I just thought of something I could do to really irritate people at work. I'd have to reinvent the kitchen scene when I was growing up: mom would be on the phone with the extra-long cord, stretching to and fro while she multi-tasked. My brother and I would be getting rambunctious and loud, ducking under and over the curly cord. Once it got too much, she would raise her arm up in the air and snap louder than anything, it was nearly deafening. About three times: SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! And then she'd glare down at us with the rage of about fifteen people. Scary. If it still didn't manage to quell our rowdiness, she'd even throw in a loud STAMP of her foot. BLAM! That would do it. But the uncanny part was that the call was never interrupted-- all the while she would carry on in a serenely calm voice "Mm-hmm, well, I think you did the right thing, dear.."

I would love to see the reaction here. Me, standing up on the phone, snapping and glaring at everyone with a red face: "Yes, of course, we will have it all done tomorrow." Ha! Snapping! Hideous.

Diane had free tickets to see Menopause last night so a few of us made the trek to west midtown in the icy rain, to take in come culture for free. Whew. It was part cute, part corney, part comical-- songs about hotflashes, being fat and crazy-- and one teensy part revolting. They maybe took it a bit too far as the menopausal Iowa housewife mysteriously disappeared for a while behind a curtain in "Bloomingdales" and then emerged, in a neglige and began singing to a dildo orgasmically and rubbing it all over her face. That was unexpected.

The most entertaining part, though, was watching the 24 year old crowd I came with-- their expressions ranged from confusion and then sheer horror. Ba! Truly, though, all in all, quite entertaining.

I like the online versions, but sometimes there is nothing quite like thumbing through a real-life dictionary. Its the illustrations. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to them. At the same time: an illustration of a fiddler crab or a llama, but not of, say, a bobwhite. There is a very detailed diagram of a pipe-cutter, but not of a jigsaw. It seems completely random, but would Merriam Webster dare? Favorites include: all alone on the texty page sits a picture of a pagoda. Thanks! On another, a comely woman playing a jew's harp.

Since moving from the west coast back east, I rarely complain about the weather. I like the dramatic seasons, no matter how long they last.

Except late March. All within one block: my umbrella was blown out by the most unforgiving, cold wind; the boiling soup I'd just bought was threatening to break through the soggy brown bag; and I ran to buy a new umbrella, ripped off the tags only to find that it won't close. Ever.

Uncle, I say!

In the first place, brunch is just not my thing. Groups of 4 and 8 meeting for brunch just stupefy me. No one ever seems to really be talking or truly interacting over their prix fix platters, it just seems so awkward and too early. "What did you do last night? Oh really? [pause]. What did you do?" But that's just me. There's probably a whole brunch beauty that I've completely missed.

And there is something terribly, terribly wrong about this place. I've tried it twice, and I always leave scratching my head. But this past Sunday was so ridiculous, it was priceless.

First, we picked up a copy of the always-unweildy Times, and the slippery magazine and a Target mousepad kept falling out. Scott was consistantly bending over and chasing the pieces down dirty sidewalks. We ambled to our favorite diner that for some reason was closed, so we just defaulted to Bendix.

Surrounded by tables of baseball-capped frat boys and random assortments of "8-tops" that did not look like they had anything in common, our food arrived: a plate of "thai" home fries and a broccoli and eggshell omelette! Crunchy! All at once and without warning, "Livin' La Vida Loca" blasted through the stereo system at an ear-splitting decible, but just the first few unmistakable horn blasts, jarring us right out of our seats. Then the stereo was immediately silenced and we were left staring at each other, befuddled, in silence. It was hysterical.

We paid our bill and boogied out of there, laiden with the armfuls of the Times and sauntered home, where the paper splilled out & took over my entire wedgy apartment. I witnessed Scott skidding several inches across my living room floor on the TV guide and I could barely contain myself. The whole thing certainly made a bleak March Sunday much less so.

Oh, and unrelated: Middle Management Makes Me Mental. MENTAL.

Elaine: "Maybe you shouldn't call Gammy so much anymore. Why? Because sometimes you call Gammy too early in the morning when Gammy has been out late and isn't alone."

Gammy! Rich.

So I took my first flight this week since 9/11 and I must say, things have changed. Wow.

I dined on a can of juice for breakfast on the 3 hour morning flight, and on the 7 pm return flight, I had two cans of Bud and a generic "payday" for dinner. That makes me sad.

Proof of my complete dorkdom:

The other night I was catching up with a Rachael, and before I knew it a very famous and extremely handsome actor approached us and ended up joining our table. He was very friendly and talkative, and I completely shorted out. I was unable to answer a simple question of "What's happening in your life?", I blinked at him a few times and then took his $10 to cover his beer and pocketed the change. Sweet.

Unrelated: this is disGUSting. The ants.