Okay, right, so if you won an election fair and square and then people were so absolutely convinced that you had rigged it that they were, like, burning stuff and killing people, wouldn't you just say "fine, let's do it over again so that people can stop killing each other", being confident that you would win again? _

I find it incredibly heartening that Julia Child didn't start cooking until she was in her late 30s. _

I had one of my increasingly rare fits of actually cooking rather than getting take out. I didn't do anything elaborate; I stopped at Trader Joe's on my way home and got asparagus, which I baked in olive oil. They no longer sell things bunches of green asparagus, apparently, just these flats of green and white asparagus. I have only had white asparagus once before, and wow was it tasty. I also baked some polenta in thick chunks that were awesomely crunch on the outside and squishingly lovely inside. It was a lovely dinner, and I felt all accomplished that I actually cooked real food after work. _

The question has arisen, as it does every morning when Jasmine isn't here yet when I get in, do I want coffee badly enough to try to remember how to make it? If I had realized that she was going to be late, I would've stopped at the coffee shop and bought a latte. _

I think I would break it.

Also, the lack of a CD/DVD drive would concern me. How are you supposed to put new software on? _

My dreams last night were full of music from famous ballets. Huh. Shocking, that, with the several hours worth of ballet laden anime that we watched last night. _

The term for my fall pottery class ended just before Thanksgiving. While the studio was open until Christmas, I was overworked and overstressed and never made it in. The most recent class started today, and I had two bowls from last term that I needed to trim. (After you throw a pot, you have to let it sit and dry enough to flip over and clean up the bottom.) Usually, the drying process takes a week or two. I was fairly convinced that they would be far too dry to work with today, and was kind of sad, as I had an usually rotten time last time around, and it's entirely possible that those two bowls were all I made. Well, one was fine, and perfect, and trimmed up beautifully. The other was a bit dryer, but I made it work, although not as well. It was dry enough that my tool kept grabbing the clay and throwing it off center. I get in fights with my pottery instructor about whether or not I will trim with anything between my pot and the wheel head, usually, so if he's in, I do it his way. If I were doing it my way, my bowl would have been on the wheel, held down by clay, rather than precariously set on a foam pad. Ah well, it is done, and I feel mildly glad. _

So, this morning I became convinced that I smelled gas. Brianne and I argued about whether we should call the gas company, when I finally snapped that they weren't going to charge us anything to come and check it out, and that they would rather come for nothing than not come and have the house blow up. The guy showed up about an hour later, and discovered that there was a leak in our furnace. So our furnace is currently off, and someone is coming over tomorrow to see if they can fix it. The landlord suggested that we leave the burners on, but as that is how Mr. Allanbrook died, we both feel a little wary of doing that. Fortunately, we are having a very mild January. _

The last time I really had a strong opinion about what was going on in the Primaries, I was very fond of Bill Bradley. By the time the Primaries make it to Pennsylvania, everything's usually all decided anyway, and I didn't even realize they were going on until Bradley had conceded to Gore. I don't even remember what I liked about Bradley, but I'd liked his book. And I currently have no idea who to vote for this time around. _

My absurdly small wooden knitting needles snapped in my bag. This shocks me not at all, given that they were barely more sturdy than toothpicks, and made me nervous when I was holding them in my hand. (For the knitters who read this, they were KnitPicks Harmony in 0s.) I called the company, and after a great deal of confusion about me not being my mother (somehow or other our online customer identities got mixed up), and then a "were they this size or that size?" Me: "Um...they were 0s. Isn't there only one size of 0s?" (The answer is Yes, there is only one size of 0s, but there are two sizes of 2s, and I had ordered 2s at the same time) she very nicely said she'd send me a new set right away, and she didn't even want my old ones. Tracy and I tried to superglue them together, but I couldn't hold them steady enough, and wound up with a mass of glue around the join, which would not do at all, I threw them out. _

I have, finally and absurdly late, managed to inspire myself to get a voter's registration form, fill it out, and mail it in. I printed and filled out the form on Friday, and then realized I had no stamps. (Who mails things anymore, anyway?) But last night I found stamps, and stuck one on, and mailed it off. I feel absurdly proud of myself. _

