I've got a birthday party to go to tonight. As much as I love Sandy and want to celebrate her birthday I do not want to go to this party. That's mostly because of the other people that will be there. They get drunk and loud and incoherent, yet they insist on speaking and they try to talk over each other and it just gets louder and louder and none of it is intelligible. This leaves me nodding and smiling a lot because I don't really know what they're saying but I refuse to ask them to repeat it.

I'll give you a synopsis of the party and it's key players (the usual suspects) because well, if I have to suffer...misery loves company, so join me:

Sandy (hostess and birthday girl, sweet, intelligent warm...love her)
Darren (host and hubby of Sandy, sweet, bright, great in a spirited debate)
SuperSue (aka catlady, owns 30+ cats, loud when sober, loud and incoherent when not sober)
Jay (boyfriend of SuperSue and totally obnoxious drunk, whispers things to me such as "When I break up with Sue it'll be you and me, right?" Not unless I happen to be in a persistant vegetative state, Jay)
Mary (always accompanied by Pat, sweet, reserved, tragic Mary, never stays at the party long, would be fine if she would not bring Pat along as Pat can't drive and usually won't show by herself.)
Pat (always accompanied by Mary, loud, always has a new affliction, rarely "had time to" pick up something for herself to drink at the party and always covets what I'm drinking, several slices short of a baloney sammich)
Kokomo (don't know his real name, is on a continual marijuana buzz, mumbles stuff and laughs at nothing in particular, eyes are usually 2 slits)
Foot (my ex-boyfriend. Likely he won't show up tonight but then again has a tendency to show at these things with his babe-du-jour just to make sure I see her, ignoring him does not work, he's there to make sure I notice him and will find a way to get that done)
Tim (has been barred from parties at Sandy and Darren's due to his total obnoxiousness and the fact that he burns the furniture, rugs etc.)

There are varying other players that come and go, most are pleasant but have the good sense to leave after a short time.

One of the things we like to do is play games, board games, cards, yahtzee (we make up different rules). This always seems like a good idea and rarely is. Invariably there's a 40 minute argument about what game we play another 30 minutes deciding who will play, 20 minutes explaining the rules to Pat for the umpteenth time, 15 minutes to get Jay to shut up and eventually to get Jay and Sue to stop shouting shut up at one another...got all that? Ok, eventually we get down to playing the game and that's fun for a while. Till another Jay/Sue fight ensues or Darren starts debating the validity of someone's response (as in Trivial Pursuit) with another member and everything is halted.

At some point Jay will go to the stereo and find some Acid Death Metal Rock which he will put on and crank up to top volume, it being around 2 am this sets Darren and Sandy off because of the neighbors. Of course, Jay can't hear them yelling because the music drowns them out. Meanwhile Jay is bouncing around the room playing air guitar and singing badly and loudly to some song, usually not the one playing.

On occasion one of the men will drop trou and share his hairy and/or pimply butt with the room at large.

Yep that about sums it up. Why do I go you ask? Because I like Sandy and she would be highly offended if I did not go and my friendship with her means enough to me to suffer through this. It's her birthday, her 40th, it's only going to come once, I can beg off another party, but this one's important.

Ok, I'm leaving soon...cover me!

// posted by dollyllama @ 4:02 PM

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

While shopping at the grocery store it occurred to me that there's a national disaster (maybe even international) that no one seems to be talking about. I'm referring to the shortage of cows! Yes, COWS! That must be it, there is nothing else to explain the price of a gallon of milk.

In some parts of the U.S. gasoline is going for over $2.00/gallon and people are outraged. Naturally the stuff is imported in very expensive, double-hulled oil tankers, then shipped via truck or rail to a refinery where it goes through some magic process to become gasoline. It's a fossil fuel, that is in short supply and is not renewable in our lifetimes. Certainly it's expensive, but that really seems logical to me (it's a lot more expensive in other countries).

In the Northeastern US milk is at or above $3.00 a gallon. As far as I know you get a cow, you milk it, you put the milk through a "homogenization" process (which I think merely involves heat) and then you bottle and ship it to the grocery store. As far as I know there are no threats of a hazardous dairy spill so that takes a bit of the expense out (no DOT, Hazmat, special double-hulled trucks). If a duck gets covered in milk it's pretty much going to waddle off, albeit, it may fuss a bit.

Ok, there's refrigeration and most milkers are automated and there's all the hormones we have to feed the cows but pretty much they're a renewable resource. Unless there's something I don't know about cow reproduction (and frankly, I'll keep it that way if there is) I don't think we'll be running out of cows anytime soon. As I drive through farm country I see hundreds, maybe thousands of cows grazing on grass, are they cardboard cut outs, are they holgrams? Am I "mooing" out the car window at them in vain?

Why are we not hysterical about this? Imagine if we run out of cows...no milk, no yogurt, no ice cream, no cheese!!! Oh wait...we have goats, (but goat ice cream just doesn't sound appealing does it?) I say we rally people, we must make others aware of this dilemma, we must have government intervention to ensure that we never run out of the bovine blessings we now take for granted. Are you with me...let's raise our voice to make this travesty known!

SAVE THE COW!!!

