wheeee, i'm a writin' fool today.

still bored.

still at work.

go find an mp3 of juliana hatfield's "my sister". do it! get out of here!

death to capital letters! bastards!

holy crap do i love fridays.

i love, love, love, love, love, love fridays.

possibly more than i love my frog.

next presidential election, you should write in a vote for friday, because a vote for friday is a vote for paychecks, weekends starting, and drinking. and that's good enough for me.

there was a group lunch today because lara's moving back to texass to get her mfa in painting. long lunches rock my world. (not in the dirty way, cuz that'd be kind of weird.) not like i was working anyways. the season's over and almost the entire art department's gone today. so i spent a million hours this morning doing the surfing of the webbish kind. found a couple of good sites with code on them to help me fix my dumbass website (which isn't really all that dumbass. i just like the word dumbass. you try saying it. dumbass.) and some freakin' hilarious comics at nerfect.com - go check it out or die trying!

it's quiet here at work.

yeah, too quiet.

and my partner in crime isn't back in her cubbyhole until next thursday. that's ploptacular.

i really just want to go home, because when i slack off there i can do it in my underwear if i want, with cheezy daytime court shows or even "the bold and the buttiful" playing in the background. i wonder if scary-looking ridge and his sister/not real sister will finally hook up? (of course they will, it's a soap.)

but no. the girl scouts won't let me leave. the damn cookies i ordered a million years ago get delivered today at 4:30. so no early day for me today. plop plop plop plop plop. but on the good side i get a box of samoas - which aren't called samoas anymore. what's up with that? maybe if you're good i'll share them at whatever bar we go to tonight. nothing goes with beer better than cookies.

back to slacking.

but before i go, one question: why is it today that everyone's interested in whether or not i'm ever moving back to california? when i get asked that at work i get a little nervous because maybe the wrong person'll hear how yes, i'm gonna be here for 3-4 years but my plan is to ultimately go back to where they have normal 70 degree winters where you can go hang out at the beach on christmas if you want. don't get me wrong, i'm not saying oshkosh sucks ass - wisconsin's really nice and i'm having fun and meeting some great people and i really appreciate the fact that i've gotten to start some kind of family-type-thing with my wi relatives.

but even though i dig living here, understand that california is my home and someday i will go back to it. that's just how it is. i get weirded out telling people that because even though i say i do like it here, and i love my job, and i'm not moving back until a few years from now maybe the i'm happy part didn't sink in and they think anyways that i'm not liking it here and i'm looking for a job elsewhere so i can get the fuck outta dodge.

i guess sometimes i worry too much about how other people will interpret what i say.

enough of this - i've written way too much already and the waves are calling me to grab my board and go surf the uberweb.

which reminds me, steph-with-the-two-eyes:
uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb uberweb.

so there! plop!

Rrrrrr...

Some new stuff works on the site. Some old stuff now doesn't. Fuckin' whatever, I'm over it for the night. Add stephanielehman.com to the list of broken things.

Also, add my ass to the list. It's got a crack in it.

Plop.

Earlier today, when Jen and I couldn’t get online all day at work, we came up with a theory.

Mr. Rogers was the one thing holding the internet together, and his passing made everything just fall to crap because code wasn’t written to keep the damn thing going when he died. Kinda like the millenium bug thing, but with more sweaters.

Then I came home, and lo and behold the internet does still work. So I finally got to read the obit at cnn.com and find out what happened to the poor guy, and it made me really sad. Cancer truly sucks ass.

On a lighter note, last night in an email I started listing all of the currently broken stuff in my life. For your amusement, here's what I came up with.

********************************

Broken Stuff:

-couch (It's not really broken if it’s being held up by phone books, right? I sorta fixed it.)

-vcr

-cd player

-hairbrush (really not all that necessary anymore, I guess. Funny thing is it broke the day I got my hair cut supershort again back in October)

-camera

-answering machine (it works fine, but it won’t let me record a greeting. Which I guess is fine, since no one calls my house phone anyway.)

-two fingernails on my left hand

-left eyeball

-computer desk (is on it’s way to broken)

-computer

-watchband

-the exit sign in the car

-one of the ice scrapers in the car

-whatever it is that makes my car sound like a dying cow when I use the right turn signal

-my parents

-some of the oreos in the container on top of the microwave

-possibly my brain

I’ve also probably broken 4-5 glasses over the past month or so while doing dishes. There comes a point in every person’s life where they must think about exploring the full potential of plastic.

Insert a hilarious half hour long phone conversation with my sister between that last sentence and this one. I lost where I was going with the list, so I’m just gonna stop writing and go eat dinner. Plop.

Unfortunately for my alcoholism, I’m not going to whatever bar is the destination of choice for the evening because I’m all wiped out and shit. This leaves me feeling a little wacky. I’ve got probably 5 hours left in the day to work on whatever I want, but there’s so many things I could be doing I’m not quite sure where to start.There’s a plethora of little art projects here and there around my house I should finish someday – the biggest one being the website, which I haven’t touched in a month now. I don’t know if you’re looking at a calendar, but a month’s quite a while, and that’s terrible progress. I’m fired. But honestly, there’s so much there that needs to be done that I don’t know where to start.

The hard part’s done, really. I’ve got an interface, now it’s just a matter of filling it up with existing artwork and such. But it’s a lot of artwork. I mean a lot. And I decided after seeing this site today that I need a section for scribbles, because those quick little doodles (like my eye doc one, especially - ask to see that sometime) are some of my funniest pieces.

But enough with that whining. Once I’m done eating my tasty dinner (hot pocket with some green beans and some rice, doesn’t really go together but what the fuck are you gonna do about it once it’s in my tummy? Not a damn thing.) I will get started.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. Ended up missing out on driving my car because A) Edsel’s car is much nicer and B) my car is really freaking dirty. The car’s still dirty, because the place I stopped at on the way home wanted 15 bucks and I decided um, no. Victory Wash is cheap and the employees are real nice. So there. Anyways, we started at the Water Tower mall or something like that and you know what? Even if I ever get to the point where money’s not an issue, I will still find it ridiculous to spend $30 on a skimpy tank top. And, Abercrombie and Fitch, if I ever decide to lower my own personal ban on shopping in your store and spend $50 on a skirt, please include enough fabric so the skirt does more than just barely cover my ass. Come on, you probably spent 3 bucks (if that) on that little scrap of khaki. Either include more fabric or charge less. Or both.

