So strike one is that I'm very busy. Strike two is that I am very grouchy. I will now babble about my grouchiness for your entertainment and potential schadenfreude, since there is no third strike and therefore you still get an entry.

I just ate a sandwich for lunch, and my mind translates that into ten extra pounds on the scale tomorrow morning. Sandwiches, what with their breads and fillings and all, have begun looming in my mind as the most insidious thing I could ever possibly eat. It is raining and I couldn't leave the office today so I grabbed a sandwich. What can I say? I hate myself now.

I bought new pants yesterday and they are snug. Which was the goal, since my other pants now fall off me. But today I feel very bloated and crampy, and I am stuffed into my new pants like creamy filling stuffed into a Twinkie. I took an anti-bloating pill and it is supposed to turn my pee blue. I am simultaneously fascinated and horrified by the idea of blue pee. But I do not yet feel anti-bloated and I hate my new pants, even though they are sexy.

Of course the other thing putting me in a bad mood is the election. My new coping mechanism is GOOD NEWS ONLY. All I want to hear is how Kerry is winning, what polls show that he is winning, why polls that suggest he isn't winning are very, very wrong, and how he is totally going to win. (Right: "Undecided voters aren't committed to the incumbent, so they ultimately tend to favor the challenger." Wrong: "Undecided voters are sheep, and ultimately tend to favor whoever is reported to be in the lead when they go to the polls.")

I sent in my absentee ballot yesterday and on Election day I will be in Walt Disney World, blissfully oblivious, not sitting in front of the TV panicking about election returns and entering figures into an Excel spreadsheet and biting my nails. And then I will wake up and WE WILL HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT, GODDAMNIT.

It is raining here in San Francisco. You'd think Northern Californians wouldn't be as bad as Southern Californians when it comes to driving in the rain, especially since the folks up here are weirdly snotty about SoCal in general. ("What do you mean, the 80 freeway? It's not called the 80. It's just called 80, you vapid, superfluous-word-using person.") (Yes, I do like to add the superfluous "the" to things. That's why this website is called "The" Life of Pie.) But no, it's the same phenomenon all over California--people HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO when water begins falling from the sky--except hit their brakes. All over the California freeways, everyone just panics and slams on their brakes. It makes for a delightful commute, let me tell you.

Oh, in other news, I am getting my kitchen installed today. At least partly installed. At least the beginnings of being installed. I am a little worried about the chaos that will probably ensue, and pretty doubtful that I'll actually have a kitchen at the end of it all. (Please install cabinets please install cabinets please...) But wouldn't that kick ass?

Other random things. I haven't yet mentioned here that I saw the Traschcan Sinatras play a little acoustic set at Tower Records, or that I saw La Traviata recently, the first opera that I've seen that I wholeheartedly enjoyed. I also saw my first through seventh episodes of Arrested Development when the marathon was on this weekend. And I attended Shannon's Hugemas (Yoogemas), which was hugely (yoogely) delicious.

And finally, here is a picture of some random fish.