I do better when I work. Last week was full of good days. This weekend has been a bit of a struggle. I am trying to keep it together. I am trying to stay positive. And I am thankful for friends who have called and invited me out and are keeping me busy. Tonight is Sunday dinner and my mother invited neighbors over for baked Ziti. I am looking forward to seeing them and eating my mom’s amazing pasta.

If I ever say, “it’s part of the fabric of who I am,” SHOOT ME!

Friday was a good day for me. I felt totally normal. I had 4 hours of consulting time scheduled and I was “on.” Everything felt right. Saturday arrived and I spent a good part of it crying. I suppose that is how it will be from now on, good days and bad.

Easter without dad was plain weird. We decided not to do an Easter basket this year. Instead we ordered Pirohi and White Borscht soup from Rozmaryn Restaurant in Trenton. Mom bought Kielbasa from Johnny’s and made potato salad. The three of us sat around the dining room table and ate quietly. After the meal, we drove to Belmar with Bo and walked along the shore. It was cute seeing Bo frolic in the sand.

Back at home with Mom and Lisa, we watched RuPaul’s Drag Race and I practically wet myself when he had the two remaining Drag Queens lip sync for their lives!

Driving to my place, Earth Angel came on the radio and tears came to my eyes. I remembered back when I was in 4th or 5th grade, Lisa and I bought a boom box from Best. We had saved 50.00 and knew exactly which one we wanted. We found it in the Sunday circular. Dad drove us and as we pointed to the one we wanted, Dad scoffed. He said we should get a better model… heck, the best model! He gave us the difference and we got an awesome unit that to this day sits in my bedroom.

It had a tape deck and I quickly got into the habit of recording music straight from the radio. I was addicted to Oldies 98.1 and one night I taped Earth Angel. My father heard me playing it over and over again and he came into my bedroom. He sat down with me on the floor and together we sang Earth Angel. Gosh I miss him.

My mother turned an ungodly sum yesterday. I got her an awesome birthday present. A kick ass computer! Yeah, I am quite happy with myself!

The news regarding my little self-published gem is… I decided to wait. It will arrive tomorrow. I am ready to push the approve button!

Why is it that other people bring life into focus? What I mean is, I thought my house was clean. Or at least clean enough. I asked my exterminator to lay down a perimeter of death to stop the ants from marching through… he arrived today and immediately I realized that my house was a mess. Things I hadn’t noticed were suddenly glaringly obvious! Luckily he left and so everything is back to fuzzy perfection!

I wish I weren’t so convinced of people’s depravity. There’s a person in my life who is very kind to me YET I can’t help but cast him as an Ellsworth Toohey. Perhaps he really is kind and meaning no harm… or maybe he is undermining and planning for my downfall. I don’t quite know. It’s odd but when we are together, I get the distinct feeling he is my pilot fish.

I turned the heat back on. It got too cold to live. I am still trying, very unsuccessfully, to use echolocation. I also keep imagining worms eating my brains. Damn Night Gallery.

I am slowly trying to get myself on track… laundry done, paperwork filed, invoices sent, etc… I behaved rather odiously the other day and I feel really terrible about it. Honestly, it probably wasn’t all that bad but I still feel terrible. How the heck do Star Jones and Dionne Warwick live with themselves after a day of filming The Apprentice? Holy cow have you seen it? I swear that before the season is over, Dionne is going to cut someone… some HUSSY!

And I can’t stop watching Bob’s Burgers. Last night’s episode was awesome. Lin’s artist sister came to visit, bringing with her a slew of paintings of animal arschlochs that Bob was forced to hang in the diner. Seeing the archloch paintings, I was reminded of a story I was once told about these kids back in the 40’s that would capture cats and paint a red circle around their arschloch with their moms’ lipsticks. They called the painted kitties, Wampus Cats. Weird, huh? I can find no corroborating evidence of this on Google so who knows.

I can’t wait until next week. Each week they raise the stakes higher and I really can’t imagine where they will go after animal archlochs.

Today is the first day of Spring. I wrote that on Facebook this morning and someone said, “YESTERDAY was the first day of Spring, I know because Rita’s was giving out free water ice!” The anger that rushed through my body as I read that comment was intense. I wanted to kick her ass almost as bad as I wanted to kick her ass back when we were in high school together. Funny how things don’t change. Regardless, I am looking forward to warm weather and I think I am going to call my exterminator to come out and lay down a perimeter of death for any ant that tries to get close.

WOW! It’s a nice day out there. It’s really temperate. There’s a part of me that wants to be out there enjoying it. Wait, that’s all of me.

