is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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"Temptations." "Not a Musician." "Gus Exists." "Bead Store."

I've had a breakthrough in the pill-feeding regimen with Hans Blix (TCNTUNWI). And, no, I do not mean that his teeth have once again broken through my skin. There are these little kitty treats by Whiskas (sorry. I did not make up that name.) called "Temptations," which are crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside. Turns out, if you cut the end off of one of them and stuff a pill into the gooey matter, Hans Blix will eat the treat as if it were Christmas and Halloween and he's locked in a bakery for cats with all his favorite bird toys. He is so excited about the frequent treat-getting that he actually comes running when he hears me opening the pill jar. I can't quite believe it. But there it is. I can give him a pill and help him work on his hairballs all at once, and be loved for it. Let's hope it takes him a long while to catch on.

Meanwhile, back in Dallas, my cousin Marc was trying to get Natalie to sing something while he played guitar, and Natalie was all, make Jill sing it, and Marc's all, "That's a good idea, Jill's a great singer," and I'm like "NO." It was sweet, however, to think that my young cousin must have remembered me singing a lot as a kid. But then when Natalie and I finally were singing, a bit frantically, to stop young August from having a meltdown, Marc saw the light and said, "that really sucked." And I found that equally charming. Really, I did, and not in any ironic way. Later that evening, when the whole family sang Happy Birthday to Marc, he remarked that our performance was really pathetic for a family full of musicians. Natalie, Adam, and I quickly retorted that we are not musicians, and it was so kneejerk of us, that you kind of had to guess that there was some ressentiment involved in our certainty in this matter. Sure, everyone else in the family might be musicians. But, no, Adam, Natalie and I really are not musicians. We have traveled the cool-nerd path instead.

This weekend was work work worky, but with some breaks. Yesterday I spent a number of hours converting a paper for publication from one system of citation to another. It was entirely annoying, not only because there was no way to do it mechanically and thus I had to convert 53 cites from parentheticals into endnotes, but also because my MS Word program kept refusing to obey the shift F5 command and thus it was like I had to begin again 53 times. At some point I felt myself about to explode so I put Justin Timberlake on and he made the rest of the labor more tolerable.

Then I cleaned up another paper for a potential publication. Then I made some really yummy Indian lentil soup and some terrible oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. How could they be terrible, you ask? I am not sure. However, I do know a recipe that I will never be using again. Then I read a chapter of Otherwise Than Being that I'm teaching on Tuesday. Then I put together 15 more job applications.

Today I woke up and then Gus and I (Gus is my new friend at QuakerBubble, who, until a week ago, I was certain was the imaginary friend of my good friend David (David K, not David-from-LA or Dave Eggers or David Lowery, or my other friend at QuakerBubble, David S), because he (David) kept telling me "how much I'd like Gus" but yet this Gus never materialized. Apparently he was "on leave" last year. Whatever.

Anyway. Today Gus and I took the train to Philly and met Emma for brunch at Jones, my favorite brunch place that has perfect omelettes that come with tater tots and yummy wheat toast. Then I walked down to South Street, the Telegraph Avenue of Philadelphia, to go to a Bead Store. That's right, a Bead Store. Nothing is more on-the-road-to-crazy-cat-lady than a bead store, except maybe a yarn store. But I've started making jewelry, and this Bead Store carries the materials I need, which, largely, I am happy to say, do not include beads. I'm making necklaces, and they are cute, and soon enough I'll show you some, and you may covet them. Or you may not. Anyway, the girl at the Bead Store, who at first gave me those glances that you get when you are not of the in-crowd, came around once I asked a couple of questions. I guess I asked the right questions, because she not only gave me an excellent price on some garnets, peridots, citrines, amethysts, and one aquamarine drop, but also sold me some liquid with which I can oxidize my own silver rather than paying someone else to do it. And lots of findings. Findings are what you call the parts of jewelry that hold the jewelry together but which aren't really considered to be part of the jewelry, although they clearly are. How's that for a sentence?

11:35 p.m. - November 19, 2006

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