// posted by dollyllama @ 12:06 PM

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Ever had a dream that you killed someone? I had 2 of these in the past, both times after eating peanut butter during the day. I had to give up peanut butter because the dreams were so disturbing. And really, as supremely lazy as I am it's unlikely I'd ever commit a murder. I just wouldn't be able to get the energy up to do it. Nevertheless, just in case I suddenly got slipped some speed or got a rush of motivation, I gave up peanut butter.

Last night, I had another murderous dream. Not peanut butter induced but I realized that whatever brought it on I still don't have to worry about it actually coming to pass. I know this because in my dream the murder was not premeditated and immediately after I killed this person I realized I'd left all kinds of evidence...like big ol' greasy fingerprints everywhere. I had to remember all the things I'd touched in the moments preceding the act and then I had to find something to wipe up the fingerprints with. In the process of this I ended up leaving even more fingerprints. Then as I'm wiping down EVERY SURFACE IN THE ROOM, I realized that this is entirely too much like housework which I LOATHE! I won't even dust when I have all the time in the world and there I am in a panic trying to scrub every surface.

Guess I can put peanut butter back on the shopping list.

// posted by dollyllama @ 4:41 PM

Saturday, April 17, 2004

I pulled a muscle in my shoulder, it's been bothering me all day. So I decided a nap would help, for me a nap cures everything and if it doesn't work the first time, take another nap. Anywaaaay...

I can't sleep, I foolishly put on "A League of Their Own" which for some reason makes me cry like a baby at the end (I'm tearing up now writing about it...wtf is that?) and so I can't get my nap to stick. I switch to some police story garbage and finally I nod off.

I awaken to the noise of a jet engine being run next door...or maybe it was a compressor that sounded like a jet engine. My neighbor is building something. My neighbor is always building something. He built the extension on his house, well he has been building it for 4 years now.

He tore his garage down and put up three huge sheds in it's place. Three. Each year a new shed. He's building an empire.

I have a theory about him. If he ever stops building he will kill all his family members and stash their bodies in the sheds.

If the compressor stops running I'm calling the cops.

// posted by dollyllama @ 5:26 PM

Crows have the power of reanimation.

One early morning, the sun barely cracking the horizon, I'm awaken by a tremendous ruckus happening on the street side of my house. Groggily I make my way to the window and peer through the levelours to see a circle of crows near the utility pole across the street. They are cawing and screeching at top volume. I watch this for awhile and notice that in the center of this circle is a crow, splayed flat on it's back, feet jutting into the air...apparently dead. Nice, a crow funeral. I felt kind of bad for them but really couldn't they mourn quietly? I went back to bed. Over the course of an hour the sound of screaming crows got fainter and fainter. I got up a few times and noted that one by one the crow circle was dissipating.

Finally I could distinguish only the sound of one crow. I looked out again wondering who was going to get the pleasure of cleaning up the dead crow carcass and watched as the last crow did a dance about his deceased companion, wings flapping and cawing his poor lungs out. I went back to bed but gave up trying to sleep and just lay in bed listening.

Then the sound stopped altogether. I had to look. There was one crow out there...one...not one and a dead one, one live walking around crow. I watched as he just stood there for some time, silently. After several minutes he flew off. The dead crow had been revived, fully recovered and flew off to join his friends!

Dunno, still kind of haunts me.

// posted by dollyllama @ 12:09 AM

Thursday, April 15, 2004

I have apparently just broken the blogger application. I get a message that "an internal server error has occurred" and I should notify the blogmaster and inform him of what I did to break it. All I did was blog, so apparently I am so boring that the server has cut me off. *sigh*

It's having a ripple affect as several other blogger friends are now caught in my error vortex of doom. Bwahahahaha. Soon all your blogs will fail! I will be the evil overlord (lady) of the blogging world....fear me.

I need a nap, where's my blankie?

// posted by dollyllama @ 6:22 PM

Ok, day 2 of my blogging experience. I had no original thoughts last night, not that that's so unusual. I tried to make changes to the links but they don't seem to have taken. Not sure, maybe I didn't publish. I'll try again. I tend to not like pre-created html/web stuff and prefer to do my own so I might just change this whole thing up, it's all about the control.

I haven't been going to work. I have a bad infection in my jaw which, while it's currently on the mend, is very unpleasant and uncomfortable. Also, I dislike my job. It's only part time, the people are very nice, but it's boring and not what I want to do. I need to carve out a new niche and get over this inertia in my life.

I'll post more later when I have a better grip on this whole blog set up.

// posted by dollyllama @ 11:26 AM

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

I want to start this blog out on a happy note, unfortunately my old trusty user name was not available and I had to modify it slightly. I've had that user name since time immemorial, or at least the last 13 years (when you have a bad memory, there's really no difference between infinity and last night, it's all ancient history). Anyway, someone appears to be squatting on my user name, worse yet, that someone could actually be me and I've merely forgotten the password. So I don't know who to be angry with...well, that's the way it goes.

Let's hope I'll have better news to post, or at least something more interesting. I'm not a great writer and lead a rather dull existence so let's see if any of those ingenious ideas and thoughts that come to me in the middle of the night, yet which I neither write down, nor share with others due to the late hour, still seem as clever in the scrutiny of broad daylight.

// posted by dollyllama @ 1:18 PM