1. Being woken up by my alarm. For the past few weeks, I have awoken to Shannon, calling me to do yoga. However, last night she stayed up until 2:30 a.m., and therefore did not have a voice this morning. So instead of my current (awesome) 90210 cell phone ring followed by Shannon’s lovely voice, my stupid alarm was the first thing I heard.

2. Snopes. There is apparently a girl in Egypt who was born with a frigging extra head. And, sure enough! The scariest picture I’ve seen in awhile. Before my coffee, to boot!

3. This weather. I am a pretty accepting person when it comes to the weather, really and truly. Well, on the cold side of the spectrum. I hate the humid summer crap. But today, it is REALLY COLD out of nowhere! Like, bone chillingly so! I’m just not in the mood, and it is irritating my skin.

4. The absence of Coffee Cart Man. All I wanted to do was enjoy my 10 a.m. ritual — go outside with Babz, get my coffee, and smoke a cigarette. But instead, my world was thrown into disarray. There was a man with a cart, but the cart was in a weird spot, and the man was not Coffee Cart Man. I had to explain how I wanted my coffee, and it made me sad, thinking of the things we take for granted, like a guy who gives you your coffee already prepared how you want it.

5. The 5 minutes in which I thought I’d broken the company printer. I never use it, but certainly thought I was capable of making a few copies without turning it into An Event. But it got stuck, and I pressed every button on the machine before seeking help from my friend Frank, who came over and saved the world.

6. The realization that I promised my brother’s girlfriend Amy that I’d go to a Butt ‘n Gutt class with her on Thursday. Way too exhausting to think about on a morning that I couldn’t even deal with Priscilla.

7. Mad plans. Besides the Butt ‘n Gutt class, there is the obvious bar/karaoke extravaganza on Friday, plus Carly texting me about Stingers on Wednesday, Shannon’s family party on Saturday, and Babz’s invitation to go to a Skid Row concert on Sunday. All awesome things, to be sure, but I’m definitely going to have to do the mental equivalent of searching for loose change, since I am energetically impoverished.

8. Wondering why it is “impoverished,” when the word is “poverty,” so wouldn’t it just be “poverished?” I’m sure there is a logical explanation for all of this, but right now it is blowing my mind.

9. The realization that filling out an application at one video store isn’t the same thing as actually getting a job, and I still have to go do that.

10. Shannon’s confession about killing a bird with her car. She was admiring its beauty as it flew into her windshield and crashed, and when she looked behind her, there was, in her words, a snow globe effect with feathers flying everywhere! She said it was beautiful and horrifying at the same time, but I think it mostly just sounds horrifying.

© April 25, 2005