So I was going to take the day off from posting today, but last night it was brought to my attention that some of you don't know who Paul Frank is.

This is sick and wrong.

So I put some links that had been lost when I changed templates back up, and added some more - some of these artists are friends I went to school with or know currently and some are more well-known artists that have inspired me. I was going to separate them out but meh - they all have influenced my own stuff at one point or another, so they all get lumped into the same category. So there! If your artsy site was left out, lemme know - I'm damn scatterbrained.

Your homework is to go to Paul Frank's website, look at his stuff, and then drool over the multitude of Paul Frank goodness available on Ebay. Then, because it's New Year's Eve, you have to go to the bar and drunkenly proclaim your love of Skurvy. (If you do your homework you will understand.)

Happy New Year everyone!

Phone rings this morning while I'm getting ready for work. Only one person ever calls me while I'm getting ready for work. ("only one man DARES give me the raspberries... Lonestar!")

Finally found out some of what happened on Xmas day on the Ca homefront and oof. That's all I can say. Oof. There's a veritable fuckton I could say about the situation, but I'd rather not get into it right now; I'm trying to stay in good spirits while the holidays finish up.

I'm probably not gonna be online tomorrow because I have a tendency to slack on writing on the days off, so I was thinking this morning about how my life has changed since last new years. I think this is the time of year when you're supposed to do that, so hooray for me I'm normal. A year ago I was in California, my eye was screwing up really bad again and I was scared, work was horrible and the commute was even worse, I couldn't find a job because no one wanted an artist with a couple of years of work history in the internet industry looking for a job out of the internet industry. I was also single and hung out with different friends. The crazy thing is drastic changes have happened on all fronts. I moved to the (cue pseudo-gang-sign) Midwest, my eye finally stablized, I have a new job I absolutely love to death that isn't web-related. I have a rad-ass boyfriend, and because of the move and because Other Steph rocks I have a new really great group of people to hang with. (it's funny, because even if I was still in Ca I'd be hanging out with different people than I was a year ago)

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone out here that has made me feel so welcome. It's meant a lot to me, and you made my first Christmas away from the bros and sistahs not only less difficult but tons of fun. You all rock the casbah. (Except for Jen. (just kidding) (no you're not!) (yes I am, shut up!) (um, you're talking to yourself again) (oh shit, really?) (yeah dude, shut up already you're gonna look like a psycho) (oh come on, it's years too late to be worrying about that) (hmm, i guess you have a point) (yeah, see? look who's crazy now?) (michael jackson?) (yeah, but tell me something i don't know.) (elephants are the most dangerous animal to work with at the zoo, more so than tigers, because they're so unpredictable.) (i knew that - i'm you, remember?) (then how am i supposed to... never mind. where was i going with this again?) (retard, you said jen sucked, and then you started taking it back and then you started babbling on like a dork, just like you always do.) (oh. right. so does jen suck or doesn't she?) (jury's still out on that one. i'll get back to ya.))

So cheers, here's to the new year and here's to you.

It's good for you america, Ocean Spray.

"Your computer hates you."
"MR. PICKLES?!?!?!"

This goes through my head every time my computer takes a crap. Which is fairly often. And I don't have much time, the aunts (one real, one actually just a friend of my mom's that she always said was our aunt) are coming up for lunch soon. So here's what I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by my computer being an ass...

Kat: While cleaning out cupboards for one of many, many post-divorce garage sales my mom had my sister and I found mom's old collection of ettiquette books. (don't ask) Some of them were really funny and outdated and we had a (mostly goodnatured) fight over who got what. I'd like to say I was the winner, having walked away with a copy of "Boy Dates Girl", written by (no joke) Gay Head.

If you're a girl, go read Maria's last post. Girl power and some shit. (If you're a guy, you can go, but you probably don't want to.) The funniest and wrongest joke I ever heard made about periods was from the South Park movie: "I don't trust something that bleeds for five days and doesn't die."

To the rest of you: who invented toast? I'd like to find the person that came up with the idea of toast and shake his/her hand, perhaps even add them to my list. I bought a toaster yesterday, and just made the 2 best pieces of toast IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. I'm very easily amused.

And the oscar for most disjointed all over the place blog goes to me! Hooray! Last night was rad, happy birthday to everyone except me, who won't be 26 til July.

