"HOW SOON IS NOW?"

Back from lockdown. Is there anything better than the minutes just after meeting a deadline? Nope. It's just about the most satisfying feeling ever. It's stressful and tense and then, suddenly, the weight of the world is lifted and you can friggin' focus on your life again. It also means that I can end my temporary pants boycott. (I have this thing about writing or editing with fabric on my legs, especially my knees. It doesn't matter how cold it might be-- if I'm working, I have to be wearing shorts. Such a weird hang-up.) And, it also means that I am now free to indulge my urge to clean and polish and organize everything to start 2007 off on the right foot.

Ah, but... What I find very hilarious today is that the second, I mean the absolute second, I emailed everything over to my editor minutes ago, I got my period. Like "send" aaaand cue cramps. Just like that. A little early, but, eh, I'll take it. The period I can handle, its the week before that I'm easily teary, hateful, aggressive and convinced everyone hates me. Ha.

So, yesterday, despite being under the gun, I had to go out to run a couple of quick errands. First I heard and listened to (in its entirety) Tesla's Lovesong. What a piece of crap that one was, but oh how loved it was, no? Then, I heard a Peter Schilling cover done by Canasta that I loved. Loved. That's a good song to start with, but look what this great band did with it. And, they're local! Fabulous! So, I was flitting around town, very proud of my Canasta discovery when suddenly, I saw these two things a block apart:

1. A blow up, life-size Santa in a tiny NASCAR vehicle in a front yard with a bumper sticker (?) saying "Shalom" on it. Oookay.

2. A red Ford Mustang with "Limited Jesus Edition" painted across the back.

I'll give anyone out there in the blogosphere a dollar and my unending adoration if you give your car a religious identity and email me a picture of how you accomplished such a task. Um, okay, how about just my unending adoration? C'mon. It'll be fun.

"HONEYPIE, WE'RE NOT SAFE HERE"

This proposed Jesus-ville thing in Florida is fucking ridiculous. An all-Catholic town? How is this happening? And, this on the heels of South Dakota's new interest in protecting us from our own evil, sinful uteruses (uteri?), because Caucasian Jesus Christ L-rd and Savior knows that girls can't be trusted to know what's best for themselves! Yay! Math is hard! I like giggling!

And, and, and, Mississippi is gung-ho to help remind me that my reproductive rights are not my own, too. Yay! America hates thinking! Minivans with "Support Our Troops" stickers for everyone!

What in the Christian Devil is going on? Has anyone out there read The Fourth Procedure? Not the finest novel I've ever read, but wooooo-boy when the badass doctor with an ax to grind rearranges a Supreme Court justice's inner-workings to force him to maintain a fetus to term--it's wacky hijinx, kids! Actually, I think I stopped and said, "That would teach him!" outloud while on the train. You know, I'm not pregnant, I've never been pregnant, but all of this oppression sure is whetting my appetite for an abortion. Maybe I'll swing by Planned Parenthood later and let them dig around. Surely there's something they can yank out so I can proudly say that I got myself a top-of-the-line 2006 model abortion while they were still legal. I think coathangers would just tickle.

Oy. For more on the subject, I found this woman's blog to be lovely. Bad Feminist Cheers to her, whoever she is.

So, I ice skated last night, which I haven't attempted in something like twenty years, and it was like riding a bike. My cat is in the middle of working through some issues, as he begins some primal meow therapy around 6am daily. Speaking of therapy, I must make arrangements in the next couple of days to go visit my folks in Florida soon-ish as I can't dodge them much longer. Sweet, I can spend the entire time biting my tongue around Mommy Dearest. Sounds super.