Bye MT! Die MT!

In the meanwhiles, Bug Collection.

Plowing ahead, in spite of blog errors at every turn. I have an intrepidness. Probably just stupidity, really, as I have also been struggling with Vista for a year-and-a-half as well. I have received intelligence that there is another upgrade for MT, and I think I want to try that before I jump to WordPress.

Anyway, the contract agency interview went really well yesterday. I feel confident that they are going to handle me well and I bet I’ll be trapped behind a desk in no time flat. I don’t think that I’ve ever felt so comfortable at an interview.

This morning I spent some time out back, watching the chickens. My favorite time is when I open the door for the first time in the morning and they come bursting out, like out of some kind of chicken cannon and run around the yard flapping and stretching.

I open the house’s big door to put their water out on the lawn and check their food, and it always looks like some kind of horrible bar fight happened in there.The feeder is always still swaying slightly and there is litter and poop and food everywhere.

I watched them noodle around the yard and nip at a slightly overripe avocado that I’d split for them. Ms. Klassy the Polish came by and I noticed that she’s sprouted saddle feathers, making her a him. DAG. My favorite, most mellowist chicken, and now I have to rehome him.

I am still on the fence with the Silkies. One stayed small and clearly looked like a pullet, and the other grew much faster, but does not otherwise look like a rooster. Now they are close in size and their head crests look the same. Other than that, we certainly have an orpington, and Easter Egger, and two golden buttercups that are certainly girls.

I never can tell if they become your favorite chickens because they start sweet, or because you spend extra time with them and spoil them, making them tame and easy. I handled the Polish a lot because I heard they could be flighty, but now when I hold him he grabs my hand and lowers himself until his breastbone goes “whump” and lands on my arm, totally relaxed. I will get out there today and snap some pics. They are huge now.

Hey hey things are afoot here, or three of them, composing a yard, whichever.

Today I have an interview with someone who seeks to hunt my head, and put it on a platter with an apple in my mouth, all the while asking me if I do XML. I am hopeful that I will be placed in early September when my kids go back to school, and for longer than the holiday season, which is of course a terrible time to try to find moar works.

I shopped for new clothes since everything that fits is casual, and I had that agony that you can get over interview clothes. Is this too dressy? Is this not dressy enough? Will a dingo steal my baby? Whatever. The last time worked in an office I was paradoxically both skinnier than I am now and pregnant. Yay stress and poverty. I rocked that “olive on a toothpick” look but hard.

One of the lamest interviews I ever had was in college when I was trying to get out of retail. It was incoming call center work, which I thought I might qualify for since I had done “telephone interviewing” (a.k.a. harassment, because the government needs to know how many times a week you eat carrots, fat Americans) a few years before that. I was poor college jerk, so I threw together what I had, which was a pair of black trousers and a clean, ironed white shirt, probably from the thrift store. I added a blue glass vintage brooch to it so I wouldn’t look totally clone army. The interviews were large group style and at one point the interviewer, a woman, turned to me and said, appropos of nothing, “Do you work in a movie theatre or something?”

“Um…no,” I replied lamely, startled.

I did not get the job, which was probably for the best, really. Instead I landed my cool coffee job which broke me to the world of humans and socializing properly, since I was forced to confront surely rich Phoenix dicks daily (memorable quote: “I have socks worth more than you.”) and a supposed millionaire stalker in his 50s who used to quote Seinfeld at me incessantly and plotted every week to steal me from my husband. FAIL. Maybe if I would have found the millionaire thing out up front. But no. Seinfeld quotes. That’s a tough one.

One thing I regret not doing before I had children was going off on stupid whims like that. “BYE HONEY, I’m leaving you for a coffee shop lottery winner weirdo! Goin’ to Vegas! Don’t hold dinner! Ever!” I should have married more times for money, for sure.

Usually I have projects coming out of every orifice with a side of too much cooking for good measure, but not right now. The tomatoes aren’t even ripe. This summer is a ripoff and I want my moneys back. I was going to paint the office walls, cream on the top half and French blue on the bottom, with an antique gold stripe to act as a chair rail, but now I think I will just paint most walls cream and one wall blue, ye olde lazy decorator’s standby. Too much work and precision required from plan A. But something must be done to cover the Pepto pink Franny chose when we moved in.

Additionally, I am working on giving Franny’s Patty a skin transplant, since pretty much all of Patty’s fuzz rubbed off. I had to take Patty apart to get a pattern so I could resew her with new velvet. It disturbed me and I am not so sure this was a good idea, but the truth of the matter is that Patty was disintegrating. Franny is coming back on Friday and I am behind on that! Panic! Shame! Trauma mom!

Patty sans-stuffy. Fnif.

I fear that Inky, who wants you to know s/he enjoys toast with East, is going in the same direction. Inky likes having his/her/it’s ears rubbed and now I can see Inky’s skin through them. Lucky for us we have Inky II socked away in a drawer, ready to be deployed before she gets too wise.

A quick check in. READ CAREFULLY because my previous posts on this subject seem to be bouncing off the drooling, Ritalin snorting internet hoards (myself included, I know I know).

A. You DO NOT have to sign in to leave a comment. I KNOW, it says that, but you can bypass and just fill out your infos.

B. People who cannot comment: I KNOW my shit is bananas broken here. Sorry. I wish I could say the back end of MT was of interest to me, but it’s not, and never has been. My help has thrown up their hands, in equal parts because I and MT sucks. I am thinking of switching to wordpress, which will break FIVE YEARS OR SO of image links. You see my dilemma. Rolling blackouts or years of hairshirt.

