28 February 2002, 2:31 peeyem

I added some photos...look to your right.The first one is my new haircut since I've been growing my bangs out. The others are from Saturday's visit to Oakland Cemetary.

28 February 2002, 12:59 peeyem

Still cold. My office looks like a train wreck. I've things to do that I don't feel like doing.

27 February 2002, 4:07 peeyem

Gak. I am finally working in earnest on my company's page and one of the damn links doesn't work. I could just pull out my hair, but I hate to since I finally am in order with the no bangs and all.

It is bitter cold here today. There were snow flurries this morning. I am ready for the weather to be balmy for a while. I want to have tennis practice tonight, but it's just too cold. The upside is I get to actually watch Ed and West Wing instead of recording them.

My very dear friend Joanna is moving in a few weeks, and I'm sad about that. I know that people move on and do new things and I also know that friends come and go and come again, but I will miss her and her little family. She's the one person I know who I can visit in my pyjamas and show up empty-handed and get my own drink out of the fridge.

26 February 2002, 12:40 peeyem

Accountant Binotnik Stinks!

This I saw on the back of a pickup truck this morning. It was one of those big magnets that people have printed, generally for advertising purposes. But this was on a private vehicle, and it tickles me bright orange. My interpretation of the story is that this accountant did this private individual wrong on his taxes or something, and the guy went to the effort and expense to Get Back At Him. Of course, I don't know either of them, so I could be all wrong. But how great is that?

Yesterday's big event was another thrilling episode of Snaking The Main Line. I have to have this done periodically because my plumbing is delicate, and there's not a lot worse than being in a world of shit. As you might imagine, this is typically done on an emergency basis, but I am going to take matters into my own hands and make an appointment every six months, just to make sure things are going the way they ought to go. Aubrey, yesterday's technician, tried to convince me that I use a septic tank. No, I told him, I have a septic tank, but I don't use it, I use the sewer system, and I know that I do because Dekalb County charges me for it each and every month, right along with the water bill. He says I have a line separation. I have no idea what that means, except several thousand dollars and my front yard dug up for a week; this is why I'm opting to have it done on GP every six months, because I don't want to (literally) send thousands down the toilet. At any rate, for $219.95, I can flush with impunity again...for a while, anyway.

And, finally, today we find out if Ray-Brent Marsh (the crematory guy) will be released on bond or not. I'm no expert, but I believe if I were Mr. Marsh, I'd want to stay in jail where at least there's security between me and the families of those hundreds of uncremated dead.

22 February 2002, 5:12 peeyem

(Addendum to 18 February 2002: Myers says that the one-armed tennis player is probably bitter because he can't drive and eat boiled peanuts at the same time.)

What a day this has been. I make it sound like all kinds of chaotic things have happened; they haven't. I have just wanted to be elsewhere all day.

I am officially not taking tap anymore. I say officially, but I haven't notified anyone about it, I just didn't go. I was having a little of the agita about it all, but what the hell, I'm a grown-up and I don't have to finish things if I don't want to. So there.

21 February 2002, 10:08 ayem

Tonight is tap lesson. I don't want to go. I hate tap class. I don't really have any rhythm and the transitions get me every time. So far I've kept going because I started it and I should finish it. And because, well, I paid for it. It builds character to do things we don't enjoy doing, but at what point do we decide we've got plenty of character already? I started the lessons to help my footwork for my tennis game, and it's doing that, but it's an hour of sheer misery for me. Go? Don't go?

Gak.

20 February 2002, 12:57 peeyem

Today's update on the crematory tells us that it costs about $25 per body for cremation, with a profit margin of $250 to $1500, depending on the market and the urn chosen. I just don't get it.

But enough of that.

While in the shower this morning, I noted that the tub was not draining. I live in horror of plumbing issues, since I think I'm living on borrowed time with my sewer line as it is. So Trace is at home, pouring some sort of drain thing down there. Maybe (I hope) it's just a build up of conditioners and whatever. My mind is racing against the idea that I might have to shortly here shell out several thousand dollars for toilet issues.

And, finally, I'm working on my company's website. It's a pain only because I don't know what's supposed to go on it and I know that whatever I do will be ripped apart and I'll have to start all over again. Don't ever let anybody tell you it's always best to give them something to shoot down.

19 February 2002, 11:46 ayem

Funeral homes will be investigated
Grisly search yielding more bodies, questions

At the Tri-State Crematory in Noble, authorities were trying to figure out where to look next. At least 20 funeral homes that contracted with Tri-State Crematory in northwest Georgia could be in danger of losing their licenses as the investigation expands into the discovery of scores of discarded bodies at the crematorium.
(continued at: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/crematory/0218main.html)

ick. The question puzzling me is not how long? or when did it start? or even how many of them are there? but why? Good grief, wouldn't it have just been easier to cremate them? One of the spokesmen for some government entity last night actually said the words putrified soup. I cannot even imagine.

In other exciting news, I picked up the nearly 300 yards of ribbon ordered all the way from China for the book we are publishing and having bound by my friend Myers in Texas. You get a lot of respect when you walk into a store and say "I'm here for my nearly 1/5 mile of silk ribbon, please."

18 February 2002

Finally won a match. Against a one-armed man. Who was a complete sumbitch. After every point, he yelled at his wife about what she'd done wrong and then told her what to do next, which clearly wasn't working either.

To add to the odd nature of it all, before he served the first ball, his wife announced across the net that, "He doesn't call scores. I do it for him." y'okay, whatever.

When he got to the courts, my first thought was, "I wonder who he's here to watch?" Then I realized he had a racquet and everything, and my next thought was, "I hope he's Leanne's opponent and not mine."

Very distracting, the sleeve flapping in the breeze.

When we were warming up, Dana, my partner, walked over and said, "How do you suppose he's going to serve?" which was just what I had been wondering. I mean, you hate to be an ass about things, but the ball can't touch the ground before you hit it when you serve, and technically, that would be my point, if it bounced first. But he very cleverly managed to get the ball on his strings, then bounce it up high enough to serve it from overhead.

It's wrong, wrong, wrong, but I kept wanting to say, "So. That's a hella spin you're able to put on the ball there. Where's your other arm?"

He was so nasty that I kept thinking of that Seinfeld episode where they're trying to be nice to the boy in the bubble but he's a complete terror.