Found out some very interesting things about screwups that have happened in design over the past year while browsing through over-priced children’s stores. May be of interest to you, steph. It’s strictly hush-hush, and kind of funny. Ask me after the boss-man leaves tomorrow.

A dentist is on the Simpsons and he just asked Ralph how often he brushes. “Twice a day, sir,” Ralph answers brightly. With the most evil tone the dentist says “Why must you turn my office into a house of lies??!?!” And Ralph freaks out, screaming “I don’t brush! I don’t brush!”

But anyways, I found a pair of kickass boots on sale at a swanky store (translation: too expensive for me). Funny part was they were originally $99.99, and were on sale for $99.95. That’s right, four cents off. Such a deal. The saleschick didn’t find it funny when Edsel asked her about it. So I said something about not being able to spend money at places without a sense of humor as we left.

And so on, and so on. Got some funny pictures while we were down there, and found a website for some sweet bags that apparently hold up forever, got more razzing from Derek about drinking too much, puking and then smashing a glass with my head. Slept almost the entire way home after walking almost all day.

And now the dinner has been eaten, and it’s time to stop slacking off.
Later gators.

yeah, what the hell am i still doing up?

goodnight, mofos.

Ah, plop.

Got further proof this morning that yeah, I’m no good at sleeping. Sunday I woke up with my back being all crappy. This morning it was my elbow. What the hell’s up with that?

Went to the dentist this morning and had my Never Had a Cavity Club card revoked. The filling gets put in the very small cavity on March 12. Can’t freakin’ wait. They also want me to go get my wisdom teeth that haven’t come in yet pulled, but I don’t think my insurance covers it so it’s gonna have to wait until it’s causing me crippling pain. AND they want me to get braces. Which, again, isn’t covered. So whatever, the teeth aren’t crooked enough for me to be self conscious about it or anything. I’m more self conscious about the damn acne that will be with me until I die. Why couldn’t I have inherited my mom’s normal-shaped toes instead of her skin type?

Tomorrow will be sweet – me and the rest of the babies team (2 other peeps) are driving down to Chicago for a shopping/research/spy trip. If I drive I get buku bucks back from work for mileage. I hope I get to drive. The only thing that’ll suck is we’re not anticipating getting back into town until 9 or 10 pm. Which poses a very small problem.

Tomorrow’s 24, and I’m gonna miss it for the first time since it started over a year ago. I have a vcr, but since I don’t have the manual or remote I can’t program it to magically turn on and record the show at the right time. The current recording method involves leaving my house not too long before a show with the tv on the right channel and the vcr recording. I went to the Mart of K tonight and bought a universal remote to hopefully fix the problem, but no dice. It turns the vcr on like it’s supposed to, and all the stop and play and so on works right, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to program the stoopid vcr. And I’ve been online for over an hour now trying to find a site that gives instructions of any kind on how to do it, but to no avail.

So hey, if you happen to be home tomorrow night, and you have a vcr, and you don’t mind taping my cheezy-ass show, it’s on The Boston Public Channel (that’s Fox to you non-quality tv watchers) at 8pm central time. I would be eternally grateful. If nobody can, no biggie, I can do without hot - I mean Keifer - for a week. And they do a recap at the start of the show so I’m sure I can catch up with the story next week.

But if you can record it, I’ll give you a quarter. Possibly two.

So like I said. Plop.

(I can't wait for this weekend, me and Puddin' are watching a Judge Judy marathon and Jen can't stop us!)

Sure, I got two new derogatory autographs (from 2 of the guys from fastball) last night, but my sister Danielle is having bulletin board conversations with Noodles from The Offspring.

May I present Exhibit A, B, and C.

I would say my news pales in comparison, but the new autographs are possibly the best ones written by strangers. Miles wrote “I’ve put out a restraining order! Leave me alone!” and Tony wrote “To the smelliest rat”. Once I frame the four autographs that haven’t made it onto the wall yet, (the 2 new ones, the Dexter Holland, and the Gallagher – putting “the” in front of them makes them sound like fine art) I’m gonna have to find someplace new to move them all to, because that little chunk of wall is really quite full.

It was a really good show last night; I don’t remember Fastball playing this well the last time I saw them. But then again there’s a huge difference in sound when you’re sitting a quarter-mile away from the stage as opposed to 15 feet. And, swoon, their new stuff is picking up that twangy, westerny, cake-ish sound that freakin’ rocks.

Only caught the last two songs of the opening opening act, some band called Empyrean or something like that. We were busy trying to get my car parallel parked. Someday I’ll tape myself trying to parallel park and send it in to America’s Funniest Home Videos, and win the 10,000 bucks hands down.

One of the best parts about live shows is the live show going on around you, crowd-wise. While Butch Walker was on stage doing his over-exaggerated facial expressions and singing there was a group of retarded bikery type guys who kept doing the devil horns sign and woo-ing very loudly every ten seconds. But then they decided that wasn’t quite obnoxious enough, so they made super devil horns by putting their two fists together and having their pinkies up. With more woo-ing. I probably would’ve liked Butch Walker better if there weren’t so many stupid people around us. I found out that he did that Freak of the Week song they used to play all the time on kroq. meh.

