A new addiction, courtesy of O.O.D.

Readers (reader?) may remember that, a few weeks ago, OOD* suggested I take a look at a certain Sopranos episode. It featured our protagonist, Tony Soprano, having it off with his girlfriend du jour in the reptile house of the zoo.

After I viewed it, I agreed that it had a certain erotic possibilities, and perhaps we could recreate it ourselves in a similar location whenever an opportunity arose.

But here's the problem: After viewing that episode of the Sopranos, I discovered that another cable station (not HBO, I'm too cheap to subscribe) was re-running the entire series.

So the upshot is that I'm now putting lots of Sopranos episodes on my DVR and watching them into the small hours of the night. OOD, you have much to answer for.

I may mention this next time we chat. My guess is that he'll be amused. It's not that I avoid this genre -- I liked the first and second Godfather films, and especially liked Goodfellas -- but I generally don't watch a lot of television. And these days I should be concentrating on other things.

* See Key to Characters at right.

The return of the drunken idiotic bitch neighbor

For the last few years, the house next door has been rented to a couple in their 30s. It's one of those odd relationships that most of us wonder about: he's attractive and polite; she's an overbearing, hard-drinking pig from hell.

Some nights, like tonight, she'll invite a girlfriend or two over. They will sit on their porch and kill a couple of bottles of wine. Usually this culminates in the nice guy getting verbal abuse from the drunken girlfriend.

Tonight, Drunk Bitch decided to take exception to the fact that she saw a baby possum go underneath Chez Melina. I had walked outside to get something out of my car, and she lit into me. She began screaming that I shouldn't feed my porch cats, as I was bringing raccoons and possums into the neighborhood.

Although arguing with a drunk is like watering a dead plant, I finally grabbed the empty food bowls and showed them to her. (According to Texas Parks and Wildlife, the best way to discourage urban-dwelling possums is to remove all cat/dog food by nightfall.) But this made no difference; she kept accusing me of all sorts of rodent husbandry.

She then escalated the whole mess and began threatening me, claiming that her boyfriend had called Animal Control and reported me six times that week, and that she'd seen no fewer than 14 kittens on their porch. (There IS one stray kitten on my porch, who I'm currently attempting to trap.)

I suggested that she provide me case numbers from Animal Control, and photos of the 14 kittens. I then suggested she cut down on her drinking.

This escalated her into a literally mouth-foaming rage. She began shouting nonsensical complaints about just about everything in sight, including the fact that I'd disturbed her by having the brickwork on the side of the house repaired. She then snapped that she'd make sure I lost my job. When I replied that she was too late -- I'd been laid off two weeks ago -- she didn't even comprehend what I'd said. However, her girlfriend was only mildly sloshed and looked horribly embarrassed.

When she went into Foaming Mode, her nice boyfriend and her drinking partner both tried to shush her without success. Nice Boyfriend finally lost his temper and began yelling at her (he was inside working on some software project). Her drinking partner quickly departed, not looking at me.

So I went indoors and turned off my porch light, but didn't close my door. I could hear a quieter conversation between her and the long-suffering boyfriend. She kept snapping "I'm done," going on and on about the inherent evils of baby possums. He kept pointing out that there was no benefit to reporting me to sundry authorities. Eventually they went inside.

I was curious to see if she'd call 911. I was sort of hoping she was. Can you imagine what the cops would have done if an obviously drunk person insisted they arrest her neighbor for harboring a baby possum?

An unapologetic return to the Mac fold

Considering how E.H.* had thoroughly fucked up the PC, and I had a freelance job to finish, I took myself down to Micro Center and their laptop sale today. I was able to snag a Macbook Pro for $200 off. So now I can blog, e-mail, and otherwise embarrass myself online whenever I like.

On another, completely different subject, my celibacy took a night off. I had some odd and lengthy naughty dreams. However, the usual happened: I can be in the most suggestive situations, clothed minimally, and even in a compromising position with a man. But I still cannot manage to actually consummate an act of sex. Last night's mischief ground to a halt when I suddenly realized, just seconds before things got interesting, that it was flag day (ie., the wrong time of the month). I don't know if this is a carryover from real life or not. Oh well.

* See Key to Characters at right.

you can't fix stupid. nor can you fix this computer.

I thought I would be able to put up with E.H.* a week or two longer, or however long it took for his next domicile to be vacated. But that all changed this afternoon.

In an amazing act of stupidity, he attempted to cure some malware he downloaded by re-installing the computer's entire system. This wiped the hard drive.

This is someone who has managed small server networks in previous jobs, and is not a computer illiterate. I can't imagine what he was up to, except perhaps some sort of passive-aggressive shit, before he departs.

Anyway, I'm now deliberating whether to a) take the hard drive in to be rescued, or b) go out and buy my own laptop. I fear the price of a) won't be much cheaper than b).

In the meantime, if this blog disappears for a few days, it simply means that I chose option a).

* See Key to Characters at right.

sometimes you feel like a slut. sometimes you don't.

I received a pleasant yet mystifying surprise last week via FedEx: a severance agreement that had been vastly improved since being released from my duties a couple of weeks ago.

I was expecting the two-week severance that is Getalife policy, but the paperwork was offering me almost 14K (before taxes) if I'd shut up, go away, and promise not to raise a stink later. After I had a couple of friends look it over, I decided to accept it and put the dwarf twins behind me forever. (Or under me, if they happen to jaywalk in front of me when I'm driving.)

Being underemployed - I have some Web site stuff to do, so I'm not totally idle - continues to be more of a relief than a stress factor. The improved severance had a lot to do with this. And no dwarves to contend with is sheer bliss.

The only thing I've been wondering about for the last week or so has been an odd disinterest in sex. Even though I'm content to fantasize about mischief when no co-conspirators are available, I've not been doing that as much as usual.

I finally figured it out last weekend: it's the presence of EH*. Even though he's as keen to move on as I am, I still have this subconscious fear that he may wake up one day and want to discuss starting over, or something similar disastrous. So I'm being mega-careful to never give him a reason to think I'm interested in this sort of thing. Right down to putting my libido on the back burner.

It's not worrying me - not yet, anyway. I'm pretty sure that, when I reclaim Chez Melina as mine and mine only, I'll be up to my usual antics.