Get to work entertaining me.
2006-06-16, 3:01 p.m.

Laura: At age 51, you will become the target of a grand plot to overthrow the government of Ecuador, and be killed.

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Do you LOVE, like I love that the purveyors of this website very chirpily thank me and ask for a quick donation, when they�ve just let me know that in no uncertain terms, I�ve got just over 9 years to live before I somehow become entangled in an Ecuadorian coup and bite the dust? I hope you do. It�s a groovy kind of love.

It doesn�t say HOW I�m going to be killed, or in what country. I suspect it will be something unfabulous, like I�ll be walking down the streets of Laredo San Antonio, and be hit by a car speeding away from the Ecuadorian Consulate. Hey, wait. Do we have one of those? Apparently not, or at least it�s not listed in the phone book. But the Mexican Consulate is. I want to prank call them and ask �Es su funcionamiento del refrigerador? Andale!�

While you ponder the obvious, I am going to devote some time today to thinking up more good prank calls for the Mexican Consulate, because it�s just funny to me that they are listed in the White Pages. They are also listed in the Yellow Pages in the section entitled �Consulates�, sandwiched between �Construction Reports� and �Consumer Organizations.�

(DIGRESSION: Sure, you know the official lyrics to the Streets of Laredo song, but do you know the version that sings �We seeeee by our outfits that we are both cowboys! If you get an outfit, you can be a cowboy, too.�?) (Check out that punctuation) (.�?)

My dear sweet little husband, my beloved DishWasher, has bought me a bike by now. He told me of his intent earlier today, and when I get home, I will be greeted by a fancy, expensiver-than-a-plane-ticket bike with freaking 24 gears. I told him that my bike from college was, I dunno, a 10- or 12-speed, and that I never, ever, EVER successfully switched the gears. Oh sure, I�d try from time to time, after I left the flatlands of College Station and moved on to a vaguely hilly neighborhood in San Antonio, which seemed to necessitate the switching of gears.

But I never figured out how to do it right, and I�d end up with the chain hanging off the sprocket thing, and my bike going CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK as I pushed it home. Mr. Surly would fix it for me, and eye-rollingly warn me not to try such foolishness again. I learned to just stand up in the seat when I was going uphill. Hot freaking glutes on a platter, is what I say.

DW keeps insisting this is an awesome bike. Sure, it�s a little too tall for me, and sure, it�s way fancier and expensiver than I merit (I�m not a serious biker � I�m more of a silly clownish biker. WHEEE!). He�s so excited about it, that I feel a lot of pressure not to let him down. You see, my one requirement for a bike is that I be able to have the toes of both feet touch the ground when I�m seated on the seat. If I have to lean the bike to one side to let one foot touch, or hop off the seat to reach the ground, I�m doomed.

So of course, he says that with my 29� inseam (we measured each other�s inseams this morning � mine for the bike, his for fun*) all I have to do is hop off the seat to reach the ground, and what�s wrong with that? He�s not getting it, and he�s so freaking excited about this bike, and I feel a LOT of pressure to fall in love with this bike as much as he has. He�s bringing it home and I�m supposed to try it out. If it doesn�t work, we can take it back.

I will feel like I�m taking a puppy back to the pound if I end up having to return this bike, though. He is that in love with its awesomeness, and I am afraid of letting both DW and the bike down. Perhaps there is a kind of platform bike-riding shoe that I can acquire (or build myself, in my secret workshop) to help my toes reach the ground when I�m on my new bike. Hmmmm�the platform would go in the front, rather than on the bottom�

OH! I had my endocrinologist appointment this morning. They don�t ever, ever, EVER do the biopsy on the same day as the original consultation (hello, Christmas bonus), so I go back next Friday morning to have a needle stuck in my throat, drawing out the sweet thyroidial nectar therein. As it turns out, I do NOT have a goiter (dammit!) and even though I have lots of little cysty-looking nodes on my goitroid gland that are not worth looking at, there�s one that�s in that pesky �bigger�n a centimeter� category.

So I will get one neck-needle, and the nice doctor told me that it�s less uncomfortable than getting blood drawn. Which I did today, too, because with a noitroid as big as mine (he said I could likely feel it if I really tried, and I shuddered and declined the invitation) you have to worry about Hashimoto�s disease, which, what the fuck? I don�t know. But let�s all start worrying about that now, shall we?

Anyway, I had two flasks of blood drawn today by a woman who has drawn my blood before at LabCorp, and we both spent some time trying to figure out when I was in there before, and why. I told her all I remembered was that she�s GOOD and she�s PAINLESS. She did not disappoint. When I had blood drawn at my normal regular doctor�s office, it looked like the nice nurse lady had thrown a big jagged rock at the inside of my elbow. The LabCorp lady left something behind that looks like a mosquito bite, and I didn�t even feel a thing.

Oh well. Next Friday! ::clink!::

How long do you take to write a journal entry? Do you labor over it, tweaking it to make it as good as you think it should be? Or do you sit down at your lunch break, bang something out that resembles the conversation you might have if your friend were sharing your lunch hour with you, sitting across your desk from you as you both dig into Taco Combos from Taco Cabana?

And do you live in a city with Taco Cabana? If not, I do pity you. Because there is nothing not to like about Taco Cabana.

OK, I have to say this: if you are a person on my links list who sweats blood trying to produce the perfect journal entry, and as a result of that swood-bleating, you produce something that you think is good enough, every, oh say, two weeks or so? KNOCK IT OFF. You slackers who are good writers and you know it: stop obsessing over it and get to work entertaining me.

Note: it has taken me one hour to produce this here masterpiece, and that includes the Googling of many, fun things like how to say �Is your refrigerator running?� in Spanish, and to upload this photo of the spaaahhhhkly, beaded belty sash I am wearing today.

SPAAHHHHHKLY

*�Labia to flip-flop: 29 inches. Cliggas to basketball shoes: 33 inches."