And now, if you'll excuse me and my no-sleep-induced-shitty-writing, I need a shower really, really bad.

You know, I've said it before and I'll say it again. The one thing Wisconsin news is missing is bitchy star gossip. May I present Exhibit A, which was one of the headlines on the LA Times homepage. One line kind of hit me funny... "A minute later, O'Neal's bride appeared, her belly showing in a white, beaded bridal grown." Is that just an attempt at being poetic or is it questioning her right to wear white?

I swear I'm working, I really am.

avast, matey, ye be doin' the sailor dance for free or it's walkin' the plank and swabbin' the poopdeck for ye.

p.s. - completely off subject... if you're at the grocery store buying avacadoes (avaaaacahdos? avakadorks?) and they are the color of the one in the upper left corner don't buy them. They're not ripe yet. They should be dark and kind of squishy. Thank you, that is all.

Mostly for my siblings' benefit, because they've never had the holidays with the Wisconsin family but partly for the rest of you yokels who are curious about white trash xmases... and partly because I'm lazy and don't want to have to think about what I'm typing... here's my actual real-journal-that-no-one-read's entry for today.

***************************************
So I need to get back on the morning pages party train - it's hard to fit in sometimes, which shouldn't be an issue - it's 3 pages, goddamit. It's Christmas, and I hurt. It's not mental pain this Christmas, it's actual physical pain. My back, deep in my right hip... ouch. Falling down the stairs will do that to you. Had a good night last night. Took Ryan ("the boy toy" my mom calls him - that makes me cringe) with me down to Hartford to meet the relatives. Stopped at Gma and Gpa Robarge's first, hung out there for a while and fell down Aunt Susie's stairs. Time came to go see Grandpa Pfiefer and Gma R. is all you have to come back and open presents - and things had been going really well - so I asked Ryan about it and he was hey, you're running the show, we should just head out by 8:15. So we go to Gpa Pfeifer's, and Aunt Debbie and company aren't there, it's just us and Gpa. He calls Debbie, she and Tony come and make some comments about how much I look like my mom, right down to the giggling. I hate to think I'm a spitting image of my mom. We don't look all that alike. Or maybe I'm in denial.

As I'm writing in my new favorite writing position, sitting propped up at my bedside I'm (edited for content)... Seems I picked a good fabric that hides them well. So after Gpa P's house we went back to Robarges and everything had changed. All kinds of drunkenness had started. Jesse was blitzed, my cousin Ryan was blitzed, Uncle John was blitzed. It was kind of fun, even though the present opening took 3 full hours. John (in his ill-fitting felt santa suit) would hand out a present, (sometimes interjecting a joke abou how it was a dildo, with his girlfriend's 12yr old son saying something about "Gross!") wait until that present was unwrapped and shown to the group and taken out of its packaging before handing out the next one. According to Sean this is a yearly occurance. 8:15 came and went, everyone was so into the drinking and shit Ryan and I had an entire conversation about staying vs. going that they didn't hear... John's kid Ryan kept pushing Ryan to drink, come on, you're not drinking, you're a disgrace to the Ryan name, blah blah blah so finally to shut him up Ryan had a beer. And cousin Ryan was happy...

There wasn't a whole lot that was bad about the situation as an adult... there were things I could've done without, like the dildo jokes in front of the kids, the dirty jokes about a six year old girl while she's standing there, the heavy drinking in front of the kids, having the kids handle empties... My biggest beef with the festivities, I guess, is that there's no consideration for the kids that are present. Everyone just gets smashed. I can understand why my mom hated it as a kid, but I wish she wouldn't have taken my description of it this morning to mean that I hated it, too. It's my family, it's where I came from, and as an adult on the outside it's kinda funny to watch. You just have to have a good sense of humor about it. In the end it was a good night, and I can honestly say (and this is very important to me) that I don't hate hanging out with my family out here. In fact, it's kinda fun.

Some cool things about xmas eve:
-Brittanie seemed to take a liking to me (if she's my cousin's kid, am I her second cousin? How does that work?)
-My boy Ryan is a damn good sport about spending Xmas eve with a bunch of drunks.
-macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly.
-Gma R has the exact same cheezy plastic-pieces-melted-together Santa that my mom has. (or had, I think she passed it on to my sister.)
-my soda didn't spill much when I carried it with me as I fell down the stairs.