When Fastball came on there was this one stage-slut that was in complete awe of them. She stood right in the path of one of the stage lights, so I don’t know how she could’ve seen anything – maybe it was a deer in headlights thing more than awe? But she looked only two places the entire set. At the one guitarist, then at the other. Rinse. Repeat. (but while you’re rinsing and repeating, miss, do not take your eyes off the band, or you will spontaneously combust.) There was a May-December couple (she was possibly 18 or so with braces, he was in his 30s.) who I wanted to punch because they were extremely jerky-pushy about getting up to the very front and center of the floor. We had to laugh later, because they tried doing this freaking-type dancing during “The Way”. I don’t know if you’ve heard much of Fastball’s stuff. You almost certainly have heard “The Way”, it was their big hit in 98 or 99 or something like that. But yeah, it’s not really music to get your freak on to. But it sure is fucking hilarious to watch people try. And there was a girl standing next to me that I could’ve sworn was a guy in a bleach-blond wig.

And there’s another really good idea in the works for Halloween costumes this year. I can’t freakin' wait.

And thanks to Steph and Phil, who steered Jen and I to happy thrifting goodness before the show. Thanks to you I now have a four-foot big tiki-god carved wooden fork.

And Chipotle. Yum.

I got weirded out again by the drive home. When it’s all dark and shit, and there’s only a few lights visible to the left like oil rigs out in the ocean, you can almost picture yourself driving down PCH at night. It’s pretty cool.

Don’t try to look at stars while you drive, you’ll start to fuck up the driving.

Cheers!

This'll be short because I think I'm dying, and I have to go prepare for the crash into almost-comatose sleep.

I am so glad for the following things:

-Holiday03 art is done, done, done, done, done. I was able to complete an entire delivery, paperwork and all, in the day and a half they gave me. (the group the stuff was built off of took 2 weeks or so with revisions and shit to get approved and on paperwork. the difference in time boggles the mind.)

-I am sleeping in way late tomorrow. By way late I mean I'll wake up at around 8am instead of 6:30, and I'll tinker (not tinkle, that'd be unsanitary.) around the house til it's time to go to Madison.

-Brats for dinner.

-"Beat on the brat."

-Did I mention sleep? Glorious, beautiful, fantabulous sleep? Speaking of, off I go...

p.s. - When you're too poor for cable, it's time to go to bed when all that's left on tv is infomercials for mattresses, knives, shoe inserts, or the newly remastered AC/DC cds.

p.p.s. - Save Frenchie!

p.p.p.s. - Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Ahhhhh, the 12 hour work day.

What more can I say about it? Nothing that wouldn’t involve a veritable fuckton of swearing, so I’m keeping my big mouth shut for once.

In other news, something about me. I’m a live music junkie. It is with much regret that I’m letting the habit keep me from Saturday’s activities (and food!). The wonderful people at The Onion have deemed me worthy of winning one of their online contests, so that night I’ll be travelling once again to the fine city of Madison. This time to see Fastball (I thought they had broken up, but apparently they haven’t) and whoever’s playing with them. I’m kinda jazzed about it – I saw them play once at the KROQ Weenie Roast like 3 or 4 years ago, and they’re really good.

So happy birthday to you, Pete, and I’m sorry I can’t make it.

Now’s the time on sprockets when we eat a massive bowl of pasta salad, dance a jig, and crawl into bed.

Bwahahahahaha... go to google, type in "easily amused retard". Nice surprise to find I entered the charts at number 16.

'kay, I'm really going to bed now.

Save Frenchie!

I am going to bed, I swear. I'm just confused. I don't know if I should be happy my med bills didn't add up to enough to matter on my taxes, or pissed that the 1900 bucks I spent on various medical bullshit last year isn't going to count for a damn thing. Can I tack on an extra couple thousand for pain and suffering? Mental anguish? No?

What's a girl gotta do to get ebola in this town?

Audioslave's "Like a Stone" is on the internet radio right now, and Chris Cornell is damn hot. And the song makes me all sad and weepy and shit, and I don't quite know why it is that this particular song hits me like that. It's not that the words are all that depressing. I mean, it's sad, but no more so than other songs like it, and I really don't have anything to be sad about so I don't know what triggers it.

I didn't have a ton of music lessons when I was a kid, so I don't want to sound totally ignorant and use the wrong terminology, but I think it's all the minor chords? They make it very sad sounding. If you know what minor chords sound like go download the mp3 somewhere and get back to me. Or just buy the cd, my little sister says it's a spicy meatball.

I’m assuming this will happen at the end of every season at bgosh… I finished my absolute last piece of art, paperwork and all, an hour and a half before the work day was over. New prints and such for spring 2004 won’t be starting for probably a couple of weeks. And the paperwork I had just finished couldn’t be distributed quite yet because it was waiting for approvals from the powers that be.

So I sat back in my chair and thought to myself, “hmmm…. Now what?”

Thought it probably wasn’t such a good idea to play tetris since all the higher-ups are visiting from the big city this week, so I surfed the net for a while, checked out some of the competition and racked my brain for something to make myself look busy. I couldn’t come up with a damn thing. Everything was fuckin’ finished.

Thank god the designers decided to add some last minute artwork that has to be created and approved and revised and approved again and put on paperwork and dropped from the line and then readded again but on fifty zillion different colorways with just a few more minor revisions and approved and then get the final strikeoff fabric type on it and revised the paperwork again with that new information and then printed and sent out by Friday.

Seriously, the process sometimes causes me to want to go out and kill, but at the same time the hectic pace is kind of fun. I love my job. And that is a very, very, very strange feeling for me, especially this far into it. I’ve been at bgosh 6 months on March 3. Holy fucking shit, batman. And I still love my job.

But some people, like my old roommate Chris, possibly have it better than I do. He’s got a gig playing on a cruise ship in the Carribean. Or he did – I think he’s done with that boat and is on another now that goes down to the Panama Canal. I wonder if they hire extremely bad caricature artists for cruise ships? Seriously, have you ever seen me try to draw a person that looks like any actual person? Pathetic. But, to make up for it, I’m pretty good at making stick people that look like people. I guess that’s more like a very, very, very, very simplified charicature, right? I almost got a job doing charicatures at Knott’s Berry Farm a couple of summers ago. They liked my work, and would’ve taught me the whole charicature formula (I bet the whole thing centers around trace this really hideous drawing of a person every time, and put a bow on its head if it’s a girl and a baseball hat if its a boy – then, make sure it’s wearing roller skates and eating an ice cream cone. That’s all there is to it! I possibly could’ve taken this whole sentence out of the parentheses, but what are you gonna do about it?) The problem with working as a charicature artist at an amusement park is it’s not a set pay rate, like minimum wage – you make a few bucks off of each picture you sucker people into paying you to draw. So if it’s a slow day you’re fucked. Which is why I stuck with data entry.

