Fun with Hester Prynne, my new computer, never ends. The other day I tried to install my printer, and Hester waggled her digital finger at me. “Verily I have no understanding of the softwareths.” And this is the free printer that they sent me WITH Hester. I’m glad I named her Hester Prynne. At first it was a dumb play on the fact that it’s an HP, but now I’m thinking she needs to be banished to a small cottage in the wilderness with a big “U” for Unctuous.

I can hear HP going, “What? We didn’t say your free printer would work with the computer we sent. Roffle!”

I was in mah cups the other night, and when that’s the case I enjoy the online support. It’s fun to see what’s happening on the other side of the world. Many Americans could use to learn and grow, AM I RITE.

But it never ever connected, so I gave up. Well, HP sent me an email the next day, BEGGING me to click the link to be whisked off to instant online help. “Please give us another chance, Customer #68754S3-Twelvdy! We’re sorry!”

Well, okay. Watch how my question doesn’t get answered until I say “goodbye.”

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Hmm. It’s 11:37. I have yoga at six am. Anyone care to lay bets on how likely I am to go to it?

If you said, “Not bloody likely,” you would be right.

I have been working on the catalogue for the auction all day. This auction is like a really boring addiction.

One day at the mall, you see a Beanie Baby. “Aww, that’s so FLIPPIN cute,” you say to yourself. You put it on your dashboard like those goobs who put stuffed animals on their dashboard. Let’s say it’s an echidna.

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Sooo, today I have a very special and slightly disturbing secret, much like the businessman on the bus you see, wearing a nice suit. But, look closer, and there is the subtle shoulder indents that can only be caused by a Cross-Your-Heart bra.

Can you even get those anymore? I refuse to google that up.

Anyway, I am wearing a nursing bra today. I am not all, SURPRISE BABY! again like I was when I got off my court-ordered blog “hiatus,” either. I just can’t find my exercise bras today. And these are cloth and comfortable, but they have little flaps. So I am slightly trepidatious that I will be doing Sideways Buttweasel and SPROING, one of my flaps will pop open. And the boobs, they don’t look the same when one flap is down. They may escape and smother one of my fellow practitioners. I try to be optimistic, but I have seen too many people lost to the boob smothering to be a total pollyanna.

Okay, I’m done.

No, I’m not.

“It’s just one of the risks of this extreme sport,” she said affectedly, like Jeff Goldblum.

In Other News

Yesterday I had a really useful meeting with a person who has run previous auctions. It was like boot camp. She tore me down and completely rebuilt me again. I am a different person today.

The first thing she said, when she saw my list of items was, “Oh, you guys are about 75 items short. Wow.” This was followed by, “If you pull this off, it will be a miracle.”

What happened this year isn’t really anyone’s fault. We lost our old chair because her child aged out of the school. I didn’t feel right about picking up the gauntlet, because I have never run an auction, or you know, even been to one. And no one else picked it up either.

But here I am now. I kind of became the official chair last week. Understandably, it is too late to get volunteers in to bail me out in any significant way at this point, so I am doing a lot of things myself. I was sitting at my kitchen table working on the catalogue text last night wondering if I should include a “letter from the chair” that was actually signed by me. I opted just to make it a general acknowledgments section. I am feeling wussy in that this late in the game I didn’t want to take the blame or the dubious glory.

The person doing decorations called me to chat. “Do you want me to thank any of the people who helped you with decorations? I’m writing that part now,” I said. “You’re the only one who helped me, besides the teachers,” she said.

Ugh, what a dud year. People are burned out, or busy. I am trying to focus on the fact that next year will be easier and probably more profitable.

An old acquaintance sent me an email about a focus group for a local company that makes products for children. The reward for participating was free swag and dinner. Sounds fun, if you’re into that sort of thing.

I went and was in a room with five other moms who have children in my age range. The leader of our group showed us a drawing of a prototype and asked us what we thought as moms. Would our kids play with this? What would they like about it? Would we buy it? What would make us buy it?

I chimed in and said, “I think my younger daughter would like it, but the older one would reject it on the grounds that there are no unicorns anywhere on it.”

