I sort of blew my, "Fuck it, I'm never eating again" plan by going to two parties yesterday, and eating at them both.   But I had an excuse.  Two, actually.  One, it was a holiday, and calories consumed during a holiday don't count.  And second, I was upset because my car got broken into in the morning.  Chocolate is the only appropriate response.  (Well, chocolate and vigilante justice, but I left my .45 at work.)

My poor car has been broken into at least three times before, but all of them were when I lived in North "Heroin, 2 for 1 on Tuesdays" Hollywood.  Now there's a big shiny police station right by my parents house, but when I lived there, this was not the case.  Hence, the repeated rape of my car.  (And it really does feel like a violation; I'm not using the term casually here.)

I guess that ever since moving out of NoHo, I have grown lax about parking.  We have a parking garage, but I park on the street half the time.  It's a dead end street in super-safe Burbank: very quiet, very secure.  Or so I thought, until the manager of the building called us in the morning to say that my car window was broken.

Shit, I thought.  There goes my stereo and my CDs.  Even the one KT made for me. Shit. I still remember how long it took to replace my CDs last time, when 50 or so were stolen out of my car.  I still have moments where I look for a certain CD (Suzanne Vega, Jesus Christ Superstar,  Boingo Live) and remember that it's gone.

I don't have insurance... fuck... I thought.  And what about all the other crap I had in my car?  Was there anything important?  The crystal heart my sister gave me.  My pink wig.  And my wrist fluffies!  Oh no! 

I'm not even joking, guys.  I was really fearful for my wrist fluffies.

I got down to the car and saw glass everywhere.  The side window had been busted and there was glass on the sidewalk and all over the seat.  Of course, the stereo was gone.  I immediately looked in the back set and saw all my stuff there, seemingly undisturbed, including some telltale pink feathers sticking out from behind a pile of stuff.   The fluffies were safe.  Then I scanned the front seat and saw my CD case, still sitting on the floor, also safe.  I was happily surprised.  Next, I saw the faceplate to my stereo lying on the floor.  Wait a second... the faceplate?

I looked closer at the spot where the stereo used to be and saw that, although the plastic had been damaged and was sticking up, the stereo was still there.  I hopped into the car and Matt and I popped the plastic back into place.  Miraculously, my stereo was still working fine.

I had to go replace the window of course ($150) but that would have been under my deductible even if I did have insurance.  And I still have my stereo and all my other stuff.  So it really could have been much worse.

But I am parking downstairs from now on, you better believe it.

The first party we went to was a small shindig at Charlotte and Bruno's commune.  And I do mean small.  And uneventful, really.  Basically, Matt and Bruno talked about Diablo II, Bruno burned us a copy of Diablo II, and I read the Diablo II manual.

Joan was there, but she went swimming with the rest of the girls while I geeked out with the gamers.  One of the other girls who was there, Glena, is sort of a New Agey actress type, and a little of her goes a long way.  She's always trying that little bit too hard to be funny, and smart, and likeable.

I fear this is a case where I am annoyed at qualities I also possess, but at least with her there's the added annoyance that it's all in this dripping with sincerity, "Goddess of the Moon" type of way.  She says things like, "You know, I am a size fourteen, and I OWN that." Oh, shut up.  And if a joke doesn't get the laughs she wants, she tells it again.  Sometimes with slight variations, as if she's trying to correct what went wrong the first time.  She's obnoxious.

And there really wasn't a lot of food... I had some fruit, but I was still hungry, and the only things worth having were the fresh baked chocolate cookies with milk chocolate chips.  I think I had four of them.  I can't bring myself to feel too bad about this, though: they were SO good.

After a quick stop at home (we fled when Glena got to be too much) we headed off to our next social engagement, at Chuck and Beth's house.

