Today, I am one draggin' ass woman! I was home by 1:30 and in bed by 2 and up this morning at 10 to 7. Not too shabby. I am rather tired but last night at the Pink was totally worth it!

It's funny to me how we know so many details about each others' lives but have not actually met. Ajay has left and it was at his going away event that I met him for the first time and that was to say goodbye. Does that make any sense? I don't know about the rest of you, but I think what we really need is an E-Peeps Karaoke Night! Let's get smashed and all sing really badly to Abba and old Beatles tunes! We can make score signs and hold them up after every performance! We totally should!

Adieu for now, sweet peeps.

Is there anything better than coming home from a walk and finding your mother in a panic because the phone isn't working and your father is MIA? In fact he had gone to the hospital at around 11:30AM for some tests and by 8PM still wasn't home and hadn't called. So, my mother gets al quasi- frantic and starts snapping at me, which I know she's doing because she's worried, and calls the emergency room- but of the wrong hospital! Discovering her error, she calls the correct hospital but no one in Emergency would pick up so she calls Admissions instead. They inform her that he has infact been admitted and has only just gotten a bed, to which she asks, "Why didn't anyone call me?" Off we go to the hospital, again, she's snapping at me as I'm driving the Tardis to the hospital to see my father and I'm snapping right back. I hate when she critiques my driving! I actually said, "Enough, Hyacinth!" That made her laugh but I made myself clear. (For those of you that don't know, "Hyacinth" is a character from a Brit. Com. called "Keeping Up Appearances" and does this annoying thing when her husband is driving.) Anyway, we arrive at the Emergency room and the nurse directs us to my father. She laughs because she quipped about he had just called home and was stunned that he had gotten the machine. I inform her it's because we were already on our way. So, we went to see him. My mother calmed down. He actually looked really good, although he was hooked up to an I.V. They were keeping him overnight because he has diverticulitis and his blood pressure was up. Oi! Parents! Off to lunch. More later, I'm sure.

ARGH! I have the worst luck in the world with, of all things, pantyhose! Men are so damn lucky that they don't have to deal with the blasted things! Every day that I have to wear them to work I inevitably get holes and at least one run in them and it sucks because they aren't exactly cheap! And they're hot and miserable and just horrible and a necessary evil! Blast! I just put yet another hole in a brand new pair! Bastard Bitch!

When I was in highschool I had a wannbe member of the Ghastapo for an English Teacher. I had a love- hate relationship with him- he loved to torment me and I hated that he knew every single button to push to get me to start fighting with him. Eventually, I smartened up and learned it was just much better for my piece of mind to just ignore him and would draw or write through class. Really what it was was that he just loved to push his students that he felt were talented. I learned to appreciate him much, much more once I was out of highschool. He was a good teacher in the respect that I didn't realize what I had actually learned until later. Every once in a while, post highschool, a bell would go off and I would go. "Oooh, so that's what he was talking about!"

Mr. Porter came up with some gems, that 12 years later (I can't believe I just wrote that! God, I feel OLD!) I can still recall with alarming rapidity. The L.A. Five- a list of phrases, grammatical gems- if you will, that he said all people from Lackawanna said. I have worked damn hard to virtually eradicate all traces of these from my speech! I am loathe to admit that they do pop in every now and again. And they are:
1. It don't
2. You's guys
3. of seen
4. of took
5. have went

The thing about these little, innocuous phrases is that they are so insidious, they're out of your mouth before you even realize what you've said!

But Mr. Porter's L.A. Five are not why I'm posting today. It was something else that he taught us all, that many of his former students, my brother included, can still recite. At the time, it was just a pain in the ass but once I got past the annoyance of it all, and really listened to what was being said that I understood it.
It was a quote from Confucious.

"If Language is not correct, then what is said is not meant. If what is said is not meant then morals and art deteriorate. If morals and art deteriorate, then justice goes astray. If just goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence, there must be no doubt about what is said. This matters above everything."

I'm just a big, black box right now. Hmmm... I'm definitely going to have to work on changing that. At first I thought it was funny, and it was SOMETHING, but I'm so technologically inept, especially compared to most e-strippers, that I just said, "Fudge- it", and convinced myself it made me seem like an enigma. Now, I feel that I'm just a black box and what is more boring than that?