everything that's good right now
Once upon a time, I actually wrote in this blog. Let's see if I remember how to do that.

Since our schedules coincided for once and the pass was clear, M. came to visit. He left after work Monday night and got here about 3:30 a.m. While the swing shift has made us both night owls, I think driving over the pass at night is psycho. But he didn't hit an elk or break down or die, so whatever. At 4:30, we went to bed.

At 7:30, the phone rang, and upon answering it in a haze of disgruntlement, I was greeted with the charming beep! beep! beep! that announces one of the calls I periodically get from people who are too dumb to realize there is no fax machine at this number. Unfortunately, they are also too dumb to give up after one try, which is why they called again.

At 8.
At 8:30.
At 9:30.

At 10 M. knocked on my door and I grunted at him and we gave up on sleep.

Instead we devoted ourselves to a day of rampant consumerism in which we hit Old Navy, Circuit City, Costco, Best Buy, Powell's and Everyday Music. I joined the 21st century and bought a DVD player and the first season of Angel. He bought a new jacket and an old dictionary of American slang containing lots of off-color terms that you laugh at and then feel guilty. While we were perusing the "books on books" section, he also discovered one called Stet, which I will have to purchase at a later date, written by an editor about her career. It sent us on a wild goose chase for the dictionary of journalism terms so we could look up the origin of "stet." We did not find said dictionary, but because I am smart, I instead consulted an etyomology dictionary of American English. It informed me that stet, used by editors to indicate they have changed their minds about things they wanted you to change, is descended from the Latin for "to let stand."* M., however, did not appreciate my brilliance because he was distracted by the unsavory cultural terminology in the archaic book of slang he was about to buy.

Then we returned home, where we devoted the rest of the evening to eating Ben and Jerry's and testing my new DVD player with Angel and Sports Night.

At 10:30 a.m., those who believe fax machines are instruments of torture resumed their wicked ways. We got up; we ate Cheerios; we drove around; we visited the office; we went to the store. Then we tried out a mac 'n' cheese recipe and did some dishes, and I suddenly remembered that those two chores are much less tiresome when two people are sharing the load. Which heightens my belief that I may be willing to sacrifice having the bathroom all to myself for a roommate who would occasionally cook and clean and watch bad TV with me.

Then he went home, and now it's very quiet here, and I have only tea and rice crackers and a new DVD player to keep me company.

Addendum: Isn't it a little odd that Blogger's spell-checker doesn't know the word "blog"?

*This vocabulary lesson brought to you by the chronically geeky and grammatically obsessed.

Song: Beth Orton, Central Reservation

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