rorqual

First, the heat went out, and the needle on the temperature gauge shot up well past H, though the engine was still cold. Then, it began to rattle and cough while in park. Then smoke, the horrible-smelling smoke, began to pour out of the tailpipe. There were bangs and clangs from all throughout the car. Then the check engine light came on. And then, finally, after putting its last effort into getting me within walking distance of home, my dear Honda died on University by Calvert. And there it lay, sad and blinking in the cold night air, until the tow truck took it to my house. And then to the garage. And then back to my house, because it really *is* dead.

It was a good car. I bought it for cash about six years ago, when my previous car dropped dead. It took me to work and school, to cons and family visits, to stores and the vet. It hauled tvs and computers, and a very small couch. Almost everything on it broke at one point or another, but it remained fundamentally strong. At the time of its demise, only one speaker was working, in the very back of the car, and it had a buzz in the bass at any decent volume; the hood was mildly crumpled from some ditzy SUV drivier backing into me at a stoplight; the sealant around the windshield was starting to peel. But it was a good car, and it had the decency not to die on 95 in the middle of the night,as I was petrified it would do all the way home.

And so it sits quietly in a guest parking spot at my house, and a shiny Honda rental sits where the old Honda used to be. And on Saturday, I go to the bank and ask about getting a loan for a new(ish) car. But I will miss my good old car, and all the good times we had together

Though I admit, I am grooving on the CD player in the rental. I am shallow! Despair of me!

Many moons ago, I was a beginner bassist, plunking away on my Hohner acoustic-electric at odd hours of the day and night. My mentor was one Margret Dolphinsmile Bailey, my Kim Deal-lookalike, chain-smoking, bass-playing, Foucault-reading mini-idol. She graciously gifted me her practice amp, with the caveat that when I moved on to bigger and better equipment, I pass the amp along to a new beginner bassist and continue the cycle.

Well, my lovely bass is in the closet, and the calluses are gone from my fingertips, and I'm not in a band anymore, and I'm old and no longer cool, and....wait, this is getting off track. The point being, I don't use the amp anymore. But, sadly, in my lack of coolness, I am no longer in touch with a musical crowd. The upside being there's no boy constantly noodling on a guitar on my couch while I'm trying to watch tv...the downside being, I have nobody to pass my amp along to. So, internet, I come to you for help.

If anybody out there knows someone who is learning bass, playing until blood blisters form on the tips of their fingers, deciding between pick or not, frets or not, but can't quite float the cash for their own amp, then let me know. It's a 25 or 30 watt Crate bass amp, well-loved, and entirely free. I've performed with it to crowds of dozens, so it's totally fine for public as well as personal use. It's also the perfect height to sit on while practicing, an added bonus. And also, very easy to carry around, because real musicians carry their own gear, yet real bass amps weigh, like, eight tons. Ask Margret, who dropped hers on her toe at least once.

Tell a friend! And, if they want my opinion, I vote no pick (more flexibility), and no frets, if you have a good ear.

Vader at the National Cathedral.

Yeah, you know it!

Concerned about the End Times? Wonder how The Rapture will affect you? Then Rapture Ready is for you! Check out the awesome FAQ, which addresses such questions as, Is the Pope the Antichrist? (probably not), How Can I Have Power Over Satan? (not by sacrificing chickens, sadly), and When Does Daylight Time Begin and End? (I know we were all wondering that). Find out if your dead pets will be reunited with you after The Rapture (only $8 for booklet!)! All this and much, much more!

I could do this all day, people, seriously.

Spending a few hours every week pretending to be a vampire is a lot less weird than pretending to be Elijah Wood.

I'm a ginormous fangirl dork, and I'm still skeeved out by this.

There is light! There is cable! There is a weasel, sleeping safely on the bed!

What else is there? Just so this isn't entirely pointless....

Try this - less useful than cool.

Also, try here for books, and here for food.

There, now I'm not a total waste of time.

Hellboy: Not for those with a phobia of tentacles. Fun and not too terribly comic book-y, in the bad way.

Arts and Letters Daily: How could I have forgotten this incredibly good way to waste time on the internet? I am a bad, bad intellectual.

New hatred: parents who double park, dart into traffic dragging their kids, half pull into spaces and prevent other people from passing, and do other dumb and frankly dangerous things, all in the name of getting their kids as close to school as possible before letting them out of their sight. I nearly hit a mom this morning who was weaving between moving cars, trying to get back to her car, which was "parked" across from the school, and I nearly hit a car door as it was blindly opened into traffic; the other day, I nearly hit a kid whose mom dragged him into traffic from between parked cars, since she was looking right and I was coming from the left. Good parenting! Please be less annoying and let your kids cross at the crosswalk! Also, your 8 year old can (hopefully) walk a block or two on her own; drop her off down the street and save us all some grief.

My table at work collapsed. The cleaning lady left a note that it was not her fault, and unless she was up to something really egregious which blew the legs right off the table, it couldn't have been her. Now I have a sad void in my office, and all my paperclips are in disarray.

I've decided to give up the workaday world and go into a convent. One of those quiet ones, where the nuns work in the garden and don't talk a lot, not the urban ones where the nuns wear pants and help the homeless. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just think the cloistered life would suit me better. Now I'm just convent shopping. I don't quite hear the voice of God yet, but as a novice I get a year to think about it. A year, gardening, thinking, living simply, no bills....sounds appealing, doesn't it?

It's not the fact that poets die young that interests me...it's that there's a legitimate Journal to publish these findings in.

*My* Friday Five...:)

1) Oddest thing you've been driving around in your car with because you're too lazy to carry it into the house? A half-full mini-tank of propane with valve attached.

2) Song which got mentioned in your hearing by accident and you now wish would get the hell out of your head, please god? "Celebration", by Kool & the Gang.

3) Thing that's gone missing in recent weeks, that you know you could find if you just looked hard enough, but you just can't be bothered, even though it's getting more annoying not having it? Hairbrush

4) Flying shark or flying crocodile? Shark, obviously.

5) Food product your house smelled of recently, for whatever reason? Bacon, narf!

The guy in the other trailer (the guy who, I think, is in charge of the group of guys out here I *don't* work for) remembered my name. He's been calling me Beth since I got here in October, and I never bothered to correct him, because I didn't care. I wonder how he worked it out.

Also, we've had two power outages at work so far today. The power goes out, and people just keep right on having their meetings or whatever. And I keep going through my stack of papers I've been witing things out on, and making sure none of them are glued together with wite-out. And when I say wite-out, I mean it; this liquid paper stuff just isn't doing me any favors. Completely inadequate.

Also, I've fallen in love with a girl's journal. Her name is Pamie and we are going to run off to New Mexico together and start a cat factory. I promise to write.

Also, you should go release some books into the wild.

Also.