Not cool things about xmas eve:
-falling down the stairs
-stomach pains after Gma's food
-telling the recap to my mom this morning who is just hungry for new reasons to despise her family
-(biggest one) not spending it in Ca with my brothers and sisters
***************************************
That's it, that's our show. The 10:15 is nothing like the 9:15, I'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your waitress. If you're going to the Robin's Nest tonight I'll see you there. If you're not, you're lame or you have better plans. I'm guessing it's the former.

Hey, Merry Christmas to everyone except my sister Danielle, who met Dexter Holland for the second time last night at the Social D show. Not only met, but talked to for a while before other people started realizing who she was talking to.

Danielle, you can bite my ass.

In other news I apparently haven't been getting enough sleep... I was in bed at 11pm last night and slept for a full 10.5 hours. I probably could have slept longer if it wasn't so bright and morningy out. Merry Christmas to me, I'm finally not exhausted!

Hope your holiday is shiny!

Hooray! I won the lottery!

The contact lens lottery!

I changed my contacts out at lunch today, and one of the little packets had two contacts in it instead of just one! I may never have to work again!

Behold! The Christmas Banana!

To Other SCAD Chick:

What's up with that xmas pic on the home page? I always wanted to see Preston Hall on fire! Now I can die a happy woman. The oversized presents worry me - once they get bored with sitting by the fire they're sure to rape and pillage their way through downtown Savannah, right? (i hope, i hope!)

Oh yeah - I had an actual something important for you - back in my day there were no small orientation groups. Or maybe there were and it was too lame to remember. I do remember we didn't get t-shirts. Were your t-shirts free? (I mean, it's not really free, you did pay to go there...) I didn't get a free orientation shirt, I had to go to Ex Libris and pay an exorbitant amount for one like all the other jerks. Except back in my day they didn't have Ex Libris at first, so we had to buy our shirts at DesignWorks I think they called it. Ex Libris opened maybe the year or two before you got there. Which kind of sucked because then I had to walk further to buy shit because I didn't have a car. That's right, I had to walk fifty miles uphill in the snow to get my textbooks, and I was grateful. And I had to walk barefoot, because I was so poor I couldn't afford shoes. Hell, I couldn't even afford feet, I had to walk around on bloody stumps leaving a massive blood trail everywhere I went. Sometimes I got woozy, but then I'd eat a cookie or something and everything was kosher again.

My point is I didn't get a t-shirt at orientation and I hate you.

And I'm still listed as a customer service rep at Blockbuster on the alumni page. Bastards.

Sincerely,
steph lehman

p.s. - Mark your calendar!

Had the craziest dream this morning. I was waiting for a children's book to come in the mail - it was a monthly thing, kind of like the Trials of Life videos. Every month I would get a new kids' book explaining how to do useful everyday things.

The book I was waiting for was about the scaling and gutting of fish.

"And these were children's books?" Ryan asked when I told him about it.

Of course they were children's books. That's the way my dreams work. So the book finally came in the mail and I remember trying to scale the fish but I missed a couple of areas and whoever was in the dream with me was pointing to different happy illustrations and explaining where I'd gone wrong. The insides were really bright red. And shiny.

Yeah, see, that's kind of gross. Happy Saturday!

Who doesn't like avacados? No, seriously, do you like avacados? Did I even spell that right? It seems like there should be an e in there, like with potatoes.

So, do you like avacadoes? (avacadohs? avahcaddos?) If you don't, you should be forced to wear a construction helmet with super glue on it so you can be suspended from a steel girder while people kick you in the nads. (I don't think that last part made it into the commercial...)

I got bored with my old template, simple as that. And I'm procrastinating... I'm supposed to be working on my website, which is coming up on its one year anniversary of being nothing more than an under construction page. Thankfully I got pissed off enough about it when I saw Jen's cool as crap website to want to do something about that. Unfortunately sitting here doing the blog thing isn't getting my site any closer to a final design...

