How are you today? I'm superfantastic.

In which I give away even more lucrative trade secrets

Have you all been practicing your "eh"?  (Note: if you actually have been practicing this, you NEED my help.  Because it's not like you're getting a grade on it or anything.)  Your next lesson involves yet another key phrase to help you unmotiviate.  It is called "That's a good spot for that."  Very useful for when you drop or spill something and can't be bothered to be bothered about it.  For example, you set your magazine down on the end table, but it falls off onto the floor in the corner.  You can get up, wedge yourself in there, bend over, cram your arm down far enough to grab it OR you can say "that's a good spot for that."  Yes, you'll probably have to do that anyway when you next want to read your magazine, but if you don't know that later is always better than now, then I have truly taught you nothing.

But we'll cover procrastination later.  Now on to a real life example of "that's a good spot for that."  usage.  Every night when I tear that day's page of the Dave Barry Page-a-Day Calendar in order to read the next day's page (I'm not into delayed gratification, ok?)  I wad the page up and attempt to throw it into the trash can located all the way across the room.  My total lack of hand-eye coordination, the paper wad's lack of aerodynamicness and a ceiling fan set to "gale force wind" create a perfect storm of impossibility wherein I have no actual chance of the paper wad ever landing in the can.  And I look from bed at the paper wad sitting on the floor, shrug, and say to myself, "that's a good spot for that."  Then I read for a while, turn off the light and go to sleep.  With the paper on the floor.  All night.  And I sleep just fine.  (More than fine!  I sleep so well that if ever I don't sleep well, I am shocked!  And appalled!  And will whine about it all the next day!  See, upon successful completion of my program, you too can be so relaxed that you too can irritate your friends with "but I don't understand, I always sleep well!")  I pick the paper up the next morning on my way out of my room and drop it in the trash can.  Nobody gets hurt.  Nobody would even KNOW if I hadn't just told the Internet.  And yet, some of you are horrified, aren't you?  Admit it!  And then send three easy payments of $19.95 because wow, people, there is just no reason that something like that should keep you awake or cause you to get up out of your cozy bed in order to do something about it when you've got to get out of bed the next morning anyway and that is plenty soon enough.

Of course, "that's a good spot for that" does not apply in ALL situations.  Say you drop liquid, a lit match, or your baby.  Proper steps should be taken in these instances, including mopping, stamping, or trying to convince the paparazzi not to run that photograph because you and K-Fed do not need Child Protective Services back at your house.

I suppose I could sit up wracking my brains to think of a witty conclusion for this post, but frankly I've got some Dave Barry to read and then 9 or so hours of sleep to get to.  So...ummm...that's a good ending for that.

And I was hoping to use it as an eyelash curler

The tag on my new curling iron, no doubt mandated by the Federal Commission on Pointing out the Painfully Obvious.  (Ah, the good old FCOPOTPO!  Almost my favorite federal acronym, right after OEOB.  It's fun to say!  Try it!)

The new photo on the left is courtesy of Melissa, who said it made me look pensive and writerly.  Who am I to argue with that?

Oooh, and if you are in the market for homemade soap, handmade soap, or natural soap, click on any of the links.  It's my first blatant abuse of google!  Wheeeeeeee!

Reasons why this is the Best Temp Job Ever

1.  Free soda, tea, hot chocolate, and powdered cappuccino mix in the kitchen!  (Also a half empty bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, but I'm assuming that's not a help yourself beverage.) Except why would you want any of that when there's

2. freshly ground Starbucks coffee!  At least there was until I got here and DRANK IT ALL.

3.  Breakfast tacos from a meeting on Tuesday and Krispy Kremes on Wednesday.  A donut was even brought to my

4. own office.  All private and everything like I'm some kind of important person rather than some girl here to do the data entry.

5. Everyone here assumes that I'm a college student.  Who needs TLC when I clearly already look Ten Years Younger?  Plus, the pressure is way off.  Like, I'm 18 and I've never worked in an office before, ok?  This is, like, so hard!

6. I've just been instructed to kill time on the Internet.  While getting paid!

7. And if, when the guy who gives me work gets here and there's not enough to do, they will send me home and pay me until five.

In the world of temping, it just doesn't get any better than that, folks.

