Listy Tuesday

1. Welcome to Erie. It has been downpouring and thunderstorming since four this morning, and I am enthralled. Dark days of summer rain always takes me back to a dreamy childhood feeling, particularly if I can sit with my face next to a windowpane and watch the falling water blur everything on the other side of the glass.

Seriously, is it naptime, though? I'm so tired I keep thinking I left myself in another room. I think my soul stayed in bed this morning and is even now curled up in body-warmth and sheeted coolness under the summer quilt, dreaming. Which makes my body even more tired.

2. Album of the Moment: Snow Angels, Over the Rhine. (Over the Rhine is so wonderful for rainy days, or snowy days, or any weather-bound days. They always make me want to put on a pot of tea (or a gourd of mate), pour a glass of wine, dig out a favorite erudite book, light a candle and sprawl across a chair with a purring Simon somewhere nearby and something rich and savory simmering on the stove and nothing in the world to do.) I feel Christmasy today, and this album of entirely original compositions (and some original remakes of traditional Christmas songs) is somehow utterly perfect.

Highlight tracks: #1, "All I Ever Get for Christmas is Blue"; #3, "White Horse"; #5, "New Redemption Song"; #8, "North Pole Man"; #12, "We're Gonna Pull Through."

3. Pretty in Pink (But Give Me Brown, Too). I am in love with my outfit today. I'm wearing a floaty melon-toned skirt (the lining is edged in the same color lace -- so secretively pretty) with a chocolate scoop-necked tee and cami of cotton candy pink. Costume jewelry in gold and brown and strappy hemp sandals complete the ensemble. As per usual, I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go, but hey; today, an outfit well-chosen is its own reward.

4. Joss Whedon Rules my Universe, and Now I Know Why. I have a market? Hill sent the link to me yesterday and it cracked me up. I don't do video games or conventions, and I'm more likely to run into a doorjamb than walk around with food on my face, but those paltry factors aside, I thought, as I read the list, laughing, Yes! This is I! I have people!

5. The Psychology of Numbers. I'm not fond of even numbers. I like odd numbers best. I can't tell you exactly why (and I can't tell you exactly why you might care), but thinking about even numbers gives me an uneasy feeling, like there's a spider on the ceiling and I don't know which way it's going to crawl, but I hate that it's there; while if I think about odd numbers, I start to smile, like remembering happy times with old friends.

Maybe I like odd numbers (fine, go ahead, jump in with "because you're odd!"; I know you're thinking it) because the month, day and year of my birth all fell in odd numbers. And maybe I'm more comfortable when things are just slightly out of balance, because then I can fight hard to strike that balance. (I do love a challenge.) Maybe it's Trinitarian of me -- not even God is even-numbered. Who knows.

Also even years tend to suck. I have no intention of turning this into a self-fulfilling prophecy in future, but as I look back over the last eleven years, the even-numbered ones weren't my favorites.

And my favorite numbers? 13 and 49. 7 isn't bad either. And I kind of like 11. (Hm, prime numbers are all odd, and I like uniqueness. Yeah, yeah, 49 isn't a prime number. But I like prime numbers generally.)

6. Like a Bloodhound. Dad says Mom and I missed our calling as drug dogs. Apparently she and I possess a freakishly, uncannily acute olfactory sensibility. Now that Cindy's out of the office (she has Trusty's nose on her, too) and I'm surrounded by the guys, I find myself wrinkling my nose at strange odors and saying, "Ew, can you smell that?" and being met with blank stares. Bad food. Sulphur from the downstairs hair salon. Inexplicably, melted plastic. Gasoline. Yup, I'm all alone in my five-sensoried experience of the world this week. I think the menfolk think I'm crazy.

But man, that melted plastic smell is nasty. It's coming in through all the windows, so this morning, it's the smell of Erie. Why?

7. I Only Have Friends Because of Technology. Last night I video-Skyped for the first time! John is leaving the country for a two-month vacation, and we wanted to make sure we could keep in touch. Once we both got over our squealing and laughing over the clarity of the picture and how cool it was that we could actually see each other, he brought his whole family into the screen to say hi; I haven't seen any of them in about five and a half years. John's mother demanded a visit and couldn't believe how long my hair has gotten since college ("You're so pretty!" she said. "Thanks," I said. "You're so thin!" she said. "I'm leaning forward," I said), and I got to coo over my little "nephew," Gustav (John's Schauzer), for the first time. Simon wasn't around to fix an indifferent stare upon his Uncle John, but John didn't seem too bothered.

I have no idea where I would be without these fantastic technologies. Alone and friendless and mumbling to myself in some dirty alleyway among the feral cats, presumably. Okay, so that's not strictly true. But the best friends I have, have been worth keeping, regardless of distance, and technology has certainly rewarded those efforts with increasing ease of communication. I'm a fan.

8. Oh, Sure, Blame the Secretary, What the Heck, We're Easy Targets. This was the second time this week some guy passive-aggressively snarked at me over the phone for something that had nothing to do with me. I hate when people do that. I don't want to crush them like they deserve, because it would reflect poorly on my bosses, but honest to Pete. I judge a great deal about a man's character by how well he treats the support staff, the underlings, the captive audience, of another office, and I'm less than thrilled with the caliber I've been dealing with lately.

My favorite part of these little stupid incidents is telling the attorneys about it later, however. I downplay it, of course -- I'm a professional -- but even so, Brian and Chris both get really, really mad. Now, I'm hardly a helpless female, but watching them get all apoplectic and ranty because someone treated me badly just sets off a little warm glow under my sternum. I love men.

Well, I love those kinds of men. Not the kinds who bite my head off because they're really angry with the attorney, but too chickenshit to say it to his face, and so will vent their spleen on the nice girl answering the phone. This last guy who said something snide to me just a few minutes ago goes to my parents' church. I'm feeling a nearly irresistable urge to do something with that knowledge.