I've been thinking about this all day - I just found out one of my friends from high school, Maria, has a blog. She's sent emails out over the past few years about going to med school in northern California, and hot damn her writing is good. Her blog is no different. Reading just the tiny bit I've read has been freakishly eye-opening. Maria's a really great, really normal person, always seems to be so together and well-adjusted. I had no idea our backgrounds with fucked up parents were so similar, and my heart goes out to her that she's had to go through that. And while we're both adults, living in their houses is done, the aftermath still needs to be dealt with and it's almost scary reading my same thoughts about that in her blog. She just articulates it so much better than I do.

It's strange and a little scary to me that different degrees and different types of abuse can produce the same results in the person it's inflicted on. More about that sometime. I've been really up in the air mentally lately. I can't wait until the holidays are over.

Enough of this procrastinating shit, I've got a website to mess around with.

So I saw the new Lord of the Rings last night with Jen. And I exaggerated last night when I said it was rad, but I didn't know what was going on. What I meant to say was it was FUCKING rad (I've never really watched those kinds of movies, I like to stick to porn), and while I could get the overall gist of it I probably would have benifitted from seeing the first one or reading the books or both.

A couple of important things to keep in mind when seeing this movie:

-It's Frodo, not Frollo. (I'm lame)

-The guy that captures Frollo and Sam at the end to take them to the city... when his hood's up he looks like Bruce Springsteen.

-Sam's a funny name, especially in the end when said Sam is trying to revive Frollo... (I think the line was "you know your sam") This is funny because sam is my mom's word for weener.

-Smeegel, Shmegel, Golem, whatever the little computer animated guy's name was kinda looks like Steve Buscemi. Enough to repeatedly creep me out.

-There's a guy at the end who looks like Jason Biggs - Jen assured me it's not, but he still looks like him.

And none of this was very important. Bite my ass.

if i die before i wake
at least in heaven i can skate

If I posted to my blog more often the entries wouldn't be so fucking long. I haven't posted in almost a week again. I had a good excuse this time, I swear, but my dog ate it.

For reals, I went back to California for the weekend, and I was too busy chasing my neice and eating tasty, tasty burgers. I originally decided on last weekend because my little sister Danielle's ska band, The Cellofaned Monkeys, was going to have their first real gig at a club in Hollywood. Unfortunately shortly after I found out about that and bought my airplane ticket, they hit a few small snags and are now in a transitional period. Among other things, they're tired of their name. You can help! You can e-mail crazy ska band names to me, post them on your own blog, or send them directly to my sister at original_slacker13@hotmail.com.

On my way to lunch with the boy Friday, I got my first speeding ticket. Yee-fuckin-haw. $165 bucks for going 17 over the limit. It's really annoying that I got a ticket for that much and was only going 42mph.

The flight back to Ca was good - the inflight movie was Spy Kids 2. I wouldn't rush out and buy it, but it wasn't bad. I never saw the first one (which by sequel law is probably way better than the one I saw), but it's funny to see these badass people Robert Rodriguez has worked with in movies like Desperado and From Dusk til Dawn act in a kooky family movie.

Being at my mom's house always brings on very noticeable changes in me. I eat ALL THE FREAKING TIME when I'm there, I get really self conscious and I always break out really bad. Her boyfriend was there, which is always annoying... it's not that I want everyone to drop what they're doing when I go back to Ca, but I'd be talking about cool stuff that's been going on in my life and in the middle of it she'll go back to talking to her boyfriend. This is my mother. It's fucking rude. She kept saying stupid shit about Ryan, she's never even met the guy... it's like being in college again. Of course because I'm seeing someone that means I'm going to stay in Wisconsin forever and become an alcoholic with fifty zillion illigitimate children and a police record 500 pages long just like everyone else in our family. Of course. (though I did just get a speeding ticket... hmm...)

I can't stand how freaking immature she is, how she still thinks that she's the only person in America that's a single mom, how she thinks that her work should be easy from now on because she's at that age where it should be fun(when in reality she's just joined the work world a couple of years ago and everyone's gotta pay their dues starting out), how she hasn't accepted that she's poor and can't afford the really expensive shit my dad used to buy her anymore... I cringe when she talks about getting a dog because she's just going to kill it anyways. I worry because while she does parenty-type things for my younger siblings she's mentally done with being a parent and bitches about it more often than not.

And that brings us to the amazing duality that is my relationship with my mom. She's not a horrible person - she has lots of emotional issues that make her do things that really piss me off but I do love her; it's just extremely hard to deal with her sometimes. On the good side she moved the date of the xmas party she was planning so we could spend some time together, and made sure everyone was around Saturday to do pseudo-christmas while I was there. And she made devilled eggs. I fucking love devilled eggs.