Long story short, I can’t draw detailed lifelike people for shit. But I can draw nekkid people and zoo animals from life in my sketchy animation-frame-drawing style pretty good. You should care because they’re all nekkid, even the animals, and someday when I get off my ass and stop watching tv I’ll have some sketchy type drawings up on the site. Maybe I’ll work on it again this weekend or something. I’d do it tomorrow, but it seems my week is chock full of bgosh 3rd floor team building activities. Tomorrow is another catered lunch (oh, damn, I’ll have to eat for free:) and then after work is wine-tasting at some place near Brooklyn. The bar, not the city. Going to Brooklyn the city would be pretty sweet, though.

Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got, I’m still I’m still Stephy from the block.

I do have other interesting stuff to talk about, but I’ve had this sitting on my desk for days and wanted to share it before the forwards on blogs trend became passe. I found this email printout in a box last weekend while looking for “Travels With Charlie”. I apparently got it on October 16, 1997 and thought it was funny enough to hang onto for a while…

******************************************

From an actual newspaper contest where entrants ages 4 to 15 were asked to imitate “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.”

I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don’t have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life? –Age 15

Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money. –Age 13

It sure would be nice if we got a day off for the president’s birthday, like they do for the queen. Of couse, then we would have a lot of people voting for a candidate born on July 3 or December 26, just for the long weekends. –Age 8

Democracy is a beautiful thing, except for the part about letting just any old yokel vote. –Age 10

Home is where the house is. –Age 6

I bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween. –Age 13

I often wonder how come John Tesh isn’t as popular a singer as some people think he should be. Then, I remember it’s because he sucks. –Age 15

For centuries, people thought the moon was made of green cheese. Then the astronauts found that the moon is really a big hard rock. That’s what happens to cheese when you leave it out. –Age 6

My younger brother asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth – that most of us go to hell and burn eternally – but I didn’t want to upset him. –Age 10

I gaze at the brilliant full moon. The same one, I think to myself, at which Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato gazed. Suddenly, I imagine they appear beside me. I tell Socrates about the national debate over one’s right to die and wonder at the constancy of the human condition. I tell Plato that I live in the country that has come the closest to Utopia, and I show him a copy of the Constitution. I tell Aristotle that we have found many more than four basic elements and I show him a periodic table. I get a box of kitchen matches and strike one. They gasp with wonder. We spend the rest of the night lighting farts. –Age 15

When I go to heaven, I want to see my grandpa again. But he better have lost the nose hair and the old-man smell. –Age 5

I once heard the voice of God. It said, “Vrrrrmmmm.” Unless it was just a lawn mower. –Age 11

I don’t know about you, but I enjoy watching paint dry. I imagine that the wet paint is a big freshwater lake that is the only source of water for some tiny cities by the lake. As the lake gets drier, the population gets more desperate, and sometimes there are water riots. Once there was a big fire and everyone died. –Age 13

I like to go down to the dog pound and pretend that I’ve found my dog. Then I tell them to kill it anyway because I already gave away all of his stuff. Dog people sure don’t have a sense of humor. –Age 14

As you make your way through this hectic world of ours, set aside a few minutes every day. At the end of the year, you’ll have a couple of days saved up. –Age 7

Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. –Age 15

It would be terrible if the Red Cross Bloodmobile got into an accident. No, wait. That would be good because if anyone needed it, the blood would be right there. –Age 5

Think of the biggest number you can. Now add five. Then, imagine if you had that many Twinkies. Wow, that’s five more than the biggest number you could come up with! –Age 6

The only stupid question is the one that is never asked, except maybe “Don’t you think it is about time you audited my return?” or “Isn’t it morally wrong to give me a warning when, in fact, I was speeding?” –Age 15

Once, I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it’s not like he really needed them, right? –Age 15

If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the looting started. –Age 15

******************************************

That’s it, that’s our show. Studio Hall is a damn pretty building. Now’s the time on Sprockets when we drag our asses into bed. ‘nite.

Quite the Julia Child I am, if I do say so myself. Left the Robin’s Nest to go to the grocery store and get stuff to make homemade pasta salad for the 3rd floor potluck tomorrow. And, thank god, it doesn’t look terrible enough to be on The Uglee Chef. (That was an idea for a cooking show me and my brother came up with a few years ago. Everything would look really terrible but taste delicious.) It’s possible that there’s hope for my cooking skills (or lack thereof.)

Went and saw Daredevil today and decided that some day years and years from now, when I get over the idea of having an alien-type being living in my stomach and parasiting off of my food and blood and everything for nine months, and I have kids, one of them will be named Electric Nachos. Or Superfly. I’d like to think that since the kid would share my dna and some character traits she’d think that was pretty sweet. I also decided that even though it was a fun movie my initial reaction to ben affleck as a superhero was right. He ain’t so super, even if he was blind.

And after talking about Kat's job on the new X-Men flick, I went and read her blog to make sure I didn't make anything up. She does indeed change Rebecca Romaine Lettuce's eye color for a living. And that rocks the house all night long.

And I do think I lost my "Travels With Charlie" story. That makes me very angree. You know what happens when I get angree.

And it’s late. I’m not allowing myself to write any more because I should be in bed sleeping and having fucked up dreams. Power to the blind peoples! Rise up against your two-eyed oppressors!

jen – we’re friends, right? Maybe we can share him?

Something you probably already know: when you go to concerts, and you’re standing in a very large group of people in front of the stage, (stoopid moshers aside, it really is the most fun place to be at a show) it’s very important that everybody sing along with whatever band is playing, and when the word “HEY!” is anywhere in the song you must at that moment throw your fist in the air like you’re mad as hell and aren’t gonna take it anymore. You know what I’m talking about.

