beyond the pale

San Diego is currently hosting two acclaimed exhibits:

Bodies …. The Exhibition — through September 9, 2007

and

The Dead Sea Scrolls at The San Diego Natural History Museum, through December 31, 2007

Neat, huh?? They’re just all da buzzle!

So come on over … or up … down … whatevs. I’ll bring the coffee.

So my favorite aunt was in town last weekend, all the way from Amish country, PA. But she’s not Amish. No, she flew here. And wore jeans. And partook of electricity. And no barns were raised whilst she was here. At least that we were involved in.

Anyway, turns out, she’s been busily researching our family tree and while she was telling us all about it, she dropped this bombshell: My family on my father’s side is NOT Welsh, as we’ve always thought. Nope. We are Scottish. I mean — gasp! Talk about yer tailspin! Talk about yer identity crisis! Wow. Really? Okay. So, not this:

(Although I fear I have these mom jeans and their attendant tightness issues hidden somewhere deep in my closet. Nasty Welsh.)

But this:

Okay. Hm. Actually, yesss, this seems about right. Pants-less and blue-faced and crazed.

“Midland,” huh? Guess they didn’t want to hurt us neutral, generic-sounding people by saying: Uhm, you sound BORING.

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Midland (“Midland” is not necessarily the same thing as “Midwest”) The default, lowest-common-denominator American accent that newscasters try to imitate. Since it’s a neutral accent, just because you have a Midland accent doesn’t mean you’re from the Midland.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

~ I wander into the kitchen and take a bite of a half-eaten Snickers

~ I wander over to the table and take a bite of a half-eaten banana

~ I wander into the bathroom and peer into the mirror at the small red dots I get under my eyes after a big heaving cry

~ Then I think about work today and how I cannot seem to communicate with The Overlord

~ I wonder just how puffy my eyes will be tomorrow and if I can call in sick

~ I think about how my favorite aunt is in town, my dad’s little sister, and how I haven’t even seen her since the memorial service for this

~ I think about how she’s coming to Boheme tomorrow and how I wish I could show her something else

~ I worry about seeing ny mom this weekend, whom I haven’t seen since Easter and all this

~ I sit and read a chapter in this completely deranged novel I’m reading that I cannot put down and that I kinda hate myself for reading

~ I watch The Office with my sunglasses on because my backup pair of glasses were stolen from The Beanhouse and I haven’t gotten new ones yet

~ I worry about how soon I will go blind because of this

~ I glance at my calf crossed over my other leg and wonder for the gajillionth time why it looks like an albino leg o’ mutton

~ I sigh about how it’s even whiter without the sunglasses on

~ Then I think about Henry VIII because I always think of Henry VIII when I look at my calf crossed over my other leg

~ I worry about sleeping and if I will see that face flying at me again — the one that made me scream out loud

~ Then I wonder for a long long time how to get past the high cold walls to where the rest of me is, the better parts, surer parts, deeper parts

~ I wonder that in every episode

Today, after 5 whole days, I somehow managed to answer my Gmail security question correctly and was finally given back my stuff!! Like emails people have sent me — especially those “Fw:” ones, I love them so much! — and, oh, the entire email database for Boheme.

But I was actually kinda nervous while waiting for the security question to come up as if I really were some kind of impostor. Just sitting there, I couldn’t remember what the question was — which one did I use? what if I answer it wrong out of my nervous mania? — stuff like that. But then the question popped up and nervous mania whooshed away as I said, “Puh-leaze, how easy,” typed it in, and voila! Email again after only five whole days! (I could have had it instantly if they’d sent me the security question five days ago but) Ain’t technology grand?

(And may I say how ridiculous it is that I thought my own security question — that I wrote myself — should challenge me in some way? Actually be HARD to guess? Because I really did say, out loud, here, by myself, “Puh-leaze, how easy.” Like I was disappointed not to be stumped by myself.)

“Poorla, meet The Hoff; The Hoff, meet Poorla.”