2002-01-30 - 5:16 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: Theme from "The Pink Panther"

Argh. Why do I have to be at my most productive and most in a writing mood when I'm supposed to be going to bed?

Today I went downtown to get my legs and brows waxed. Damn hair just keeps growing, y'know.

When she finished my brows, the "aesthetician" (I guess "waxer" is not elegant enough for this salon) smoothed my upper lip and said, "Do you want to wax this?"

Sigh. Way to make my day, telling me I have a mustache. Damn, my husband never even noticed! You can't see it unless you're two inches away!

I said to hell with it, go ahead, and I think I regret that. It hurt like all hell and now I have a little PINK mustache.

That, plus the pain of ripping hairs out all over my legs, plus a FIFTY FUCKING DOLLAR ticket for my expired (12/01) Virginia inspection ticket put me in a slightly bad mood this evening.

"FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS! IS THAT EVEN IN THEIR *JURISDICTION*?! AND I AM SO GODDAMN TIRED OF THE SOCIAL INACCEPTABILITY OF THESE HAIRS I'VE GOT! GODDAMN IT! I'M HAIRY! SO FUCKING WHAT?!?!?!"

Sometimes I really wish I were Asian, or a natural blond. Now that I will be forever after obsessed with my upper lip, I'm thinking about bleaching instead. Much less painful. Of course, it's all my fault for buying into society's ideas about beauty.

Maybe when I get old and wrinkly and no makeup or clothes can make me look good anymore, I will let it all grow out and run around scaring people with it. "OH my GOD, look at that OLD LADY with the HAIRY PITS! Oh my GOD, and her LEGS! Who let her out in public!?" And I will cackle maniacally. And I will smile a frightening toothless smile at them, because I am damn tired of all this brushing and flossing too.

Somewhere on I (EYE) street between 12th and 15th, I saw a very, very odd sight.

There was a guy and a girl in their 20s, plus about ten kids around five years old or so. All about the same height. Guy at the front, girl at the rear, kids in single file in between. The adults were holding a long thin rope between them, with short ropes attached to it, perpendicularly, at regular intervals. At the other end of the short rope, each kid was attached at the wrist. Like a chain gang, but attached at the wrists instead of the ankles.

The really weird part was that everyone involved was black, so it conjured up some really unpleasant connotations. How utterly bizarre. Is this some kind of weird daycare field trip? If so, why do they only have two employees? And isn't there a better way to keep track of ten kids than by roping them together?

It was freakin' disturbing, I'll tell you that.

Since my interest in politics is relatively new, I never realized until last night that not ALL of Congress is there at the State of the Union speech. They rattled off a list of Congresspeople who stayed somewhere else, so that in the event of a catastrophe, we at least still have a few politicians to carry on the dirty work.

Poindexter, a staunch conservative and ex-Californian, commented on last night's list: "Nothing bad better happen, because Barbara Boxer is waiting outside to take over the government."

Well, judging from my reader mail, half of you feel bad for me because of yesterday's entry. The other half, god bless you, laughed your asses off.

I mean, if you look at the archive, the title of my entry was "When Bellies Attack". It is pretty funny, once it's over. I can't explain why it's funny, but it is. My family makes fun of me all the time and I laugh. Also, I have a couple of friends who have the same problem, and we sit around and tell belly trouble war stories.

Just in case you're still feeling bad for me, I'd like to clarify a few things:

- This is not a daily occurrence. If life is going fine, I'll go for weeks or, I think, even months on end without having troubles. It's only a problem when I get nervous or excited or a little stressed. Now you know why I like to keep my life so boring. ;) On the occasions when it's not so boring, I have to make allowances for this problem. But I wouldn't say I "suffer".

- It's usually not particularly painful. It's just that it's inconvenient, and when it happens, I can't put it off to a more opportune time.

- Aside from some occasionally grumpy moments (such as when I wrote the entry), I'm not really all that mad about it. Most of the time I just deal with it, complain a bit, and move on.

I feel particularly bad for people whose belly troubles are more of a regular occurrence. That's gotta suck.

OK, so, guess what?

Poindexter has an interview!!!!!!

Back just before Christmas, he got a short e-mail saying "thanks for the excellent resume; everybody's out of the office so please bear with me until after Christmas."

Well, "after Christmas" came and nothing happened, so we forgot about it (well, I did; I don't know about Poindexter).

Then suddenly yesterday, he got a call from another person in that company, and they arranged an interview all in one day! It'll be after we get back from our vacation in San Jose. The company is VERY conveniently located in Center City in Philadelphia, and they seem to be rather desperate for people. The work they seem to do is similar to what Poindexter did in San Jose, which he really enjoyed.

Keep your fingers crossed!!

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