potpourri

More bullet-points for your reading pleasure.

• I love my friends from my erstwhile office very dearly, but man, that doesn't mean I'm blind to their faults, one of the biggest of which is that they keep sending me those goddamned chain emails. You know, the ones that insist that if I don't send this to my entire contact list the angels in heaven will weep and my children will get sick and my dogs will eat me alive in the night while I sleep and I will never find another pair of jeans to fit me as long as I live.
  
  Something mysterious about me is that for some reason I can't just delete these as soon as I realize what they are, and get on with my life, which is what I do with most delete-able things I find annoying. No, I must sit and read every word, getting increasingly balky and furious, until by the end I am fuming "ALL RIGHT THEN, BASTARDS, DO YOUR WORST" as I pound the delete key.
  
  Today there were three in my inbox. And so if tomorrow you hear that I was killed when a plane came crashing through my roof, you will understand that mysterious chain-letter forces were at work, and you can remind me of my folly when next we meet.



• I had lunch with my aforementioned work posse this afternoon, and came home with a burning desire to go back to college and get another degree, something far away from the unstable tech industry, something that doesn't involve sticking needles into other people's skin which I AM SORRY I CANNOT DO IT MAKES ME SICK TO MY STOMACH OKAY, something that involves small children -- in short, a degree in elementary education -- and I am counting on you to either offer words of encouragement or else remind me how many different kinds of hell it would be to teach for the next thirty years or so. Would you want me to teach your children? Be honest.



• I've been dreaming in fanfiction lately. I've had dreams about Frank and Alice Longbottom. Dreams about Anne of Green Gables. Dreams about Dream. (Actually, the dream about Dream was actually a crossover featuring the Longbottoms.) Dreams about Peanuts. I do wonder if I've somehow lost my capacity for original dreaming, but in the meantime, I'm mostly waking up smiling bemusedly, which I have to say is not at all a bad way to wake up.



• I am a sucker for that trendy pale aqua/chocolate brown color combination. Anything that can possibly be produced in those colors is something that I am instantly drawn to. And yet I understand from certain people that it is not universally popular. Do you have any feelings for these colors? I ask merely for information.



• Leory the new dog is improving daily, looks-wise. His fur is shiny and growing longer and there are no bald patches at all any more; he has this trick where he sneaks his 60-lb. carcass onto my lap in tiny, gradual stages that I find completely irresistible; and if there is anything at all in the world better than looking over at your dog and as soon as you make eye contact he jumps to his feet and trots over (because he is absolutely incapable of walking anywhere) as if he's been waiting patiently for you to notice him, I want you to tell me what it is because I need most of the inspiration I can get these days.

Anyway, hi, everybody. I hope you're all okay.