It was really really really really really really great seeing my bros, sistahs, neice and nephew. Hailey's getting really big and talkative, and Jacob is crawling all over the place now. He growls, too. It's funny how all of a sudden you're all typed out. The rest of my trip (short as it was) was good - ate at Jack in the Box which sucked and then ate at In and Out burger which was the exact opposite of suck. The flight back was uneventful until Chicago, where they almost escorted someone off a plane and then decided not to.

So that's my Christmas vacation. Mostly really fun with a small side order of mom issues.

Stay tuned for Wednesday night's experiment: watching the second LoTR movie with no background whatsoever. If it's too hard to follow, I can always take a 3 hour nap.

I'm doing some research for work today, just thought I'd send you to see two of my favoritest illustrators: Clare Mackie and David Shannon . You should check their stuff out, it's really fun.

The best children's book in the world is "No David!"

Let me start by saying system 10 is the stuff of the devil. Apparantly they're updating all of our programs (Photoslop and the like) at work after we're all running MacOS 10.2, and then they will take away our ability to work in Classic mode where things make sense. Aarg.

So my boss is back in the office today, which is seriously cutting into the slack time. It was funny, because he wanted to know what each of us saw when we went out shopping last week. Very undercover spy, covert mission type stuff. Unfortunately for us the bad guys got the microfilm. Fortunately all that was on there was scandalous pictures I was going to try and sell to Playboy.

I don't have a lot to say today, I'm all sleepy and shit thanks to Nikki's 21st birthday party. Happy Birthday to Nikki! Happy Birthday to Ann! Happy Almost Birthday to the zillions of people that have birthdays at the end of the month!

What else is there... I'm starting on juvenile hall xmas cards tonight, which is pretty fun. It's basically cut up a magazine and add crazy funny messages. A couple of my friends back home go to a church that is hooked up with this community service type thing where they go talk to kids in juvenile hall once a month. (This superlong sentence brought to you by Crest!) I didn't go because I wanted to get involved with church (y'all know me better than that), I went because I thought it was a good cause. I'd like to think it helps the kids in there to have an hour of normal conversation with someone who does understand and hopes they'll deal with their lives better when their sentence is complete. I didn't get to go too much, but the times I went were really interesting and sad. They would line all the kids up against the wall when we came in, and then have one or two kids sit down at tables with each churchy person that came.

It seems like every kid in there has the same story about a seriously messed up family that doesn't care too much. Most of the kids I met were in gangs, where they felt like they had real family that they would do anything for. One told me about his friends who were R.I.P. because of the gang, which weirded me out a little - maybe it was just he was used to the slang, but why couldn't he just say his friend had died? Lots of the kids I talked to were into drugs, some heavier than others. Some were in for drug dealing. One guy was a very tiny 14 year old that was in for murder. If they were lucky they'd get picked to go to specialty camps for the remainder of their sentence. From what I understand they had things like sports camp and firefighting camp - they'd work the kids tails off but it was still better than being locked up all day.

The funny thing is that for the most part they weren't bad kids. There were a few that obviously didn't give a shit what happened to them after they got out. But some of those kids, you could tell it was a front. Others really didn't want to go back to Sylmar ever again. One boy in particular was in juvi for staying out late. Months and months earlier he had been picked up for shoplifting; the judge put him on parole instead of sending him to juvi because it was his first offense. He was staying at his grandma's temporarily because his mom got evicted for not being able to pay rent... he stayed out past his curfew with his girlfriend a few times and grandma turned him in because it was a parole violation. From what he told me he had plans to finish high school and go on to community college, and things were going to be really different. He could've been making it up just to sound good, but I'd like to think he's doing better for himself now.

To make a really long story short, the same group makes xmas cards every year and passes them out to the kids. It's a really really sad thing, a lot of them don't have family that comes to visit. So that's that, I started writing this earlier this morning, and had more to say on it, but fuckin' whatever. I'm at work, time to go do what I'm supposed to.

Today's been a weird day.

