I swear, I've worn it before and no one said anything. The big difference is that then I was wearing pouffy multi-layered skirts and pretty blouses. Today it's a pretty shapeless tank dress, so it's all about the corset.

But if a guy took a look at me today and complimented me on my shoes (black mary janes with red chinese dragons) I'd do him there and then.

In baseball, one of the potential issues which hasn't happened yet is elective surgery.

There's a corrective surgery known commonly as Tommy John surgery (after the pitcher who first received it) where you use ligaments from the leg to repair ligaments in the elbow. Because they're stronger ligaments you can actually come out throwing harder than you did before. Roger Clemens had that surgery early in his career.

So far nobody has done it electively, but it's a possibility. At some point, somebody will.

Tour de France is now officially more fucked up than Barry Bonds home run record.

I think there will be a time when people just have to create an Unlimited Doping Category for sports. Because the lines are so porous. One of the big advantages in baseball for steroids doesn't have to do with strength but with quicker recovery from strain and injury. It feels harder to argue against that element.

I am feeling quite pathetic and useless at the moment. How am I going to pack all this? And once it's packed, how am I going to get it downstairs? Feeling very sorry for myself and so so missing having an organizing supergenius like, say, vw.

Oh, Emily, I hate packing, so I feel your pain. Do one area at a time and you'll work your way through it. Now, the getting it downstairs thing? Friends to help you load your car?

Well, I'm leaving on Wednesday. Not ideal timing for getting friends to help!

And once it's packed, how am I going to get it downstairs?

If I'm not temping that day, I'll help.

Even on my own, I've moved way more than the contents of your apartment.

You are very sweet, David, thank you.

Tomorrow I'm borrowing a car and taking boxes to the post office. I think while I'm there I'll buy some smaller boxes, then come home and pack up a bunch of books and papers and things and see how that goes. I just keep tripping over more paper, and in fact there's really no space to put things that I take out of boxes, so that's a dilemma.

I'm also feeling downhearted about the things that I may end up moving to Virginia just because I can't figure out how to get rid of them -- a talking Gollum figurine, four big-ass Nene Thomas prints, an old typewriter... Argh. Good thing I'm getting a massage tomorrow morning.

Gah! Gah! Gah!

You know, I realized just this morning that I actually like Skeletor in spite of myself, and in spite of years of thinking he's just too scary to look at. And my reasons for it were all about watching him, before our eyes, since getting the yellow, pull out all kinds of skills that he hadn't been drawing on in all of his time as a specialist, because the Tour is ultimately about how winning the GC is about scraping every last resource and talent and skill, no matter which discipline is naturally your strongest.

And then I decided that I had to take a break from finals week and go have a life and, you know, pimp the shit out of paperdol's book and inspire a whole batch of new crushes on ita's killing-with-pinky-ness in doing so and while I'm out, stuff happens. That would've also distracted me from schoolwork, as it happens.

I never really think any of 'em are clean (it's like they say in NASCAR -- if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin') but he's not one I would've pegged for being really wormy about it either. I'm not sure what it is, but it's leaving me with a mental ewww face, whereas Vino was more "you magnificent motherfucking idiot!" I'm also not sure why I'm so attached to reading character notes in their downfalls; I'm really uncomfortable with overidentifying when it comes to sports fandom, and yet here I am, all "wormy" and "magnificent idiot".

I also don't think that blood doping should be considered doping (although if it's cheating, it's cheating, as ita says). But that's a whole long bodies and boundaries thing and, again, finals week.

You know, I realized just this morning that I actually like Skeletor in spite of myself, and in spite of years of thinking he's just too scary to look at.

Me too. Skeletor's had it rough. I mean, look at him. His head is a skull with no skin on it. How the hell does he live?

Oh, somewhere out there there's a YouTube video of "Bohemian Rhapsody" done with clips of Skeletor, He-Man and the rest....

eta: Here's the video: [link]

Me too. Skeletor's had it rough. I mean, look at him. His head is a skull with no skin on it. How the hell does he live?

It's a bare-bones existence.