Now, that party was really fun.  Just a bunch of people sitting around, drinking, talking, and firing explosives into the neighbor's backyard.  Nancy and Igor turned up later, but for the majority of the party, we were hanging out with nobody you would know: a bunch of Chuck and Beth's friends and family members.   Everyone was friendly, there were a few crazy people to keep us entertained, and Chuck's mom is absolutely a pleasure.  Throw in big fluffy dogs, an adorable little girl, and some good food, and you've got yourself a party.

My favorite part of the day was Chuck's tour of his darkroom.  (I was going to write that he gave me a tour of his "bathroom-cum-darkroom" but that particular phrase even gave ME the wrong idea, and I was there.)  I have always wanted to learn photography, and in twenty minutes, I increased my knowledge by like, three thousand percent.  Now I just have to dig up my old Rollei and try it for myself.

We carried all our chairs out into the street to watch the fireworks.  I'm sure we were the envy of all the people who had to park blocks away and walk over to the college where the fireworks were.  I would have hated to be one of those people, because the fireworks themselves were not all that spectacular and probably not worth the trouble.

The really bizarre part was the end.  There were a series of explosions that were sort of finale-like, and then a pause.  Everyone was just sort of waiting to see if there was more.  Then a firework.  Just one.  Then another expectant pause.  And one more firework.  A looong pause.  One more firework.  After than one, we saw people starting to walk back to their cars.  "I guess it's over," I said to Matt. "That was sort of anticlimactic, huh?"

Matt was really tired and wanted to go home, so after a good talk with Nancy, I took pity on him and we left.  I just wish that for once I could talk to Beth and Nancy as long as I wanted to.  I know every journaler is always gooshing about every other journaler they meet, but really, I love those girls.

After we got home, Matt went to bed and I decided to give Diablo II a whirl.  That game is scary.  Am I a wimp for being scared by a computer game?  Every time my character (a sorceress) ventured into the dark forest, I could feel all my muscles tense up.  I did some stupid stuff, like not putting on armor. Then at one point, I got surrounded by all these little creatures who were attacking me.  I was clicking the wrong things, and generally panicking, and then I died.

I did make it to level four, though.   Somehow.

Operation Fuck With The Crazy Dog Lady: Day One.

Chuck reminded me yesterday that I hadn't yet done anything subversive to the CDL.  And today was the perfect day to do it, because within five minutes of my entry into the office, she had already pissed me off, big.

I came in an hour and a half late, because I had to bring my car to the auto glass place and then get a ride with Joan.  When I got to work, Sheila recounted a conversation she had with Brenda the CDL that morning:

Come on, everyone. Let's kill her.

No really, let's.  Who's with me?  "Kill the beast! Kill the beast!"   I can't believe she had the nerve to ask if I was late "again"-- she, of all people!  This is someone who is late all.  The fucking.  Time.  And not just a couple minutes late like I am.  Brenda has been 20-45 minutes late every damn day for weeks in a row.   She has to pick up a dead raccoon and is an hour late.  (True.)   She gets squirted by a water gun and is delayed by her phone calls to the police. (Also true.)   They had to move back her hours from 9:00 to 9:30 because she was so habitually, chronically, pathologically late.

Today, however... today, the Crazy Dog Lady got here on time.  Which apparently was enough excuse for her to completely ignore her own egregious history of lateness, and haul her hypocritical bitch ass out of her glass house long enough to throw some stones.

I loathe her.  I despise and abhor her.  I detest her.  (Come on, Mo, tell us how you really feel.)

So today, while she was at lunch, I went into her office and moved stuff around.  Her nameplate, I moved over to the other side of her desk.  I rearranged her pens.  I turned her paper clip tray so it's facing backwards.

I'd love for her to get so annoyed by this that she goes on a crusade to find the culprit.  (You can't prove anything.)  But even so, it made me feel a lot better.

God, I hate her.  Did I mention that?
 

Eventually I told him I didn't feel sexy and he said "I'll kiss you everywhere that's sexy" and he kissed me all over, expounding on the virtues of each body part.