Two posts in as many days! Will the zaniness ever end?

So with this nasty cold apartment I pulled out one of my blankets to get warmer on the couch.

It's an average blanket. Pretty thin. Blue. Kinda boring. I think I got it when my grandmother moved into assisted living and needed to get rid of the majority of her things.

So anyway, nondescript blanket.

And Ramona is completely obsessed with it. Every time I got up from the couch yesterday I would come back and she would be burrowing into the blanket madly before settling in for a nap.

I've got other blankets out. One on my bed in particular that is totally cuter.

And she could care less about it.

Who knows. Maybe there's something buried in her psyche about blue blankets. Or the smell reminds her of something comforting.

Either way, it's now in her cat bed on my couch. She's currently snuggled into it like nobody's business.

It is freezing in my apartment. As per usual, the "timer" on the heat is a little too closely tied to when my caretaker gets home. And he got home late.

And it sucks because I have this metal desk for my main computer that's right next to a window. I think my tongue would freeze to it at the moment.

I haven't been writing. I've been so busy and stressed out that my creative writing skills are just gone.

I came up with a couple decent stories from my past, but I did the math and the statute of limitations have yet to run out on the most interesting ones.

Yeah, you go ahead and think I'm kidding.

And you know, around 9 PM the heat kicked in and I was going to write about how happy I was about that, but now at 1 AM the radiators are completely cold. As am I.

So the heat was theoretically on for about 3 hours at best.

Is that normal? Because when it's 10 degrees out I'd like to think my landlord would care enough to keep the heat on for more than a few hours a day.

A sort of peace has come over me as of late. A final understanding. I know what I need to do now. It's become so clear.

It will not be easy. It will cause pain to both myself and my loved ones, but it needs to be done.

I'm divesting myself of all my excess crap.

All the gifts I've gotten over the years from friends and family that I hang on to only out of guilt? Gone.

All the stupid pointless crap that I've bought over the years and then thought better of? Gone.

I have so much crap it's insane. Maybe I'll just start giving all of it as gifts this Christmas. Hm...

In other news: I will reluctantly admit to watching Breaking Bonaduce. And on the episode today he's reading a Bible I typeset. Weird.

For me, anyway.

I am so behind on trying to update quotes on this site it's pathetic.

There's a Food Network show profiling Al's Breakfast (a local restaurant located by the U of M). Personally, the best breakfast place for my money will always be Rick's Ol' Time Cafe. But Al's is pretty good. It's a long, skinny joint that kicks customers through at a record pace. I still remember the last time I was there. The woman who was serving us gave me my eggs and quickly offered up a number of things I could put on them. I said no to every one of them.

She stopped in her tracks, stared at me for a second, and then said with a bit of a smile, "A purist. I approve of that." And then was off and running.

I felt kind of cool.

Now Rick's, on the other hand, was not as pop-culturally cool, but that place had my heart. The food was so cheap and so good. And you could always see Rick himself in the kitchen, working away. And his daughter was often working as a waitress. She was pretty cool. And always remembered me and my order. And always gave me crap for ordering a diet Coke before noon.

One day in my senior year of high school (I think—or pretend to think—it was senior skip day) my best friend and I decided to go there for breakfast instead of attending class. We walked in the door and heard, "Claire. Sara. Imagine seeing you here." It was my uncle and a family friend.

Busted.

Thankfully they both thought it was rather funny and invited us to join them, eventually buying us breakfast.

I miss Rick's. I miss their huge cigarette dispenser machine (no longer legal these days). I miss all the knick knacks. And I miss their "In God we trust; all others pay cash." sign above the register.

But I mostly miss their food. Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and American fries with melted cheddar on top. Best, cheapest breakfast ever.

I wrote about this and deleted it, but it happened again so I just can't leave it unsaid.

Las Vegas, a show which once had some potential but now is spiraling downhill, has JC Penney as a sponsor. And for two weeks in a row now they've had an ad that gets us (the viewer) caught up with the latest episode (that we're watching).

Now I find it amusing enough that this ad assumes that I don't remember what I watched in the last 30 minutes. But what I find patently bizarre is that they show scenes and give away plots that haven't even occurred yet in the episode. So they catch us up by giving away the rest of the episode. I thought it was perhaps a mistake last week but this week it's the same.

Good job!

Ah well.

I always tend to write these at 3AM. Which explains a lot, I think.

Aside from one or two disappointing outcomes, I think this election wrapped up nicely.

I am, however, disappointed in my neighboring state of Wisconsin. Voting for a ban on same sex marriage? I expected more from you, cheese heads.

In other news: I got this absolutely awesome pamphlet today.

There's a vintage record store nearby and the owner came in to make some 2-sided copies of a random flyer. Before she left, she handed me one. Apparently someone had dropped it off amongst a collection of local free papers and pamphlets by her front door.

Its title was "ROCK N' ROLL TAKES ITS TOLL!" And it listed how purchasing rock and roll automatically promotes (among other things) witchcraft, nudity, drunkeness, homosexuality and godless cults.

Among other things.

But my favorite passage?

[Rock n' Roll's] mawkish, maudlin, madness assaults our ears and insults our intelligence.

Which borders on poetry, really.

Welcome to Sunday.

I'm currently hiding under my couch.

For some unknown reason I'm watching a special on the use of meth that is focusing on "meth mouth". And I can not watch shots of rotted out teeth and rotted out teeth extraction. It just makes me curl up in a ball and shield my eyes from the TV. Literally. Yet I continue to watch.

It's a bit dusty under here.

I was told this week by a regular customer that I sound like Barbara Streisand.

That's just weird.

I think in truth the only similarity is that we both have big noses.

I don't really have anything to write, I suppose. I'm currently watching Mission Impossible. A movie I actually saw in the theater. And I'm trying to remember why. Because I rarely go to the movies and also because it's just not a very interesting movie.

I think the last movie I saw in the theater was Adaptation. Which was a very cool experience because a good friend of mine's brother worked at the theater and we got to go into the projection room. The film spools were gigantic. I was nervous that if I moved the wrong way I'd run into a reel and ruin everything.

Oh my god am I glad it's Thursday. This week has just been weird.

Weird like hearing news stories about a guy who was shot to death by police over the weekend and then getting into work and being told I was designing the funeral program.

And some other stuff, but it's boring to anyone but me.