I ran across the street to get a sandwich for lunch. They had two "Egg Salad" wraps, and I bought the one that wasn't wrapped in the pink tortilla (I avoid bell peppers as though I were truly allergic to them, rather than just made mildly uncomfortable). I went back to my office, opened it up, and took a bite. It tasted nothing like egg. I spat it out, and looked more closely. It was brown. It doesn't particularly smell like tuna (maybe it is chicken?), but it also definately did not look or smell like egg salad. I ran back across the street, the boy behind the counter was very nice, and just handed me the other. It had the same problem. I don't particularly feel like going back, so I ate the brownie that I got to be the sugar that helps me through the rest of my afternoon and drank my blackberry soda. Also, there were no more vegetarian sandwiches over there, since those last two were both, apparently, chicken. My blood sugar will probably plummet and make me a basket-case by the end of the day, but Brianne and I got the stuff for making tomato sauce last night, because I wanted spaghetti terribly badly, so I will eat salad and spaghetti for dinner, and things will be better. _

Thinking about Death at a Funeral brought to mind Eulogy, which I also immensely enjoyed. It feels natural in my head to compare them, but they aren't really similar at all. Death at a Funeral felt very very British, even with at least two American actors. The absurdities seemed far less extreme, and it had the nice compactness of being just the funeral, rather than the several days leading up to it. The characters come off as less...extreme. The characters in Eulogy fit their labels, you have the Grieving Widow, and the Loud Controlling Sister, and the Eternally Struggling Actor, and so on. It is not a bad thing, in any means, and they pull it off quite well. Death at a Funeral is less mean, by far. Peg and Jyles hated Eulogy when they first saw it, because everyone is so mean and nasty. _

So, Death at a Funeral was playing at the Arlington Cinema Drafthouse, and Lara and I went to see it last night. It was highly amusing, and I thought they all in all did a very good job. The absurdities were so beautifully handled. I did often wonder if they just stuck Wash naked on a roof and said "pretend you are tripping". I am, apparently exceptionally bad at reviewing movies. So I can cross "be a movie reviewer" off my list of things I might want to do as a new job. _

It looks much prettier, my title on my blog, when the type is zapfino. If only I had figured out how make it part of the picture. _

I swear, when I let TiVo alone, it records 10 episodes each of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert (but each of them are always the same) and the same handful of episodes of Dr Who including "The Girl in the Fireplace" but then also the really bad one with the werewolves. And the second half of the the double episode with the devil thing on the crazy planet. _

I have a general policy that I should not write about work on my blog, mostly because I have heard too many horror stories about people getting fired or not hired at a new job because of what they have put on their blog. But I am all depressed lately, which is why I haven't been posting anything, like how much I enjoyed Death at a Funeral last night, or the bizarre Irish pub where my salad was more beautifully plated than many of the dishes on Top Chef where we at on New Year's Day.

I had been doing the jobs of two full time people since June. The first job I had here, which I am still doing, although I no longer have half the clients that I used to, because I am now doing the other job, I turned down twice. When I did agree to work here, it was to be a sort of admin assistant person, or so I thought, but apparently it was the job I'd turned down. This is more than mildly frustrating, especially as a large part of why I turned the job down was that I was pretty much entirely sure that I would be bad at it. When I took on the second batch of responsibilities, I was told that I would mostly be doing the computer-y stuff, and not the accounting stuff, but that turned out to be a lie as well. And then I occasionally get yelled at for doing the job wrong. I get very frustrated because it's like "well, right, because, you know, I knew I would be bad at it, which is why you had to lie to get me to do the job in the first place". (But I am polite, and I bite my tongue, and I don't snap things like that.) I spend most mornings before coming to work so stressed out that I think I might throw up.

I know on every rational level that the best way to make this stop would be to go find a new job. But that is such a daunting idea, and when I look at my resume, my experience seems to be heavily accounting, that I get all depressed and eat ice cream and play the Sims. _

Moss is awesome. I love my new blog layout. It is so pretty.

The picture is the Albert Bridge in London. I took it out the window of a bus, with a film camera, so I had no idea that it turned out the way it did until I got it developed. But I really like it. _

Look! So pretty! _

This is a test. --The Mgt. _