The show was good times! jen and I could’ve filmed another segment of “Lost in…” for Madison because once we got over by the capitol building we couldn’t find State Street. But then we figured it out and all was well. Stopped in at Urban Outfitters, a store that both rocks and sucks ass at the same time. Rocks in the stuff they carry, sucks in the amount they charge for it. It was a little disorienting leaving the store, subconsciously expecting to be at the anti-mall and finding that oh, yeah. Wisconsin. *sigh*

Long story short OK Go was great, even though (maybe that should be especially because?) the guitarist looked like Ted Bundy, the keyboard player was more Mr. Beanish than anyone we know and the band kept pelting the crowd with handfuls of conversation hearts that my clumsy ass kept almost slipping on. Some high school chicks kept picking up the hearts from the ground and pocketing them. Jen stood in a box. The two events were not related.

The Donnas weren’t so great. It’s not that they’re bad, really, it was just disappointing that every song sounded about the same and were all about 3 things: getting laid and getting drunk. Not that those are bad things to write songs on, but for a band that I’ve known of for 5 years (they’ve possibly been around longer than that) you’d think they’d have more to talk about. Oh well, what the hell, right? Also, singer donna could learn a thing or 50 from monique powell about stage presence.

And the Donnas sign didn’t light up.

And some other 40something year old biker guy knew every word to every Donnas song. Very creepy and funny. But mostly creepy.

And some guy got his glasses broken.

So it wasn’t the best concert I’ve ever been to but it was still a way fun time and did I mention OK Go’s bass player? Mmmm….

The drive home was a lot quicker than the drive there. Why does travel work like that?

Three things you must know:

1) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes go buy some healthy boob stamps. Everyone loves boobs, even (and possibly especially) you. And they’re not even uglee stamps.

2) Peas and carrots are really tasty. Really, really tasty. Did I mention I like them? A lot? Cuz I do. Yum.

3) You know those dreams where you know you’re dreaming, and you can kind of decide what happens next? According to Get a Grip on Dreams (the superdooper interesting book I’m reading right now), you can teach yourself to have them. (which I am working on learning - first I take over some of my dreams, then I move on to bigger and better things, like rearranging the matrix.) Some ways to do this are:

-only go to sleep for 3-4 hours, then stay up for a while and go back to bed for a few more hours

-sleep in the afternoon (cuz it’s not as deep a sleep as nighttime sleep)

-talk to a friend a lot about lucid dreaming (that’s what those kinds of dreams are called), and talk about meeting somewhere specific in a dream. Apparently if you talk enough about it, it’ll be so ingrained in your brain you’ll just dream it.

-this one’s kind of lame, but constantly ask yourself as you go through the day whether or not you’re dreaming, especially when you’re doing things like reading a newspaper or flipping on lights, since those things are really hard to do in dreams. It’s like the talking a lot with a friend about meeting somewhere, it puts the questioning in the spotlight and you’ll start to ask yourself it while you’re dreaming, too. And pow, (penis) you’ll realize you’re dreaming and you can start to change and reshape things, just like Keanu.

4) I can’t remember who Minnie Pearl is, but I feel like I should know that name. There’s mention of her in a Bloodhound Gang song. (One of michelle and I’s favorites, called “A Lap Dance is So Much Better When the Stripper is Crying”)

5) Now I have to go find something to wear to happy Donnas goodness tomorrow, hooray! And then I have to get my ass (and possibly the rest of me, too) back on working on the website.

6) Tomorrow, thank god, is payday.

Okay, that was six things. Possibly more, if you count the list on how to teach yourself lucid dreaming. Suck it, I get an A+ for extra credit.

p.s. - Ann's car (i forget what kind of car it is, it's a happy little hatchback) is named Mel because it's rear end is cuter than Mr. Gibson's.

So I'm just about to head out the door for one last night at the P before it’s not the P anymore, (I hope, I hope they rename it Fill Your DrinkHole, Taco Human… which in retrospect might be too long a name. Maybe they could shorten it to Drink, You Bastard!) and I sat down to some splendid microwavey goodness for dinner (you’d think microwave soup would be gross, but Birds Eye’s chicken noodle is really tasty) and flipped through the blogs and wrote a very long sentence before I got to the point.

Pete got a new car. Someday I’ll retire Chuckles the Happy Clown Car of Doom and buy something I’ve been drooling over for quite some time.

But along with my congrats to Pete for getting the new automobile full of petrol, I had a question for him and the rest of you. Does your car have a name? If so, what is it, and where did it come from?

Chuckles has a pretty simple explanation. From the start, it’s liked to play practical jokes on me. It would get stuck in first gear when I stopped at stop lights, and then I’d pull over, restart the car, and everything would be peachy again. It never did this when I’d take it in to get checked out. It would also turn the lights on all by itself, in broad daylight, and I wouldn’t find out until the battery was so dead it wouldn’t even take a jump start. In the 3 years I’ve had Chuckles, I’ve killed 2 car batteries. The car also thinks it’s hilarious to go 15 mph on large hills when there’s 50 zillion cars behind me. The happy clown car part comes from being able to fit a billion kids in the back seat pretty comfortably (albeit without proper seatbeltage) and the doom comes from my shitty driving.

There was something else the car used to always do to me, too, but I can’t remember what it is right now because I have to set the vcr for tv goodness and get outta here for some drinks and ‘za. Later gators.

What up, yo.

I love when I get home from the gym and all I want to eat is candy. (CANDY!!!) I’m feeling very lazy tonight, which works out great since Tuesday is the second greatest night of television during the week. I’m feeling so lazy, in fact, that I’m not writing anymore.

Except for one more thing: is it physically possible for someone’s ass to detach itself and live a life of its own? Because I swear jen and I almost saw that happen tonight.

