Bah, I guess I still love 'em.

Even though they are a bunch of stinkers.

The damage to the blinds was apparently done when the big bad scary DHL delivery-man was delivering my new iPod. I was pleased with Apple's quick service--I sent the busted one in and three days later I had one that looks brand-spankin' new and works a whole lot better than my old one did. Flippin' thweet.

All at the cost of two sets of blinds, though.

Darlings. Really.

I've been a reading fool lately. I've read six novels since January 1st, plus about half of three other books. I've also decided I'm tired of being afraid of failure, and I'm going to start more seriously pursuing my dream of being a real live photographer, who makes a living at it (as opposed to a fake dead one who doesn't make money, I guess...har har). This decision has been precipitated by some work stress and the realization that I am just not happy doing the 8:30-5 (plus unpredictable and unpaid overtime) grind. It's kind of hard, and I don't really want to talk about it much because I feel up in the air about a lot of things still. Changes are in the works, but on the off chance that I'll get Dooced, I'm not gonna blather about my job here. It's hard not to, though, when it takes up so much of me from time to time. And not just while I'm there, physically at my desk. It takes me up at home, too.

Oh, before I forget. M sent me a link to this site, and I just about peed myself laughing. I don't imagine it will strike everyone's funny bone with as sharp a roundhouse kick as it struck mine, but god DANG did I laugh like an epileptic platypus when I read it.

Today I participated in a survey for the animal-rescue group I do stuff for. (Ruby is still with us, btw, and the vet gave her a clean bill of health, woo hoo!--and here is Steve giving her the what-for.) Basically, we contract ourselves out to do surveys at places and in exchange for our valuable input, they give us money for vet bills for the animals in our care. So to earn $40 for this group, I went and sniffed smells for a food-flavorings company and rated the smells as to how much I liked them.

I don't know if any of you have ever done this, but I recommend against it.

We were originally told we'd be sniffing chicken flavorings, which I was a little iffy about (being a vegetarian) but since it was for a good cause (vet bills for death-row dogs) I decided to do it. Then we were told it would be fruit flavorings, instead.

But when I got there, the smells I sniffed were more along the lines of, let's say,

• old leaky batteries left on the dash of a car parked in an Arizona parking lot for three days in August with the windows left up
• burning mold
• that effervescent farty smell that leaks up from the drain in my grandma's basement floor
• the smell in a room after someone tries to clean vomit off a tile floor with Clorox

...you get the idea. Everything I've eaten today has had a patina of these smells about it. The smells got into my coat. I think they stuck in my craw. If I have one.

So, the moral of the story is,

uh...

like, chemicals stink, and you should eat natural foods that don't have godawful "flavor smells" added to them.

It's cold.