Inconsistencies
I'm in the mood to rant today and I thought I'd share.

So, I get home from the gym and am pretty tired. All I want to do is grab a bowl of cereal, jump online, check email, do some writing and relax.

However, there is a week's worth of laundry sitting in my bathroom that needs to be done. Pretty much any other chore can be put off, but laundry is a must. If you don't do it, you have to either wear dirty clothes (which a friend of mine did in college...he'd take a dryer sheet and rub it all over his dirty clothes before heading to class) or buy new ones.

So I psych myself up for laundry. Now, I don't know what your laundry situation is, but we live on the second floor of a two family house. The washer and dryer are in the basement and we can use them for free. The only problem is that in order to get to the basement from the second floor you have to actually leave the house and walk outside and around the house to these old-fashioned cellar door type things in the driveway. Real nice.

Ordinarily, I honestly don't mind it. Sure it sucks to be tramping around outside with a hamper full of dirty (or clean depending on which direction you're walking) clothes. Sometimes I feel like the people who're driving by are secretly judging me and my dirty clothes. They are mocking me and my basement washer and dryer. At home, they have lovely machines in the laundry room off the kitchen and they joyfully load them up every day of the week just because they can.

But back to the story. Today, I really didn't want to put on my winter jacket and mittens for the trip around the house with my hamper of dirties. But I did. I psyched myself up by telling myself that the laundry will be done by the afternoon and then I can enjoy myself tonight and tomorrow. I put on my sweats, my fleece, and my boots, but because I was feeling rather crazy, I decided to eighty-six the mittens. I'm from Minnesota. I can do without mittens for the trip to the basement.

So I lug the laundry downstairs, out the front door and around the house where I find that the path to the basement doors has not been shoveled. No matter. I'm wearing boots. I slug through the snow. I get to the doors. I pull on them. And nothing happens. They are not moving.

Thinking that perhaps it is just the weight of the snow keeping then down, I pull my mittenless hands into the arms of my fleece and start to wipe the snow away before I try again. The problem? The doors are frozen shut.

And now comes the point of the title of this entry. After having to psych myself up for the task of doing laundry, I'm inconsistently furious at not being able to do the chore I hate so much. If only I could get in there and take care of this laundry, I think, life would be heavenly. Clean clothes are so close and yet so far away.

After pulling on the doors for about five minutes to no avail, I gave up and am now upstairs, back online, trying to relax. Yet, the laundry downstairs is calling to me...mocking me...much like the drivers mock me with their off-the-kitchen-laundry rooms at home. All I can think about is this laundry and how it mocks me! Mock away dirty laundry! But I'll get you another day!

Joker
I feel like I've become way too serious and contemplative on this thing, so today: a joke.

Question: What do you get when you cross a bull dog with a Shih Tzu?




Answer: A Bull Shiht.

Work
I was thinking tonight about work. The reason is because we're about to get another dumping of snow and that will give us a snow day tomorrow. Clapping my hands together with glee the thought occurred to me, "Why do I hate work so much?" I have a pretty decent job, compared to some. The pay isn't great, but it's certainly not the worst, either. The people I work with are okay. The office dynamic is fine. Why do I hate going to that place every day?

And then, tonight, it hit me: I hate work because I'm expected to show up everday without fail and...well...WORK.

Don't get me wrong. If I were independently wealthy, I'd still probably work, or maybe go to school and get my doctorate or something cool like that. But I'd do something, that's the point. What I don't like is knowing that I HAVE to be there. HAVE TO. WITHOUT FAIL. And it bites.

So yeah. Nothing profound, just an observation that I thought I'd share. Stay warm out there, wherever you are.

Stupid Teeth Update
Get this. I just got off the phone with Aetna and they tell me that for an in-network surgeon, my deductable is $750.00. Much better, right? Yeah! And on top of that, they will pay 80% of the balance (about $250.00), so that means that when all is said and done, I will have paid eight hundred dollars and they will have paid two hundred. Can someone explain to me again the point of insurance? Because I'm a little confused. I thought it was supposed to be a good thing...? I thought it was supposed to help you pay for medical procedures you can't afford. I guess not. Bastards.

This is crap!
So, I know I've been complaining lately about having to get my Wisdom teeth out, but recently I started to think, once they're gone I don't ever have to worry about them again. And maybe, just maybe, my headaches will stop. It might just be worth it.

Of course, getting a little bit excited at the prospect of having this procedure over and done with has led to the fates mocking me once again.

I just received a call from the oral surgeon who tells me that my dental insurance will only cover the surgery if my medical insurance doesn't and my medical insurance will only cover it if my dental insurance doesn't. Yes. You read that right. They are both claiming to be the secondary insurance provider. Isn't that fantastic?

And get this! If I take my chances and have the surgery done, my deductable is fifteen hundred dollars! That's like car insurance! Who has a fifteen HUNDRED DOLLAR deductable?? Who?

Sigh. So, I canceled the appointment and now I have to start the phone calls to the insurance companies in order to find out how to fix the problem.

Grrr.

A Mathematical Infant
How does a person add 507.45 to 445.81 and get 1381.22? I wish I knew. Unfortunately, I must admit that I successfully added the first two numbers and came up with the third one this weekend. And I even used a calculator to do it. Talk about screwing up the checkbook, eh? Good thing I was a history major and not a math major.

Elvis and Michael, Sittin' in a Tree
I just finished watching Once Upon a Time in Mexico and I have to comment on how much I loved it. Johnny Depp was...it's hard to find words here...incomparable. He was everything the part called for and more. He rocked.

And Antonio Banderas was wonderful as the nameless mariachi out for revenge. Unfortunately, he looked for much of the movie like the love child Elvis and Michael Jackson might have had and that distracted me.

Still, overall, it was a fantastic movie and you should all go rent it now...unless of course you already have. In which case you should go rent it again. It's just. That. Good.

Congratulations and Happy Birthday!
My best friend, Joy, had a baby!! The newest addition to their little family was a girl, and has been named Katherine Belle. Mom and baby are doing fine.

In addition, today is Joy's birthday. What a wonderful gift, eh? A new baby.

I've decided that I'm going to be this baby's fairy god-mother. The duties of a fairy god-mother are strenuous, but I feel that I'm up to the task. Self-appointed fairy-godmother. That's me. So get ready, Little Kate. Get ready for a lifetime of awesome gifts, surprise visits, helpful hints, and above all, complete and total adoration.

Radio Gig
So, one of the comments I got recently was a question about when/where I'll be on the radio. The answer to where is 91.5 WNYE, which is a local NPR station out of Brooklyn. Monday through Friday they have phenomenal morning shows (7:10am-9:00am). Blanco and Blanco are on Monday and Tuesday and James David Jacobs is on Fridays with a show called "Call of the Mountain" (it's my personal favorite).

JDJ also has a Sunday evening radio show called "Sounds Like" that airs at 5pm and this is program that I will be on.

When is a much more difficult question to answer. The show is still in the beginning stages. As we get closer I'll keep you all posted.

I hope that answered the question and I hope you all start tuning in! It's good stuff.

Ass Clown
This man must be stopped. Please click on this link and then send an email to President Bush. Do it for yourself. Or, if you're not a woman, do it for your mother, your sister, your aunt, your grandmother, your daughter, or your wife or girlfriend.

It is completely unacceptable that we live in a society in which Viagra is covered under most insurance policies, but the birth-control pill is not.