You ever have a day where you eat nothing but crap all day long? And then you feel all tired and shit, and you forget that oh hey, you ate a ton of shitty food today! And then you remember, and you feel lame because you should've remembered, and you start to wonder why you're eating like shit and then your self-esteem starts to drop and the only way you can make yourself feel better is to become a raging alcoholic, quit your day job and start robbing liquor stores. Robbing liquor stores in this frame of mind is actually a smart move - it pays the bills and supports the habit - it's kind of like multitasking, which is a very good skill to have in today's job market. In spite of this, you shouldn't tell prospective employers about your experience. They would want a cut of the register take and threaten to turn you in if you refuse. The first rule of robbing liquor stores is you do not talk about robbing liquor stores.

I had a point, I swear. Jelly Bellies are highly addictive. I've been eating them all freaking day and can't stop.

When you're making up your own flavor combinations with the Helly Bellies, never EVER eat Peanut Butter with Lemon. EVER.

Yes, I'm out of things to do at work again and am slightly bored. Hooray for Tetris-time.

So I've been having some really whacked-out dreams lately...

Last night I was sent to prison. (I don't remember what for.) It was super-low security; whatever I did couldn't have been too bad. Security was so lax that we were allowed to leave during the day as long as we promised to get back in our cells every night. I left prison the first day and visited my friend Aaron, who for some reason lived in a weird, swanky apartment in Oshkosh instead of Bismarck, ND. He wasn't home but I went in anyways (maybe I was in prison for breaking and entering?). I think I hung out there for a while, just sitting on the couch and watching Comedy Central. While I was there his parents came to visit - they were Thurston Howell the third and his wife from Gilligan's Island. (not really anything like Bitz's parents in real life.) I remember trying to rack my brain for a good excuse as to why I was hanging out at his house while he wasn't home, and trying to play it off like Aaron was there but he ran out to the store for a second, he'll be right back. All of a sudden it was past 10pm and I couldn't remember what time I was supposed to be back in prison. I called 911 and was trying to be really discreet about explaining to the cop that I was one of the inmates and that I couldn't remember what time I was supposed to come back. He didn't know either, so he put me on hold while he went to check and I'm super nervous about what my friend's parents will do if they find out a convict's in the house... The cop gets back on the line and says no one at the station knows what time they check the cells, but that they'd let the prison guards know they heard from me - I could stay out all night as long as I promised to behave.

And I just got a ton of hats that need art sent out by tomorrow. Typical. Rrrrr.

Happy Pirating!

I, on the other hand, would pay a quarter if someone would wear a cheese bra/bro/mansierre and get on tv...

And, just to clear matters up with a certain puzzle-fighter-playing boy, you won against someone who had MAYBE 4 hours of sleep and doesn't function well on less than 6. I'm all rested up now and demand a rematch.

I should have more to write, I haven't been on here in 4 days and usually I'm a very chatty bastard. Today's one of those days where you've got just tons of time to do whatever. I did finally hear back from my new eye doctor last week and the new medical term is multifocal choriditis with uviitis (maybe it was ubiitis? I don't know). He said all the stuff I was treated for in the beginning was right, but this was what they were looking at with their fancy-schmansy m.r.i. and such last December. It's kind of like arthritis of the eyeball, where part of the eye is swollen and inflammed, and sometimes it calms down a little, becomes almost non-existent, but then can flare up again. It's always there, and there's treatments (eye shots, EW) but no cure.

Sounds more like eyeball herpes to me.

He gave me 40 - 70% chance of the same thing happening to my right eye, which kind of freaks me out. But they know what it is now, so if it does spread they can start treatments pretty quickly. I'm trying not to think about it too much because there's a good chance that it won't happen at all.

Here's what else has been going on, cuz I can't think of anything else to write... Thursday night Ryan and I went to see Mark Gross (probably one of the funniest standup comics EVER) up in Appleton. It was way funny, and he did my favorite bit about being hung-over and watching Sesame Street. (C... is for cookie) Friday rocked because I wasn't at work. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But a work-sanctioned "research" field trip is basically a day off, and who doesn't love that?!?! Jen and I drove to the Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa and got pirate turtlenecks at the Gap. This is the first thing I bought at the Gap in probably 5 years because they usually suck. But you can't go wrong with pirate turtlenecks, especially if they're on sale. We're both gonna wear them to work on Monday and tell people we're in a Pirate Club. Got lost after leaving the mall, drove around a while, got smart and bought a map and went down to Brady street. Checked out the cool stores down there, had some blessed blessed Starbucks. The drive back always seems to take twice as long as the drive there. Went and ate some splendid beef strokinoff at Ryan's place (guys that can cook rock the house), went to the P, participated in the age-old Lehman family tradition (translation: my sister and I like to do this to each other) of calling friends while getting drunk.

