through the menu in a mildly baffled, shortsighted way. "Or, oh. I remember this. Tempura. Do we order this as a main course and have the sushi as appetizers?"

I cast a dark glance back at the Guy. Going out to sushi is one thing; going out to sushi with sushi virgins was a different experience altogether, one I wasn't sure I was emotionally equipped for. The Guy hastily reached across and confiscated the menu from his uncle. "Why don't we just order for you?" he suggested, and pressed down the menu being flapped between his aunt's equally confused hands. "We can get all sorts of things and you can just try them out."

His aunt leaned across the table to me. "I had sushi for the first time the other day," she confided. "In Canada. It was so wonderful."

FOR THE FIRST TIME. I glowered at the Guy.

Ordering sushi for the uninitiated is a delicate and stressful business. There are, if you can fathom it, people in this world that object to eating raw fish; there are still others that have problems with the concept of eating eel, or sea urchin, or fish roe. Still others react with muted horror when they are presented with large, deep-fried shrimp heads by a polite waitress. I am not, and have never been, one of this odd and sad number.

Unfortunately, because I myself am an acolyte in the mysteries of the Sushi, I have a grave responsibility to those novices that come to me for guidance. It becomes my role to nudge them gently down the true path, by presenting them first with such tastes that will not shock or offend, and only gradually weaning them off the tamago (sweet egg) and California roll onto more sophisticated flavors like raw salmon and tobiko (fish roe).

Not that I was overly worried. If you don't mind the analogy: educating a newbie about sushi is rather like initiating a virgin to sex. One hopes that the first encounter is convincing, but even if it isn't, one can pretty much rely on the reputation of the subject matter to encourage the other party to try again, eventually.

Although, okay, sex doesn't normally give you food poisoning. Or so I'm told.

Fortunately, it turned out that the Guy's relatives weren't quite as virginal as he'd made out; they accepted everything without too much questioning, and I was pleased to notice that they tried all the things that passed them at least once before making up their minds. "This is delicious," one end of the table informed us with delight, accepting a second round of unagi. "What is it?"

"Eel."

"This is eel? Wow." Another piece disappeared.

"Hey," said the Guy's dreamy-eyed cousin. "This is nothing like jellied eel back home."

Jellied eel. I shivered. The British really are barbarians.

After dinner we went out to a bar where we engaged in some clumsy darts and drinks, and then it was time to go home before it got too late. We exchanged a round of hugs and continental cheek kissing, bundled ourselves off to the car, and I sank down into the seat for a well-deserved nap on the way home.

Until we reached Millbrae, that is. The Guy abruptly broke the silence.

"They liked you."

"Hm? That's nice. I liked them, too."

"Each of them pulled me aside at some point during the evening and asked, 'when's the day?'"

"Unh?" I offered blearily.

The Guy's voice was rising a little. It was getting, in a word, loud. "I was, like, what is this, a conspiracy? Did you two plan it beforehand?"

It was about this point that it became rather obvious that the Guy was getting painfully agitated, and that it was starting to have an impact on his driving. As a matter of prudence, I took off my glasses so that everything outside the car -- the other cars, the street lights, the traffic signs -- would blur into a fuzzy, magical world of indistinct colors. What I couldn't see, couldn't hurt me.

"Why are you taking off your glasses?" the Guy demanded suspiciously. His voice was starting to split the soprano range.

"Pretty," I offered, and made a vague gesture around. "Lights."

"I'm not ready to get married yet," he told me with alarm.

"Okay," I said agreeably.

"I need to be financially secure first."

"Uh huh."

"I mean, I need to actually own a house."

"Okie dokie." My hand crept for the 'Oh-Shit' handle at the top of the car door frame. The Guy noticed.

"PUT YOUR GLASSES BACK ON," he yelled. "I'M DRIVING JUST FINE."

In the dark, his head was a fuzzy moon-shaped pale splotch. I beamed at him. "Pre-tty."

It's amazing he doesn't beat me.

quilting

I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but a few weeks ago, overwhelmed by the stress and misery of my employment situation (which we won't go into, though feel free to send me a big bat with the word "CLUE" on it) I took up quilting as a hobby.

See, here's where the English language fails me. When you hear that I "took up" quilting as a hobby, the average person has the vague impression that I took a class, did some research, bought some supplies, and now sit at home with a shiny sewing machine, making beautiful blankets for Red Cross babies. The reality is that when I say that I "took up" something as a hobby, what I really mean is that I went out one day and, on a whim, bought a book.

Millions of dollars and lives have been lost because someone, somewhere, "bought a book". Most of literate America is wishing Jerry Springer never picked up How to be Famous in Forty Minutes. Still others are cursing the day Keanu Reeves bought Acting for Dummies. In Palestine, weary non-terrorist citizens are throwing away their copies of Living Well in Israel. Meanwhile, somewhere in time, Lord James Pirrie, partner in Hartland and Wolff, shipbuilders of the Titanic, is kicking himself for having ever read Sexual Compensation for Dummies.

