And in if-only-I-were-more-crafty-billtea'd-be-getting-a-present news, [link].

Oh, wow! I just did! I do origami, and I'm making that one. Thanks for that, it is bookmarked.

The driveby mascara would give me mascara for just a short time, and would need to be put on an already made up face without mussing anything.

Way too risky for this tyro.

I stopped by Sephora, spent way too much (the kit is there), and have really pretty nails (on company time to boot). I went with Smashbox mascara, since it was right there.

Can't you look all cute and fetching and let Bob Bob do the lifting?

So far, except I have this need to do all the controlling, i.e., determine How Everything Will Be Packed, and In Which Boxes, as well as Where Boxes Are Stored For Now; not to mention Make Sure Everything Has Enough Tape and Don't Use the Dish Box Yet.

We're moving four blocks.

(the kit is there)

Ah, thank you.

Heh. My sister just called to make sure I wasn't dead.

What did you tell her?

What did you tell her?

Well, I answered the phone, which gave her the impression that I was still in the land of the living.

She didn't ask if I'd been zombified. One day she'll rue that oversight.

So far, except I have this need to do all the controlling, i.e., determine How Everything Will Be Packed, and In Which Boxes, as well as Where Boxes Are Stored For Now; not to mention Make Sure Everything Has Enough Tape and Don't Use the Dish Box Yet.

We're moving four blocks.

We moved the New England equivalent of that, about two years ago. It was just as much work as moving two towns away.

After tears and two fits, I'm wearing jeans. And I still look like what happens to the pillsbury dough when you press the spoon to the dotted line.

Someone probably posted this already, but, as I posted on my blog, I stole this link from the inimitably wonderful Maud Newton. I hope it brings as much pleasure to y'all as it did to me.

Excerpt:

For starters, I have watched your goings-on for some time now. The fin de siecle appearance of your administration, especially after the rampant degeneracy of that satyr Clinton and his panting ilk, was a most welcome disruption of the general malaise of things. You effected revolutionary and deleterious change on the rosy status quo. How I hated that corrupt, fallen status quo. (Incidentally, this falls rather in line with a scheme I posited—which you no doubt have noticed in your readings—wherein pederasts and degenerates would be encouraged to gain high office—the presidency, perhaps—which station they would then neglect as they attended to their sexual and narcotic appetites. There would be no more war, because there would be no one to start the wars—everyone flitting off to parties and such. Your scheme, however, one of sustained, systemic breakdown, appears to be the work of quiet genius, even if it has had the regretful, short-term effect of increasing the incidence of war.)

You stemmed this people’s lemming-like rush after prosperity, you marshaled lagging school children, and you brought zealous religiosity again to the national discourse. You rebuked the Old World! You felled Babylon the Great! (The lazy asses, the picayune media [those bankrupt souls], might raise captious and frivolous objections to these deeds, but, Sir, say to you [as even God himself might say]: WELL DONE.)

...

In the meantime, Mr. President, I offer you my jubilant, shining hand of friendship. Together, liveried in the costly apparel of high station, and much as Joseph of Egypt and his trusty servant boy, Tut-tut, long ago once did do, we shall step down from our aerie to bid Louisiana and parts of Mississippi gather at our feet. We shall tell them to rise up and thrive! Be industrious! And they shall do so, and be so.

So long, Big Pardner (a little Texan, in honor of your noble heritage)!

Yours most ardently,

Ignatius J. Reilly