Having a little bit of an anxiety attack here; I'm starting a new job on Monday, exactly two weeks after I had my interview.  I have an appointment in a couple of hours to go get drug tested.

An hour commute but it's by train, so no big deal.  It'll be nice to be downtown again, and I'm only a few blocks from my last job so I can occasionally grab coffee with my friends there.  Really good money (the most I've ever made), an attractive workspace (yes, it's a cubicle but I rather like cubicles), and a boss who seems very nice. 

I think I'm freaking out because it all happened so fast, and because I have so much to do to get ready.  I have to unpack and wash all my work clothes, go get my drug screening done, buy some stockings and a train pass, and get a manicure (okay, that last one isn't a necessity, but I want to make a good impression when I show up Monday morning; I may even wear makeup).

While the vast majority of white people that I know are fine, let me point out that I have to deal with stupid crap from white people on pretty much a daily basis.  Most of it comes in the form of backhanded compliments (is it really all that surprising that a person of color could be "intelligent"/"hard-working"/"well-spoken"/"mannerly" and - my personal favorite - "cosmopolitan"?) but there are the insensitive questions/comments and a few outright racist remarks (which they feel comfortable saying right to my face because "of course I don't mean you; you're not that ethnic".  Yes, that's a direct quote).

Now, to be honest, I let most of it just roll off my back because it's not good for either my blood pressure or my state of mind to get worked up every time it happens.  But d*mmit, you do NOT get to tell me that I ought to be okay with it.  I am not okay with it and I never will be okay with it because once I become okay with it, you'll decide you have carte blanche to do it all the time... and I don't need the aneurysm. 

Let me let you in on a little secret about us non-white types: the vast majority doesn't care what you think of us.  Really, we don't.  You can hate us to your heart's content and as long as you don't make our lives any more difficult than they already are, we won't even bother to feign interest.  But every thought that comes into your head does not have to come out of your mouth.  No, really; it doesn't.  Keep your thoughts to yourself (it's called "manners") and we'll get along just fine.

*dismounts soapbox*

My neighbor's puppy decided it would be fun to have himself a nice little 3-hour bark-a-thon.  Starting at 3:45 this morning. 

Turning my iPod up loud enough to drown him out would have meant turning it up loud enough to keep me from going back to sleep.  I am currently running on caffeine and fumes.  FML.

...Then just imagine what Jennifer Petkov would have been like if she hadn't spawned.  The Antichrist would be scared of her.

Petkov gained infamy this week when it was learned that she and her poor excuse for a husband (parenthood didn't strengthen his moral fiber much, either) had been tormenting a dying seven-year-old.  And just in case you didn't get the point that this woman's photo should appear in the dictionary beside the word "sociopath", she's now been arrested for trying to mow down another neighbor with her car.

The whole sordid story is here.

I'll just be standing over there, being proud of my flawed, childfree character.

I have never heard of anyone's junk spontaneously falling off, not even in the tabloids.

Yours is still there, I promise; you do not have to keep checking it.

I'm employed!  Only for six months, but hey… I'm not complaining! 

Part of me wants to curl up in bed and never come out.

Part of me wants to go outside and sit in the sun until I pass out (it's a hot, humid day).

Part of me still wants to drive my car into oblivion.



All of me wants to stop feeling the way I'm feeling right now. 

… taking a pair of jeans you couldn't even pull up over your hips in December, and putting them on without having to unfasten them first. 

I can't decide whether Gloria Allred embarrasses me more as a feminist, as a woman, or as a decent human being. 

Over the weekend, we got buried under two feet of snow. Another one to two feet will be coming overnight.

I'M OVER WINTER NOW, OKAY??? CUT IT OUT!