UPDATE:  Sufficient amounts of work to keep me occupied until 5:oo seem to have been found, so apparently I won't get to miss the going-home-time Traffic (yes, capital-T Traffic, which, as defined by me is traffic in which your primary means of forward propulsion is briefly removing your foot from the brake pedal.)  Also, it appears as if I really seriously have drunk all of the Diet Dr. Pepper that was in the fridge, reducing me to free Diet Coke for lunch today.  Perhaps with a free Starbucks coffee chaser?

To the batcave! Er...bridge.

Last week Amy's mom visited.  So we went here.  Voluntarily!

We did not realize that we would require supplies to stand around for 20 minutes watching bats fly.

Or that we should have dressed for picking up men!  Bats--the most romantic of the flying mammals!

Then the bats came out.

Lots and LOTS of bats!

Bats that peed on Amy's arm!

Oooh, they are spooky after dark!

 

I foolishly assumed that there was no need for insect repellent in a place surrounded by 1.5 million (seriously one and a half million!) bats.  Did I get a mosquito bite?  No, I got five.  Thanks a lot, bats.  I was actually a little concerned that they may dive-bomb me due to the mosquito swarm that had apparently enveloped me.

In unrelated news, I started the temp gig today.  Data entry, no problem.  The only thing is, the desk is so tall that in order to get in proper typing position, I have to have the chair so high up that my feet don't touch the floor.  Tres professional.  Also, I was told that I could bring my i-pod or mp3 player since the entering of the numbers gets a bit tedious.  But my mp3 player is broken, so tomorrow I will be kicking it old school with a discman!  A discman with a busted cover thanks to a treadmill incident.  Corporate ladder, here I come!

Whoa!

I've signed up with two temp agencies since moving here, one of which I never heard anything from, the other of which I did an interview with two weeks ago and typing/computer tests for last week.  And then I didn't hear anything.  So today we were at the outlet mall in San Marcos and we went into the Bible Family Outlet so my mom could buy some get well cards.  While we were there, the second temp agency called with a data entry job that lasts all next week!  (Data entry is my favorite form of temp work since it's normally pretty mindless and doesn't involve receptionisting, which I hate.  Not only does receptionisting require you to be chipper, you also need to remember the name of the person calling long enough to tell the person to whom you're passing the call, a task well beyond my powers of retention.)  I told everyone about the temp assignment and Amy's mom (visiting from Wisconsin--more on that later) said "hey, maybe Amy will get a job while we're here too!"  Not five minutes later, Amy's phone rang, a principal calling to arrange an interview for Monday.  Seriously!  We started looking around for available men, thinking maybe this place was one-stop shopping, but maybe that was getting a little bit greedy.  By the time we got home, we half-expected to find Ed McMahon waiting on our porch with a giant novelty check.  So if you're down on your luck, you may want to consider a visit to your nearest Bible retailer.  It couldn't hurt.

Routine

People are always asking me, "how's Austin, Lori?" and I am constantly having no answer for them.  Because I am still unemployed and therefore rarely leave the house.  For one thing, there's no money to do anything and for another thing, one of the few privileges of unemployment is the freedom to wear a big t-shirt and sweatshorts and sit around with your hair up in a towel for two hours after your shower.  When we were unemployed back in the fall/winter of 2001, my then-roommate Vicki and I even named the messy half-bun hairstyle "the unemployment" due to the frequency with which we wore it.  So in answer to the "how's Austin" question, I present this sample day in the life, Monday to the best of my recollection:

8:00 - Wake up.  Look at clock.  Go back to sleep.

9:30 - Wake up again.

9:35 - Hear dog bark.  Hear Amy shush dog.  Appreciate that and feel badly that the dog should be shushed when I've been awake for 5 minutes now.

9:36 - Shuffle to kitchen.  Do not make eye contact with Amy, much less attempt the talking with the words.

9:37 - Shake hands with Feta.  Wash hands.

9:38 - Enjoy delicious breakfast while watching Regis & Kelly or Ellen, depending on relative guest quality.  Check email and job sites.

9:45 - Call temp agency to confirm availability.

10:00 - The Price is Right.  Wonder whether to be concerned about watching show whose advertisers are primarily targeting the over-70 set.  Discuss with Amy now that it is a decent hour of the day.

11:00 - Shower.