     "Chapter 3: Build a Big Penile Substitute. Tall buildings 

      are good. Big boats are better. While tall buildings can 

      be impressive and obvious, there's always the risk that 

      some wanker will build a bigger one right next to yours. 

      On the other hand, big boats aren't usually berthed side 

      by side, and all that salt water is always good for a 

      sexual reference or two." 

In my case, I picked a fairly thorough book, full of useful information, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that the real reason that I bought it was the authors' pictures on the cover: two ladies that can only be described as, well ... let's just say they look like they're both stitching on the other side of the blanket, if you get my meaning.

Of course, it's quite possible that the two women concerned are simply recipients of truly unfortunate haircuts, the likes of which you could only get in Minnesota or San Francisco. Having been lesbian for a day back in 1998, I hold more than a bit of fondness for members of my erstwhile sisterhood; however, I'll admit that I've never considered them to be, as a group, icons of domesticity. The novel idea of having lesbians author a book about quilting, that creme brulee of housekeeping, rather tickled my sense of humor.

Now that I've offended all sorts of people, I'm perfectly willing to admit that my limited concept of domesticity usually involves full skirts, Donna Reed, and a pipe-smoking Man of the House, complete with testicles in his neatly pleated pants. Needless to say, this is unnecessarily exclusive of those many lesbians out there that can whip out a seam as good as the best of them.

It was with a vague idea of apologizing for that sentiment that I bought the book. I've personally never been much of a sewer; holes have gone for weeks without being noticed, in my wardrobe. Buttons that pop off in strategic locations often stay off, with results that usually seem more embarrassing for other people than myself---

"You're missing a button," someone in my book club pointed out, one night.

I looked down to find the front of my dress gaping open, giving everybody a view of my bra that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. "I know," I said. "I tried to find ways of hiding it this morning in the mirror, but nothing really worked."

"You mean you knew about it before you left for work, and you still wore it anyway?" another asked incredulously. "Why didn't you use a safety pin?"

"It would've looked funny." Well, duh.

---but I figured, how complicated could quilting be? I ran my finger down the checklist of Things You Should Have, ("needles, gotta get; pins, gotta get; thread, gotta get; lead pencil, yay! got one!; ruler, gotta get; scissors, gotta get...") until I hit 'sewing machine.'

"I don't need a stinking sewing machine," I thought to myself. "I don't even know how to sew. Sewing machines are for sissies. And they're expensive. No sewing machine. Check."

At this point, real quilters are cringing. "No sewing machine?" they're yelling. "Are you a moron? Would you cook souffle without a see-through oven door? Would you put a drinking glass on an Ethan Allen table without using a coaster? Is your brain made of tulle?"

Screw you, real quilters. I got me a book.

There's a moral to this story, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. Four weeks later, I've only finished two patches. I won't deny that I'm starting to think longing thoughts about my mother's old Singer. There are times when I'll surreptitiously stick my wireless mouse under my foot, just to see how it feels. At this rate, I'll finish my quilt just about the time the Republicans start taking a black politician seriously. (I'm talking to you, Colin.) On the upside though, I've found sewing is a great way to relieve stress. There's just something about playing with a sharply pointed metal stick that, I don't know, just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It's therapeutic.

Sharply pointed metal stick. I should go get a book on fencing.

***

Dear Diary: Note. Association with the Guy is making me crass. Crasser. Remind self to stop being so vulgar. Mother would be shocked.

waiting for apocolypse

I've been reading the news.

Prepare yourselves.

Usually when I read the news it's because I'm bored and haven't anything better to do. Part of the fallout of having given up my life of music is that I now have the attention span of a goldfish, which Snapple bottlecaps have informed me is a grand total of 3 seconds.

Three seconds isn't so bad in the overall panorama of time. Goldfish have it better than the late lamented Quibble and Quirk did; their combined attention spans clocked out at 2.1 seconds, which is how long it took to move a seed from the seed bowl into a plump cheek. Unfortunately, with my three second attention span comes a three second memory, which occasionally -- okay, almost daily now -- causes me to think that reading the news at the start of the day might be an interesting thing to do. A smart thing to do. A good thing to do. After all, how can we function if we willfully blind ourselves to the events that shape our world?

I used to read ABCNEWS.com, which had a calming effect on me because of the paucity of anything resembling, well, news. Then I started going to the bbcnews.com site which, while slow, bears up embarrassingly well by comparison to any American news site.