The leader whipped out a second drawing that was pink and had a fairy theme. She explained what the “boy” one did, which involved piloting a spaceship and having adventures, and how it involved role playing, and that the fairy one involved role playing as well, although all I could see was that it was pink and had some flowers and bugs on it. All the other moms seemed pretty sold.

“What I’m seeing here,” I said, “is a boy product that encourages the boys to take a leadership role, to DO something, to be actors. On the girl product I am seeing only a chance to pretend to be a fairy. What does the fairy do? Because if it’s just about being a pretty fairy, I would not buy this. I am trying to encourage my girls to be do-ers and leaders.”

They didn’t really have an answer about what the goals of the fairy toy was, because I don’t think they thought it out that far. I hope they rethink that one, but they probably won’t. Oh, well. The pizza was good!

In Related News

Companion just brought home a graphic novel by one of my favorite artists, Joann Sfar. Many of his works are now being translated into English, which is good for me. The book he brought home is called Sardine in Outer Space. It features a grade-school aged girl, Sardine, who works with her uncle (a space pirate) to fight crime and right wrongs. Sardine is in a strong leadership role, so it’s not one of those bullcrap sitches where the girl helps the main superhero or gets into pickles and needs to be rescued. They all get into pickles, and Sardine often has the best idea. And she has a bad ass pirate scar on her cheek, which I have always coveted. I suppose it’s not too late; maybe I’ll still get one someday.

I am going to make Franny read it when she arrives back from her dad’s, and she likes Sfar, too, so I think she’ll love it. I think ages six to ten would enjoy it, but I enjoyed it too. It’s funny.

PS

Dear friends, enemies, lovers, and mongoose porn fiends. I am having some issues with blogspam right now. My dope administrator is trying to figure out a dope solution to this undope problem. In theory, if you have one comment approved, you should be golden forever, so I appreciate your patience while being in comment limbo.

Love,
Totie

1. So I vetted the pole party (that was donated to the auction for my big kid’s school) with the director and a couple of other people who work there. “Have you seen this?” I said. It turns out someone at the school procured it. Well, I put in my two cents. I predict someone besides me will complain. Eh.

2. I tried on my interview pants today, because I have an interview next week. If I had to describe them in one word, that word would be “SNUG AS HELL.” But they can be buttoned, and they don’t look bad. When I was finishing all my post grad school interviews a couple of years ago, they were kind of falling off me. I liked having the small waist, but I don’t miss the miniature stress-induced white girl butt. At least I looked like Duff when I was going, instead of when I was coming.

Anyway, it’ll work for now, and maybe if I get a job I can get some clothes that actually fit teh lady can, so I can look nice at work, and not like flipping Jessica Rabbit. I’m not worried, because I’ll be fancier than the people interviewing me. I can’t believe I have been out of work now for almost two years. Except for the parts where feral naked dwarfs were vomiting in my mouth and throwing shit at my head, time has flown!

Thank you, wine.

3. I am missing protoshop like whoa. Hester Prynne does not have it installed, and we lost the disc, which may have not been an official copy in the first place. I am looking at installing Gimp, but fragdammit, I know protochump already. I want to PNW’ed. I want to PNW’ed for other people, who very politely requested one in exchange for a vote at BlogHer. I AM GOING THROUGH CAT MACRO WITHDRAWAL, HERE.

I can’t be all in UR ________, [verbing] UR ___________, otherwise. God, of all the stupid things to get addicted to. I need to start watching soaps or something, or get some proper drugs.

4. I am becoming the auction queen. I told myself I was only going to do checkout. I didn’t feel ready to snatch the pebble out of the auction’s hand. Now people are emailing me and calling me with things, because no one else is really doing it. I hate being the person who actually cares, and is a big enough spaz to do things well, in a way. It’s kind of embarrassing somehow to admit that you get satisfaction out of checking things off a clipboard and saying things like, “Put the giant tiki head over here.”

There is no real chair this year, so the school decided to take it over, but someone emailed me the other day and referred to me as the “defacto chair.” But you know what? I like doing this. I like running big shows. I think I can’t avoid this stuff in my life because I like this kind of spazziness. I’m not going to lie to you–I’m having a great time.

Goals for this week:
1. Find respectable addiction (Knitting? Bingo? Pulltabs?)
2. Buy plane ticket to Wyoming
3. Scream silently into pillow
4. Make time to masturbate.