For not having much to do today, work went by pretty fast. I think the countdown jen and I had going for the last 50 minutes helped. Afterwards I came home and worked on my massive photo album project some more. It’s really kind of cool to sift through the zillions of pictures I’ve taken over the years and laugh at some of the crazy shit that’s in there. Like the pictures from the millenium new year, when all my brothers and sisters and I hung out at my mom’s place wearing party hats, drinking sparkling apple cider out of plastic stemware and taking pictures like we were all smashed. There’s nothing funnier than a pic of a 12 year old swigging from what looks like a champagne bottle while wearing a lampshade on her head. I also found another picture of my brother in a homecoming dress, and I’m almost up to the set of photos I took at the pregnant lady bikini contest my sister was in last May. Pure comedy gold!

In other news, got a call from mom this morning while I was getting ready for work. I know how much she’s missed having a dog, and I should be happy for her; it’s hard to feel happy when thinking about what she did to the last 2 dogs and cat, and knowing her money situation and hearing how much she spent on the new dog. What the hell is wrong with adopting from a pound? Why can’t she fucking accept that she is not well-off anymore, and can’t do things the way she did when she was married?

And yes, she and the ex finally got back together for round 3. And yes, she’s using him again and it makes me sick.

A while ago I heard someone say that “crazy is going back to the same situation expecting different results.”

I told my mom that once, and she totally loved it. And didn’t get a damn thing out of it.

And when I tell her what’s going on in my life I get pissed because she says things and asks questions about everything like I’m supposed to be acting like a jerk to everyone, and that’s really just not my thing. And it irks me that she doesn’t know that by now. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m a jerk, but not asshole, mean jerk. I’m a sarcastic, happy jerk. I’d maybe say like in the Steve Martin movie, but that might not be such a good thing to say about myself having never seen the movie.

Possibly shouldn’t have started writing about that conversation, now I’m all ticked off again. Leftover science should make me feel better.

“Did you say science?”

“No, I said pie pants.”

“Mmmmmm…. pie pants.”

p.s. – I’m glad new-teacher chick got transferred and won’t be on the very special BP anymore. I never liked her, anyway.

Insane…

The tracker says at around midnight Saturday night someone linked to my blog while looking for my sister’s ska band, The Cellofaned Monkeys, on google. I’m assuming it was her or one of her friends. The funny thing (actually not surprising at all) is that the only things that come up for those words in google are the band site and my blog.

And I’m sleepy, so this will be a short post. I was at a slumber party all weekend in Minneapolis – I’d forgotten how much fun they are. We watched the ever-so-freaky Michael Jackson interview, ate a huge amount of junk food, decided it would definitely be better to wake up to rats having sex on your stomach than to wake up with a roach trying to suck moisture from your tear ducts, ate some more junk food, stayed up til all hours on both nights and then slept way late, had a massive giggle attack at 2am over my ass, decorated a creepy onesie, played some games (some fun, some tedius)… all in all it was good times. And the Norske Nook in Osseo, WI has the best fucking pie in the known universe.

And the strangest thing in the world is the aftertaste when you eat eggs, hashbrowns with onions, coke, and raspberry pie in one sitting.

My frog was overjoyed that I came home and fed him. And now’s the time on Sprockets when we sleep. 'night.

"advance care smile center, can i help you?"

"yes, my name is stephanie lehman and i have a dentist appointment for tomorrow morning that i need to cancel."

"okay, let me get into the appointment book... let's see, here we are. and did that time just not work for you?"

"no, actually, i was talking to some people and your office really doesn't have a very good reputation so i'm going with another dentist."

(very curtly and quickly) "okay thank you buh-bye." click.

hee hee..... are front desky type dentist appointment setters supposed to hang up on you like that?

I promised a better blog entry for today and dammit, a better blog entry is what you get. I dug out “the sacred darth maul” poem for jen to read tonight, and we decided it was definitely post-worthy, even though it’s not my own writing. This is quite possibly the funniest thing my sister Michelle has EVER written. Good good shit. I warn you ahead of time – it’s a really, REALLY long read but well worth it. So there. If you don’t like long entries then skip it, but you’re missing out. And if you absolutely love it, email my sister at beshall666@hotmail.com - tell her so, because she hasn’t written in a while. Tell her Large Marge sent ya. And here we go…

********************************************

Once again there’s a tale to tell
Of the misadventures of Supermichelle,
Powers far beyond those of a police recruit;
Once again she dons the superhero suit….

Here’s a story some know quite well
The love between Darth Maul and Supermichelle.
Good and evil, like night and day;
They didn’t want it any other way.

Darth Maul loved his Supermichelle,
Enjoyed the stories she would tell;
About the villain’s she’d defeat,
His little hero could not be beat.

He’d tell her about how he wanted to be a master;
Oh, if only his apprenticeship were over faster!
She’d laugh and say “Quite a master you’ll be,
Someday you may even have to beat me!”

Sharpened each others skills by far,
Every night all in fun they’d spar.
He taught her the saber, she taught him to dance;
To the untrained eye what a peculiar romance!

One day Maul came home early from work,
Upset about dealing with some jerks.
He said “I’m finished! I want to quit!”
Supermichelle said “No!” and threw a fit.

“Work isn’t all games and fun!
You go back and get it done!”

“But those Jedi knights really suck;
I have to fight them, just my luck!”

“Maul you just do your very best,
this puts your skills to the test.
When the day is through and they are dead,
Get your butt home and meet me in bed!”

Darth Maul smiled, his spirits lifted,
After all in bed he’s quite gifted.

“Michelle I always count on you
to make me happy when I’m blue,
that’s why I so love you.”
She said “Hey, I love you, too.”

She’d made his lunch for that day,
Kissed him and sent him on his way.
Little did they know that this was the end;
Michelle would never again see her boyfriend.

Later that day, while in the grocery store;
Michelle heard a Jedi knight had killed a Sith Lord.
Obi Wan Kenobi struck Darth Maul down.
Word was out all over town.

Michelle lost control, it had to be a lie!
Couldn’t believe her sweet Maul had died!
The superhero weeped and mourned;
Never she’d feel the prick of her horned!

One name now burned in her mind
(Obi Wan Kenobi!)
Oh how she hates those Jedis!