Went up to Green Bay yesterday to pick up my xmas cards. I can't freaking wait to send them out, they're helluv funny. Met Jen and went to Edsel's show at I forget what the name of the gallery was... (Artspace?) There were other galleries in the area having shows, kind of like the artwalk thing they do at the Brewery back home... so we walked into a couple of other places and Mistaketown!!! while Edsel's stuff was really cool and made me want to come home and paint, everything else was pretty thrown-together and bad. Have you ever been in The Magic Spot? (not that magic spot, you perverts) Yeah, DON'T. Went to the P, had some fries and beer, went to Target and introduced Ryan to the wonderment that is the Lucy Chair, then got my ass handed to me playing Puzzle Fighter. At least it wasn't for ownership, that's all I have to say.

Ryan asked last night if I was putting up a Christmas tree. And at the time, it struck me as kind of a weird question. I live alone, I'm not big on the holiday to begin with. I'm one of those people that just never really had a good one - talking to my sister this morning I was reminded of oh yeah, my parents always had a big huge fight on xmas eve or day. I could go on and on as to why I'm not a big fan, how much I hate the writing a list thing and how the holiday sometimes makes me sad but it will all sound very whiny and who really wants to listen to that? Last year was better because while I did see my family I didn't spend the entire day at my mom's. Instead I went to Sylmar Juvenile Hall, passed out xmas cards to the kids there, and spent the rest of the day at my friend Kaye's parents house. This year will be hard because I don't get my brothers and sisters at all. Sure, I get to go back this weekend and see them and we're doing psuedo-xmas while I'm there, but it's not the same. I am really glad I've met the awesome people I have met, you guys have made me start looking forward to the holidays for once.

And now that I've gotten completely sidetracked, let's get back to the xmas tree. I'm not putting up a tree, I'm putting up something else my sister and I came up with this morning. If you're in Oshkosh you'll see it soon enough, and if you're somewhere else I'll send you pictures. I'm sure once word gets out about the Christmas Stool, it'll be a new, very widespread holiday tradition throughout the entire country.

I've spent entirely too much time on here, I'm going grocery shopping. Go get System of a Down's new cd, it's muy delicisioso!

While at Peabody's tonight, I remembered a truly wrong and hilarious website.

Today was extremely unproductive (and fun). The IT department spent almost the entire day upgrading the Macs in our dept to MacOS 10.2. I've always considered myself a very cross-platform kind of girl. Until today. I'm sure (this may just be a pipe dream) after a few days I'll be more acclimated to the freaky-ass-backwards shit going on, but right now I'd almost rather be working on my computer at home. Which is saying a lot. Jen came back to work today, bringing all kinds of fun with her; we made post-it note snowflakes and phony rock show fliers for a while, had spaghetti for lunch (one of two high points of my day), took off for a while to wander through Target and Walmart. Walmart's out of the light up cow I was finally going to get this year, but they still have the camel so I may have to settle for that in my living room instead.

Unfortunately for b'gosh, that about sums up what I did at work today. It's not for lack of trying, I swear - if there was work to be done, I'd do it. I don't think I'm even going in on Friday, Derek told us we could take a shopping day sometime this week as research for next season. It consistently blows my mind just how much inspiration is borrowed from others in the clothing business. If we're going out to research art styles, and those styles are already out in the stores..... we put that out there and some other company copies us... it's just this really weird cycle where you have to wonder who came up with the original idea, and why can't we come up with more? Why does it always have to be inspired by a sweater, hat, jacket, whatever that someone else has already done?

Which brings me to something else that makes me giggle about my job. Go to the store sometime, look at the t-shirts and such in the kids departments up through probably junior sizes. 99.9% of the t-shirts are commemorating something the kid never did. They say something cool like "Varsity Track Team" or "Camp Gapercrombie". (I sooooo wish Gapercrombie was my word, but it's not)... your kid was never on the varsity track team, they never went to a day of camp in their lives. Not that they can't wear the shirt, just that it's funny that they're souveniers of things that the kid will most likely never do.

