I keep trying to rationalize by telling myself I'm helping the economy.

I like the way you think. My budget quails before the way you think, but my wantwantwant lizard brain likes it. (Er, Hec, have you checked your email recently?)

Moldovans do a shot of vodka in hot tea

For some reason this sounds horrid, yet I'm totally down with brandy or whisky in hot tea.

VICTORY! will be yours, Fay. You can even picture me wearing the helmet, but no horns...the horns are a myth. And I think that economic rationalization is a little true.

I keep trying to rationalize by telling myself I'm helping the economy.

Ooo. Good one. I refuse to feel bad about the cds, because Lord knows I want Lucero and Corb Lund to keep making music. They've brought me ridiculous amounts of joy in the past few years.

they're super comfy.

Eeeeexcellent. One of my other justifications is that my recent onset of plantar fascitis means that I need to cut down on heel-wearing as much as possible.

And in a hilarious coincidence, I just now found out that all local mall is getting an H&M. I am SCREWED.

Okay, fine, I will go pay my bills.

Grumble, grumble, try to procrastinate and the buffistas talk about budgets and responsibility, what a world.

Barb, I can't really help...the last column I wrote was "Why Alan Grayson is Awesome" which doesn't seem right for Romancing the Blog, although maybe there could be a column on why heroes don't usually look like him.

(Er, Hec, have you checked your email recently?)

You should get that Neil Gaiman thing.

I have packed everything I won't need within the next week (and completed by that the packing of my rooms!) and fixed my schedule for next year so I won't have to kill my advisors.

Now where's my cabana boy?

What about rollerderby?

I keep saying I am going to stop buying books uñtil I catch up on my to be read pile, but so far I have proven too weak.

Yes, this is me.

I also keep saying I'm not going to purchase any more blazers/waistcoats/military jackets, yet what do I window-shop eBay for? Yeah, you guessed it.

Isn't that, like, the Eastern European cure for sunrise?

Speaking of sunrise, some fellow Volunteers went to Egypt on vacation and hiked Mt. Sinai at sunrise... only to have to share the peak with noisy Russians drinking vodka.

Time to celebrate*? Vodka. Time to mourn**? Vodka. Time to honor saints***? Vodka. Time to vomit? Vodka. Time to get in your car and drive? Vodka.

Of course, the drinking of vodka leads to such joys as "time for domestic violence," "time to lose extremities to frostbite," "time to crash the car," "time to get in trouble with Peace Corps" (for Volunteers), and apocryphally, "time to pass out faceup in the rain and drown."

Shots of homemade wine are an acceptable and common substitute. In extreme situations, cologne or antifreeze may be substituted, though adverse reactions may result.

* Alcohol-fueled celebrations include but are not limited to Christmas, Easter, each village's Founding Day, May Day, International Woman's Day (at school, no less), birthdays, weddings, baptisms, etc.

** And I'm not just talking funerals, b/c it's traditional to host a meal honoring the dead at one week, every 30 days for six months, and then annually for seven years. As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up.

*** Allow me to recount the celebration of "40 Saints" day, where my non-drinking host mother was urged to do 40 shots of homemade wine. At her workplace. Which happened to be the hospital.

No wonder so many of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers got in touch with their inner alcoholics. Me, I was delighted to live with a very rare non-drinking family (father was a recovering alcoholic, another rarity in Moldova).

Good times, good times.