It happened on about August the 5th,
She set out to avenge the death of her Sith.

Michelle searched near and far,
Found Kenobi in a bar;
Flirting with an evil imp named Breanne,
Michelle said “Scat!” and off the imp ran.

With a voice filled with hate,
Supermichelle said “Meet your fate.
You killed my man, you ruined my night,
Just for that, we must fight.”

Kenobi said with a grin,
“I’ll take you on and I’ll win.”

She spoke to Obi Wan, the most hated,
In a furious voice quickly stated,
“Hey dickhead if and when I win,
I get your life and your apprentice, Anakin.”

Kenobi paused and silently reflected,
Picked at a hangnail that looked quite infected…

He said calmly, voice filled with dread,
“When I win, a superhero will be dead.
The force is disturbed, so you I won’t kill;
But your powers are week, and win I still will.

So let’s not fight, let’s settle it over tea;
Hey, you might find you want to sleep with me!

You know – once you go Jedi,
You don’t want no otha’ guy!”

Supermichelle wretched! She got sick!
“I’d rather suck Jabba the Hutt’s dick!
How dare you ask me to sleep with you!
The one who cut my love in two!”

Sudden realization filled her head,
Looked at Obi Wan and said,
“Did you kill Darth Maul dead…
Just to get me into bed?”

Obi Wan laughed. “Yeah, babe, my plan had class,
You didn’t need that evil jackass.
Hanging with the dark side just isn’t cool,
It spoils your good image, my little fool.”

With that Michelle said “Your end is near,
It is you who are evil and wrong, I fear.
Maul and I, perfect compliment and contrast,
Blended good and evil, now in the past…

So bring it on now, put yourself to the test,
I learned from a Sith, I learned from the best.”

Obi Wan grinned and whipped out his light.
Michelle drew hers without dropping her sight.
Now we’ll see who’s the master of their art;
Soon one of them won’t be talking so smart.

With that the fight was on
Between Supermichelle and Obi Wan.

Light sabers swinging, fists flying,
To defeat the other they were trying.

The fight went on, Michelle grew weary,
Energized only by her fury.
Finally she thought, “This is enough,
It’s time to get really tough.”

A secret weapon was given to she;
Darth Maul had trained her, you see,
In case of this eventuality.

Michelle knew what she must do,
Exclaimed “Obi Wan! Untied! Your shoe!”

Obi Wan looked to see what was going on,
Supermichelle whipped out her can of Jedi-B-Gone!
Sprayed him liberally, as directed,
The crime commited is now corrected.

He stopped in his tracks and started screaming,
His skin blistered and started bleeding.
Tooth for a tooth, eye for an eye;
Supermichelle watched the melting Jedi.

She laughed at the bubbling Jedi goo,
“Never ever should you screw
a superhero whose love is true
now that you’ve seen what I can do.”

That being said, she walked off into the night.
In some cases two wrongs do make a right.

I swear, I started reading this and almost had a heart attack because I had no idea Other Steph was thinking of leaving bgosh. Then I realized that oh yeah, she has to fill out an application for the promotion. Duh. (The same kind of thing happened when maria sent out an email about delivering a baby – my initial reaction as I read the first line was “holy shit, I had no idea she was even pregnant.” Then I remembered oh yeah, med school.)

It has come to my attention that I am possibly the last person on earth (or at least among all of the millions of people that I know) to engage in the slow as fuck hell that is dial up. Rrrrr. But there are valid reasons I keep it around, namely:

a) my mom won’t pay for internet access for the younger sibs, and if I keep dialup they can keep signing on with my account back in Ca.
b) I am too poor for dsl or cable modem or both. Stoopid college. Stoopid eye.
c) It’s kind of like the cell phone thing. For the longest time I didn’t get a cel phone because I really didn’t need one, and on top of that it was fun to piss everyone off when they couldn’t call me while I was driving home from work or something like that.

I’m too sleepy from spaghetti-ish goodness to write anything more interesting than that tonight. Tomorrow will be better, or your money back.

Before bed I’m gonna make a construction paper chain to count down the days until donnas-ish goodness and pray to the fashion gods that I’m not starting from square one with ALL my artwork tomorrow… with the impending deadline could possibly mean I don’t have Friday off after all. I take that back, he’ll probably still give me the day off. It ticks me off that I don’t have an answer yet. But we shall see, we shall see.

See what happens when I get started on a good old-fashioned ramble? It’s very hard to stop.

Went to the gym after work, and the aerobics teacher-guy was in bike shorts. Horrible.

Great googlie mooglies I’m tired. Stoopid aerobics. Bismarck aaron says great googlie mooglies all the time. Why is this important? If you don’t know I’m not telling you. But seriously folks, don’t forget to tip your waitress. I got a big fat long email from him last night, which was nice because he and james used to be my partners in slackoff crime when I was working at thinkbox and now since I can’t IM at work we’ve lost touch a little bit. Stoopid work. Except for the part where I like my job.

And muchos grassyass to kat, who emailed me how she got the pdf thing to work on her site. I haven’t tried it yet, because I’m one lazy mofo, but I’ll take a look at it tomorrow night, after possiblee playing pool and checking in at the p. which probably means i won't get to it til Thursday.

Now’s the time on Sprockets when we dance. Goodnight.

Princesses do not kick ass.

Princess Leia is the exception.

But as a rule, the princesses in stories and fairy tales I grew up with as a kid did not kick any sort of ass whatsoever. Maybe I was reading the wrong books? But princesses did not fight anyone cool, they did not solve murder mysteries and they sure as hell didn’t do their own stunts. I don’t think back then princesses were even given stunts. In fairy tales, which is pretty typical reading material for little girls, princesses wear frilly dresses and wait around for the prince to come along and save them from the tower, the dragon, the wicked witch’s spell, the evil speck of dirt threatening to spoil the entire evening.