In the meantime, I am also posting MUCH more successfully at http://iasshole.diaryland.com, which makes me a lamezor noob, but wtfever, you can’t stop the music.

I have a fourth roommate now, did I tell you? No, it’s not another surprise baby. It’s Inky, the Deadly Panther. Relations with Inky can be difficult, because all Inky-human communication is conducted through Strudel, which is good, because apparently if you rile Inky he will rip your fucking face off or something.

Inky has many needs and opinions, which are conveyed to us at all hours of the day.

“Inky would like some more blueberries, PLEASE!” Strudel tells us. You may not keep Mr. Inky waiting. Inky is referred to as “he” and “him” constantly but it is important for us to know that Inky is a GIRL PANTHER.

Strudel’s father and I were having a lively discussion on vacation, not even Serious Arguing for us, and Inky interrupted right in the middle. I think we were trying to decide what to do that day, or something. Having been raised by a pack of feral Italians, I tend to speak loudly and fling my hands around a lot.

(“YES,” I say, “GIVE ME MORE ORANGE JUICE for Christ’s sake.”)

“INKY DOESN’T LIKE IT WHEN YOU ARGUE,” Inky’s translator informed us.

“Tell Inky that he is a LITTLE TOO SENSITIVE,” I replied.

Inky wants to ride the bus. Inky wants to wear pajamas all day. Inky wants to listen to Fucking Noats. (I have told Inky repeatedly it’s “Hall and Oates” but Inky’s made up his mind.)

So now we are living under a dictatorship. An Inktatorship. Quick, send a banana republic to save us!!! (Inky prefers The Gap.)

Looks like there’s a librarian gatheration in Ye Olde College in tonight, no doubt in honor of Her Librarianness. The only thing that can get me into the dungeon known as the College Inn at this point is librarians (seven p.m. btw). Otherwise I am busy hiding in my house and jobhunting, I swear.

I’ll be interested to see if this even publishes. My blog is kind of broken right now, I’ve no clue what’s wrong. I think I am getting off this sinking ship known as MT and moving to WordPress. I sure hope that fixes things. A thousand entries takes forty-seven years for a complete republish. The drawback is that ALL my image links will break.

So I have been out of town for a week, and am late, late, late to the party, but I knew I needed to say a little something about Blogher. Everyone else has moved on with their lives BUT WHATEVER I have not, because I’ve been stewing in my juices in rural Oregon for week.

I think I really do, because last night I dreamt it was held on a beach like a big party, and Liz Henry was kind of the boss of it and had a really long mohawk that kept flowing about behind her like some Road Warrior vs Liberty Leading the People action. (Gene Delacroix high kick!) I think I was dreaming about it and Liz because I had just caught up on the whole Wis-Con fiasco, which a friend clued me into last week. At first I was like how on earth could I missed that mess, but then I realized I was running that wretched auction the same weekend.

Anyway, my overall impression of the conference was really good, but I thought the keynote was fairly fail. I generally avoid writing about people who I think are boring or overrated, but I thought the keynote selection of Dooce left things on a sour note. The theme for Blogher this year was “Reach” and I saw that she was announced and I thought “meh, heard her story before, this is quite a comedown from Elizabeth Edwards, etc” but I knew I could find something else to do for that night.

My feelings of being unimpressed grew throughout the conference as it was increasingly obvious that she was not going to make an appearance anywhere (that I know of) including the panels and social events. What kind of message does it send to your fanbase/supporters that you can’t deign to attend any part of the conference that you are keynoting? It’s not like it’s outside her realm of interests. We’re not offshore fishermen. We’re female bloggers.

I suppose it’s a feat to make a living off of the spectacle of your life–many have done it before and will again, but I don’t really see Dooce as reaching for much of anything, except maybe for the paycheck she got for slagging one of her biggest fans in public. We should all be so lucky to be paid to troll people in public.

You know, actually, wait. I think my admiration has increased. With Something Awful you have to pay to see the trolling or slog through ads. Other trolls are barely post alphabetic. This is better. Well-played! I would like to hear more from that Redbook woman who was keynoting Saturday morning. I think Redbook is a sad ragbag but she was hilariously fascinating, and I had not heard her story before.

In other news, I am back from rural Oregon, land of coyote poop and driving, driving, driving on gravel roads to get anywhere. I have one month to find a job, do some editing of my own work, and save the historic diner! Speaking of historic diner, did you see that they got Old Nat for new 90210? And the rest of the has-beens are flocking as well.

If you are over the age of 30 are you wishing that they would just kick off all the new kids and go at it again? I mean, at this point I think they have everyone except for Luke Perry and David Silver’s Friend Who Shot Himself. They should bring him back as a new character.

I accidentally adblocked my gmail this morning and am thinking of giving up personal computing. Monkeychow OUT.

I hate to leave lame mass bulletins like this, but I will be out of range from beautiful things like email and blog posting for a week. I say this because if you are emailing me or wondering wtf happened to me after Blogher, that is it. I am not becoming a mystical hobbit. (“LOL”)

People who want/can/need to (like Denise) should call me. Otherwise, brb in a week. And yes, I am crazy to do back-to-back trips.

P.S. I can see you when you search for yourself. YES, YOU. I am not thinking about nor posting about you.