11:15 - Catch the rest of What Not to Wear.  (Yes, we have cable which didn't seem like an extravagance back when we were new here and still optimistically assumed that we'd have jobs any minute.  So lay off.)  Try to read some of The Beautiful and the Damned, which really doesn't work so well as the other books from that library trip as a "while watching TV" sort of book.

12:00 - Watch first episode of Ten Years Younger.  Exchange commentary with Amy also watching in next room.

12:30 - Second episode of Ten Years Younger.  Also, lunch!

1:00 - PASSIONS!!!!!

2:00 - The HGTV afternoon marathon kicks off.  Watch.  Read.  Check email, blogs, job sites.  Take hair out of towel and put in ponytail.  Put on clothes not involving elastic waistbands.  Go to Target AND grocery store!  Watch more HGTV.

5:00 - Jeopardy!

5:30 - Reruns of Will & Grace or Dharma & Greg, depending on which episodes we've seen less recently.  Read.  For dinner, reheat portion of bottomless stir-fry.  For the fourth night in a row!  Yum!

6:30 - Wheel of Fortune.  Amy and I have signed up for Best Friends Week and are pretty sure that this is how we will make our living.  So this is not just TV-watching-time, it's our training.  Shut up, we take it seriously.

7:00 - Treasure Hunters, our new reality show addiction.  This is last week's episode, which we missed.  Coming on next is the new episode...

8:00 - ...which we have to tape since it's dog-walking time.  Take dogs for 2 mile walk.  Discourage dogs from chasing cats/eating poop/laying down in middle of road.

8:35 - Return, watch end of Supernanny since Treasure Hunters is still taping.  Judge parents harshly.

9:00 - Realize that How to Get the Guy is NOT ON.  AGAIN.  Call ABC people bastards.  Flip between special UK edition Supernanny (7 year-old cusses at mom in a British accent!) and special NY edition of House Hunters (The apartments cost a lot!  And they're small!)   It is hosted by Star Jones-Reynolds and is absolutely as good a gig as the View!  OK?!?  (Is it just me or does her head look really enormous since she lost the weight?)

10:00 - Pop in Treasure Hunters tape.  Exclaim repeatedly over how annoying Kayte and the skinny blonde genius are.  Feel badly about being disappointed that the ambulance in the preview was only needed for a torn muscle.  Check spelling of schadenfreude for pending blog entry.

10:40 - Reruns of Sex & the City or Will & Grace until bedtime.  More reading.

What you don't see represented here was the obsessing over a phone call from the people with whom I had two phone interviews last week and who said they'd call by Tuesday to let me know whether I'd be scheduled for an in-person interview or...not.  (Also obsessive checking of email since I assumed that bad news would be emailed.)  It's now Wednesday night and I never heard anything despite the fact that they strongly implied that they'd let me know either way.  Bastards!  (Unless you're just way behind schedule, job people, in which case, call me!)  So that's how Austin is.  Any questions?

Alert the ASPCA!

Local puppy tragically starves to death next to empty bowl

Wait...

...nevermind.

To sleep, perchance to encounter tacky publicity whores

So I had this dream where my friend Angela and I are throwing a slumber party in a beautiful home with a huge kitchen (I assume that this was dream one of our houses, but I'm not sure whose.)  Among the guests, one Paris Hilton.  (Why, subconscious?  Why Paris Hilton?)  I'm getting out the brownies to serve our guests and decide, wouldn't it be fun to get out the frosting, ice cream, and Reddi Whip that are in this fridge and then everyone could put whatever they want on their brownies?  So fun!  That is, until Angela reminds me in hushed tones that those are for the lunch party that we're having tomorrow and not all of these people are invited to it, so keep it quiet, ok?  My eyes immediately go to Paris, wondering whether she's made the cut for the lunch party or not.  And if not, will it be my responsibility to give her the boot before our lunch guests arrive?  And isn't it incredibly tacky of us to invite people to a slumber party who are not only not invited to but also not even supposed to know about a party in the same house the very next afternoon?  Is it possible that I could be even tackier than Paris Hilton?!?

Of course this was nowhere near as fun as my all time favorite dream in which I am engaged to Mr. Jakob Dylan.  We're getting ready to go meet his dad, which will be the first time I'll meet my illustrious father-in-law-to-be.  Jakob is all "Why are you so nervous?  He's just my dad!"  And I'm all "He's BOB DYLAN!"  And then I woke up really happy.  The end.