I guess being a fairy tale princess always just sounded more like it’d be a boring pain in the ass than anything. (I have a point, stay with me here) Which is why I don’t agree with Joe Millionaire. I wish they had a disclaimer at the beginning of the show, or better yet, I wish they had a message that continually flashed at the bottom of the screen. It would read something like “Views expressed by bimbos on screen do not reflect the opinions of the rest of the female population.” Not every woman has wanted to be a princess since she was a little girl, and for some reason every time they show that clip of that girl saying otherwise it pisses me off more and more.

Not that I never thought about being a princess – my sister Michelle and I argued over who got to pretend to be Princess Leia all the time. She was a good big sister, and to avoid more fights she always agreed to be Leia’s sister, Princess Tutti-Fruiti.

That’s not my point. My point is Joe Millionaire pisses me off. The whole premise of the show pisses me off. The only reason I had it on was because it came after Boston Public, which is one of the highest quality television shows available to the general public. It teaches important life lessons, like how to break bottles and brandish them at people when they don’t understand why you’re in a gang. There’s something I’d sit down and watch on Joe Millionaire – let’s have all the women break beer bottles and fight to the death. The winner gets to shove her beer bottle in Joe’s neck for being an ass and agreeing to do this stoopid show. Then, because even if you win you lose, the last woman standing will be dragged out into the street and shot.

The answer’s simple, and I know it – stop watching it. But I’m curious to see just how bad it’ll get, and next week’s the last episode so I won’t ever have to watch it again. I’m going to go read now – possibly something I should have done instead of cleaning house and watching Joe Millionaire – I got this cool book about dreams from the B&N last weekend, and it’s chock full of interesting tidbits about sleep and such. Maybe by the end of it I'll understand my fucked up dreams more? That could be scary.

holy crap, is it possible i might keep another one of my new years resolutions?

i worked on the website today, and learned how to make happy scrolly text in flash. once i got the hang of it i was pissed that it took me so long to get in the first place. but it's up on the site, link's to the left. go read my resume and then hire me. except that i'm not looking for a job. i just did that part first because i thought it'd be easiest. one thing that's not done with the resume thing yet is a link to a pdf version. if any of you have an easy way to do that in flash i'd love to know. thanks, mofos.

death to capital letters. i'm going to bed.

p.s. - sledding on cardboard doesn't work out quite as well as it sounds like it might. but trying to scoot myself down the hill on it was pretty fuckin' funny.

I’m so out of touch, news-wise. It wasn’t always like that; when I used to have the 45 mile commute I’d listen to the cbs newsradio for a good portion of the drive home before switching back to kroq. I actually hadn’t heard about the space shuttle until close to 10 at night. I must’ve been somewhere between 3 and 5 years old, but one time my family drove out to the desert to see the Columbia land. It wasn’t all that amazing, just like watching a plane land, but it was still fucking cool because that plane had been in space. Watching the news talk about the accident made me feel kind of old, because they brought up when the Challenger blew up and how it was 17 years ago. It just kind of wierded me out because I remember when it happened, and holy crap, where did that 17 years go? Not that I’d want to go back to being a kid, mind you, just wow. 17 years. And it's just very sad.

As I sat on the couch I started wondering… when does the black comedy, people trying to deal with it by laughing start? You know what I’m talking about; there were some horrible jokes that came out of the Challenger explosion. I’m not gonna type them here because I’m classy and sum shit. I won’t leave you hanging, though, here are a couple of my favorite blind jokes, which have only gotten funnier since the left eye decided to check out.

Q – Why don’t blind people sky dive?
A – It scares the hell out of the dog.

A man was working the cash register at a small hardware store. The door opens, and a blind guy comes in with his seeing-eye dog. The cashier thinks for a second, should he offer assistance right away? Or would the blind man be offended by the offer? He decided to just keep an eye on the customer and see how he did on his own. They walked to the center of the store, and as the cashier looked on in horror the blind man picked up his dog by the leash and started swinging him around his head. “SIR, CAN I HELP YOU!?!?” the panicked employee asked.

The blind man calmly replied, “No thanks, I’m just looking around.”

When we last left our hero, SuperSteph was sitting all sweaty and nasty and smelly from the gym, typing about crazy, possibly psychologically-scarring teaching methods her mother concocted 20 some odd years ago. We return now, and thank god she's showered, cuz holy crap. You have no idea. She now sits at a much nicer computer, (even though it IS a mac, we'll forgive it for that because it doesn't spontaneously restart like the home 'puter.) gearing up to get some shit done so she can take the day off on Friday. What a trooper.

Working on Saturday is stupid. Alert the people.

Pete, I’ve been thinking. And I have a solution to one of your most irritating problems. When I was a kid and I was learning addition and subtraction, I just didn’t get it. My mom wanted all of her kids to be the absolute smartest in the class, so she bought these flashcards. And she would run through these flash cards with my sister, who didn’t have any problems. Then she would go through them with me. And she, like you, would get frustrated. (given, it’s a different situation because I was 6) She would get so worked up over it that it would usually end with her screaming the flash cards at me and me trying not to cry.

But boy howdy did I learn my math.

So buy some flash cards, and go through them with the 18yr old and scream the equations at him. I know you’ve got the voice for it. It’ll scare him into learning, or your money back.

In other news, I fuckin’ love snow. There are some things that have always struck me as magic, including my 2 year old neice and any rendition of “The Rainbow Connection”. Snow’s on that list. That little teeny tiny snowflakes can join forces to completely cover everything and make me feel like I’m 10 again… I wanted to go play (translation: be stupid) when I walked outside yesterday, but had to go to work. Jen and I made up for it at lunch by going to Taco Hell. After eating we went outside, ran around like idiots in the snow next to the parking lot and threw snowballs as hard as we could at my car. The looks we got from people who didn’t realize it was my car… priceless. One guy actually wouldn’t go inside, I think out of fear that his vehicle was next. And my docs have no treads on them whatsoever, so as long as I’m careful (almost never) I can slide along the sidewalk like Gumby. We're hittin' garbage hill this weekend sometime with ghetto cardboard box sleds, joy!

Now if only we could have snow in 70-degree winters.

A girl can dream.