And this is why in the last two days I've read about:

1. The rape and sodomy of a one week-old baby in South Africa, part of an ongoing wave of brutal sexual assault taking place against children under the age of 3, possibly because witch doctors in South Africa, (may ants eat their eyeballs, their testes harden, and their members crack open like desert dirt) claim sex with virgins cures AIDS. (BBC)

2. Two middle-aged men beaten to death by a Chicago mob for driving a car that accidentally skidded and jumped a curb, resulting in the injury of three women. (ABC NEWS)

3. Starving villagers dying in Zimbabwe because their new "duly-elected President" is blocking international aid from going to people registered as voters in the opposition party. (BBC)

4. The US is attempting to use famine in Zimbabwe to force genetically engineered corn into a market that traditionally prohibits genetically engineered foodstuffs; if Zimbabwe accepts the unmilled corn, some of it could be planted and the notoriously aggressive corn pollen would cause genetic changes in second generation crops, which would then be prohibited from transport and sale in most other countries in the region (due to patents held and enforced by American industries that have been enforcing these laws against American and Canadian farmers using surveillance equipment) and possibly result in the widespread collapse of what's left of their agricultural industry.

5. College students, most of them foreign nationals, dead in a bomb explosion in Israel that Hamas claims in some unfathomable way compensates for the dead in the earlier death of innocents and Hamas terrorists. (BBC)

6. The Olympics, symbol of nobility and honor in sports, the subject of scandal after Russian mafia arrested for fixing the games. (BBC)

7. In Pakistan, testimony from a 12 year old boy, stating that he himself was raped and sodomized by several men, then locked into a shelter with an older woman so they could then accuse him of flirting with her. Silly boy, everyone knows that the legal punishment for flirting with an older woman from a more powerful clan is the gang-rape of your older sister. Quid pro quo, right? (BBC)

8. Our Great and Powerful Oz, George Bush "Re-election on the backs of the dead!" Jr., is considering going after the same Wicked Witch of the East, Saddam Hussein, that his daddy couldn't depose ten years ago. (BBC)

9. The US wants to send money and arms to support local militaries in Southeast Asia, incidentally the home of just a few military dictatorships that gosh, are having this trouble with these locals that don't like their dictatorships and -- hey! if they don't like us, I bet they're terrorists! (BBC)

10. Two girls kidnapped at gunpoint just outside of Los Angeles. (ABCNEWS)

11. A brand new "kidnap for kicks" business in New York, where people actually, yes really folks, pay to be violently kidnapped for a certain length of time, just for kicks. (BBC)

12. The Grand Canyon might be growing. (ABCNEWS)

So, yeah. I'm a little bit irritated at the world today.

But on the upside, the Guy bought me sheep. Reverend Yuhri is starting her own flock!

***

These last few days we've been attempting to cook our own meals -- hah! -- in what I at least consider an experiment in cost management, if not necessarily gastrointestinal delight. The average eating arrangement for the members of our household involves an empty refrigerator, a pantry full of instant noodles, and nearby restaurants, some of which will deliver if begged nicely. An average evening costs about $15 per person on dinner, including tip.

This week, my roommate, the Guy and I have been rotating the cooking responsibilities in what seems to be an equable exchange of services. We've set up a few unofficial ground rules in order to conduct our business in a civilized and just fashion. Rule number one states that the person that cooks does not have to do the cleanup afterwards. Rule number two states that if the Guy is responsible for the cleanup, he will probably forget to take care of 1) putting away left out condiments and food; 2) cleaning up around the stove; and 3) cleaning up the inside of the sink.

Rule number three states that I am responsible for reminding the Guy about items 1, 2 and 3, because after all he's my Guy, and thus I'm in charge of Guy-related things.

I entertain myself sometimes with imagining the moment when society decided that someone had to take responsibility for the acts of individuals. It probably happened about the time people started domesticating animals. Once ownership was established, it was only a matter of time before that concept evolved to ownership of people.

Here we have an Upper Paleolithic ancestor of your local McDonalds' clerk, Gagh, meeting up with his man Gurgh. "Dude," says our main man. "Check out what I just domesticated."

"Ugh?" asks Gurgh, "What the hell?"

"I call it a dog," says our protagonist, proudly.

"Son of a flatulent mammoth," snaps Gurgh. "I domesticated one, too."

Gagh scratches a flea bite in his armpit and burps. "They look identical," he comments.

"Not absolutely identical," says irritated Gurgh, reaching for a club. "Your dog is mating with my leg."

Not so much later, Gagh and Gurgh have become Billy Bob and Jumbo, hanging out at the local bar. "Dude, says Billy Bob, "Check out what I just domesticated."

"Ugh?" asks Jumbo, "What the hell?"

"It's a girl," says our protagonist, proudly.

"Son of a bitch," says Jumbo. "I domesticated me one, too."

Billy Bob scratches a mosquito bite in his armpit and burps. "They look almos' identical," he comments.

"Not absolutely identical," says irritated Jumbo. "Mine's got bigger tits, and your bitch is makin' eyes at Bubba. Wanna borrow my belt?"

***

In case I haven't mentioned it, I have a low opinion of the human race today.