That aside... not much else today. Did another load of laundree, bought some toothpaste, waited around by the phone for my new eye doc... the bastard never called. And I took my glasses off for him. I feel so used. I even paid extra close attention to the phone so I wouldn't miss the call at the bar. That's it, we're through. From now on, he's gotta pay to see the eyeball freak show just like everyone else.

Woke up a little again on the way home from the bar (Offspring's good for that). Now I finally be sleepy again, so I'm going to bed for real this time.

Ai Bob Richterzong for President!

This thing totally lies, dude, I wrote at like 8 something this morning and it said "no, you can't put that on our site unless you have the super-snazzy paid version of blogger." Fucking whatever.

When a superior asks if you want something to do at work, how do you say something like "No thanks, I was planning on slacking off all day and taking a long lunch" and sound professional about it?

My Tetris has been interrupted yet again. Rrrrr. I have 2 new bibs and some artwork changes to do. I'd rather be sleeping. It feels weird to be back at work after 5 days off. It was a good vacation.

Our top stories this weekend (with exclamation points to sound more important): Football is funny! (Nothing says gay like the Rams' shiny gold pants!) It's buttass cold in Wisconsin! I reached a new level of multitasking yesterday when I did laundree while making brownies and watching some girl get ridiculed on Judge Judy! Went to Peabody's Saturday, where I peed with Steph and Nicki and learned that raspberry kamikazies are tasty! Cowboy Bebop rocks the casbah! The Offspring's acoustic version of "Defy You" ain't so bad! The poor ain't so bad! (A quarter to you if you know that movie!) Today's my last day of pet-sitting for Puddin' the Puke Machine! Thanks to Other Steph's quick thinking, I am now sitting in an office chair with ARMRESTS at work! Swanky! Hooray for everything! It's been brought to my attention that I'm going to have to start working on the list! So far it's Seth Green, Tim Roth, and Vin Diesel!

Enough with these infernal exclamations!

If you could only have 3 foods for the rest of your life (and you wouldn't have to worry about nutrition or getting bored with your choices) what would they be? I was trying to remember some of the crazy questions we'd go around the table with during Thursday production lunches at ThinkBox, and that was the only one that really stuck in my mind. I'd pick hamburgers, spaghetti, and pez. Any pez but grape. Grape sucks ass.

More art changes are coming in. Crap. So long, suckas!

Interesting morning.

Really very interesting.

Went to the new retina specialist this morning (who is very, very close to my house - good for me, because I forgot my sunglasses at home). First off, he knows who my old doc is - he's famous in the eye guy circuit or something. Hooray, I had a great doctor in CA. But new eye guy thinks, just from my explanation of what's been going on up to this point, that I may have been misdiagnosed in the very beginning. We're talking almost 3 years ago, when this whole mess started. What does this mean? A new big long medical term that I've already forgotten. That's about it. He's waiting to get my files from 2 different docs back in ca, and then he's gonna go over those, do some "detective work", as he's calling it, and go from there. When he finds out for sure whether or not it was central serous that made my eye get all stupid then it's a good head's up for if, god forbid, the same stuff starts happening to the good eye.

I think from how I heard the other eye disease explained today that the eye'd still be fucked up the same if it was the other disease. I'm not entirely sure, and I'm really not going to worry about it until I find out for sure... but that's something to think about - would it still be all stoopid if it was the other disease?

Eyes are still big fat dilated, which for some reason makes me very, very sleepy. I came home and turned on the Wayne Brady show, which for the most part sucks. But today he was talking about Pinks Hot Dogs. Mmmmmm, Pinks. My little bro and sisters went to Hollywood one Saturday this summer and ate at Pinks. It was a whole "we're cheesy Hollywood tourists" kind of day, and I didn't get lost once. ("I watched you very close, honey, and you didn't screw up once!")

In other news, I'm getting off the 'puter now (huh huh...., she said getting off) to go check on Jen's co-dependent cat.

(I lied, Texas Justice just came on a little while ago and I'm missing it.)

Mad props (blatantly stolen from Dan Austell) to Pete, who made a really good Thanksgiving dinner last night!