TGIF

Good things happen on Friday (at least you hope they do). Today, I finally put together my brand new desk with a little help from my boss. It came in a box about a week ago, but I didn’t get to it till today. I spent pretty much my entire morning squinting at instructions and diagrams, and my right hand is raw from twisting that screwdriver (now I know why the delivery guy was laughing at me when I told him I was going to assemble it sans power tools), but damn it was worth it! It’s kind of like being upgraded from the kiddie table to the grown-up table. It’s a foot longer, it’s deeper, taller, twice as many drawers (that’s 4!) and the pressboard has a lovely faux wood veneer as opposed to that depressing flat gray veneer on my old one. Plus, this gave me an excellent opportunity to rearrange my office, so now even though I have a bigger desk my tiny office actually feels bigger! I know probably no one but me cares about this, but when you spend as much of your life in your office as I do this is a pretty exciting thing. (Very, very sad. I know.) I was hoping I would get my recently departed co-worker’s office and desk (don’t worry, she didn’t die, she just got fired), but sadly that’s going to my neighbor.

Also, I won the most creative costume award at our office Halloween lunch party for my Ladybug costume. Not only did I get free pizza for lunch, I won the prize of one free hour off from work. If that weren’t enough good stuff for the Friday before Halloween, I went to the Rite Aid and got fun nail polish and glitter to go with my costume, and painted my nails at my desk. I’ve actually avoided doing any real work today.

I’m heading out to Hollywood to go see Les Claypool at the Avalon tonight. I want to put on my my my my my boogie shoes with you, yeah!

I'm a quitter!

Those of you who know me are aware that I’ve had a sordid love affair with cigarettes for about eight years now. And now I’ve decided eight is enough. The weird thing is I kind of decided to quit on a whim. I’d been thinking about it for a while, since most of the smokers I know quit in the past couple years. Then, last Wednesday morning when I was out of smokes I thought, what would happen if I just didn’t buy anymore? I haven’t had one drag since then. I won’t say it’s been easy, the quit has its ups, its downs, and times when I think whatever sanity I had left will never return.

Fortunately there’s a lot of support out there for quitters. I’ve also learned that breaking an addiction is an excellent way to gain some perspective on yourself and your personal demons.

According to my Quitmeter I’ve been smoke free for 1 week, 17 hours, and 26 minutes. I’ve avoided smoking 30 cigarettes and saved almost $6. It’s a start. According to statistics most smokers attempt quitting three times before they’re successful, and those who use nicotine replacement or other smoking cessation aids are twice as likely to stay quit. Seeing as this is my first serious attempt to quit and I’m not using anything other than straws and deep breaths to combat the cravings, let’s all hope I beat the odds.

Rain and Dogs...who knew

WTF? Since the rainy season has come to Los Angeles we’ve discovered that our dogs are now, for some inexplicable reason, terrified of water. This has become a HUGE problem since they are now afraid to use the sandy patch in the yard to do their bathroom business like they used to. I realized this when Sadie, a perfectly well housebroken dog, peed on the rug Sunday night. Sadly, their sudden inability to eliminate normally outside led to a very unfortunate incident yesterday. My roommates came home from work to discover that Dexter had escaped from his kennel crate, and left four, that’s right FOUR, nice “presents” around the house, and a big puddle right inside the door. How a dog could shit that much in one day is beyond me. He must have been holding it for a really long time. Oh, and Sadie actually pooped in her crate. What is wrong with these dogs!?!

I’ve been taking advantage of flex time at work, so fortunately I was able to take the time this morning to make sure we didn’t have a repeat incident today. Dexter actually pottied on the sand this morning! Yay! (Isn’t it pathetic what we dog owners will get excited about?) I had to take him for a walk to get him to go #2, but it was well worth it knowing no one would have to come home to another disaster. It still sucks, because if I’m going to be going to work late and staying late, I’d really rather be sleeping in rather than getting up at the usual 6am to make sure the dog does his business before I leave. These pups better get over this fast or I may lose it.

Wow, another useless blog...

Now that I have a desk job and spend most of my time rotting away behind a computer monitor, I've been reading a lot of blogs. Some are interesting, most...shall we say "meh"? I do enjoy catching up on what friends are doing in other parts of the world now that I live in a strange new land called "Los Angeles". It's smoggy, crowded, and shallow (the natives, that is). I love it! So here I will randomly post, probably not very often and I don't promise anything will be worth reading... Blogworld here I come!