I can’t help but think back to college. As soon as the days warmed, I’d head out to the Green, throw down a blanket and lay in the sun. Good times. This year is my 15 year reunion. I can hardly believe 15 years have past since I wandered down the halls of Rosemont. I miss seeing the tulips in the spring… I wonder if they even still have the tulips. Their groundsmen, Irish Eddie, died a number of years ago and he was responsible for the gorgeous flowers. Which gets me thinking about Bob, the guy who checked our student cards before we could eat in Cardinal Hall. He also died a few years back. And Rick Strickler, the Computer Room admin… and Roy, the postman with the big pompadour.. and Emma who made the best sandwiches.

I miss the father-daughter luncheons and Oktoberfest and Founder’s Day…

The real shame is it’s all over. It’s co-ed now. The traditions are dead.

So many pet peeves. I am sick of email. It seems all people want to do is send email. Why can’t you just pick up the phone and call me? Trust me, it’s easier. And I am also ticked off because I got stood up today. The guy emailed me, “We still on? You never confirmed.” Confirmed? How about I never cancelled! Why do I need to confirm when you WATCHED ME ENTER IT INTO MY CALENDAR?

And a client left me a VM yesterday morning (Monday), “I called you Friday evening and I STILL haven’t heard back from you! This is why I fired my last Web designer!”

I am also angry at WordPress because I can’t find any good Business Directory plugins. I have spent a crapload of money on some pretty crappy plugins and themes that look perfect until I install them. There must be a way to get an online directory installed — whether inside of WordPress or outside of it.

Oh, and a client says, “Can you install a countdown on my Website, I want there to be a countdown to election day.” EASY PEASY, right? Wrong! I think it’s going to take me 5 minutes to find a countdown plugin, install it and set it up as a widget on the sidebar. NOPE! I went through 5 different countdown plugins. The first one forced me to accept their text and all they provided was “# days until my BIRTHDAY!” Deleted that. The next three didn’t work. Finally I find one that works… 45 minutes later!

I am tired. I am sun-deprived. I am not as productive as I should be.

In better news, the proof of my book has been shipped and is in transit to me. I can’t wait to see it looking like a book and not like a stack of 8x11s. My hope is that it will be perfect and not require any changes. I want this part of the process over!

I think I am hungry and that’s why I feel so crabby.

I entered church on Sunday and a large bolt of lightning did not strike me dead. I held baby Fiona over the baptismal font and father Chris doused her with holy water. My favorite part of the ceremony was when we were instructed to recite, “Lord Hear Our Prayer” and each time we repeated it, little Fiona’s butt tooted.

I was just talking to a friend who told me how his family celebrates Passover… I was pretty shocked how uninformed I am regarding Jewish holidays. I thought it was just a meal but it’s quite an undertaking that resembles a massive Spring Cleaning. I need to do Spring Cleaning and I think making it official with a holiday is just the right kind of push.

This morning I read an article about echolocation. The article profiled this blind guy who is able to practically see using echolocation. I’ve spent a good part of the day clucking my tongue trying to echolocate the monitor in front of me to no avail. Clucking my tongue has made me think of that crazy movie, “The God’s Must Be Crazy.” Do you remember that movie? It was awesome, I recall.

I have so much work to get done today… STILL. The reason is instead of catching up on unfinished work on Saturday, I finished my book and sent it to the printing company instead. Soon I will be ordering a proof and then I will be selling copies on Amazon! I can barely wait!

Sat at a bar for 2 hours and not once did the bartender ask me if I wanted anything to eat…. and I really did. Eventually I came home and heated up chicken tenders instead. At any rate, at the bar, a man sat next to me and whispered. I kept asking him to speak up. Nope. He asked me about my finances and kept saying things about interest rates and points and tax brackets and percentage and other things that I simply couldn’t make out from the din. Finally I tired of asking him to repeat himself so I finally just smiled and said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Nope!

“What kind of a business person are youlsdkjflsdkjflsd lkj, Don’t you lkdjfslkdjf lsklskjfslkjflskjfsldkfj”

Whatever… I simply don’t care anymore.

I really wish I wasn’t out of Three Buck Chuck.

Tomorrow’s going to be a full day. I am not looking forward to it.

This weekend I get to see an Elvis Stylist perform. I got free tickets from my favorite DJ! Can hardly wait!

Went to the Philly Car Show today. Sat in a bunch of cars and made zooming noises as I pretended to steer. It wasn’t that long ago that I refused to take time off from work to do fun things. And believe me it would have been very easy for me to stay home and work on all my projects. I am glad I went. It’s good to get out. It creates memories.

Tomorrow is supposed to be scary icy. My one meeting already cancelled. I have another meeting that we’ve decided to play by ear.