That handsome mug

was Phil McGraw, and I definitely saw him last week because a space was reserved for me without my foreknowledge. I definitely made eye contact with the good doctor when he made his first entrance and I definitely had a staring contest with him. A short one. I swear. I wrote "why fad diets are crap and people should just eat healthily and exercise" on the show's suggestion card (this sort of smartassedness is becoming habitual for me; at the Kerry rally yesterday in response to a "I (HEART) KERRY" sign I scribbled on my own sign "I DON'T (HEART) KERRY PER SE BUT I'M PLAYING THE HAND I WAS DEALT" - but I didn't wave it around when the senator spoke). Anyway, the show was mostly row upon row of coiffed hair and pastel silk pants suits and layers of foundation that rivaled the makeup on Phil himself and I promise I will tell you when it airs because I KNOW you'll want to watch. It's been kind of a TV week, since I was on the Jeopardy set last Wednesday trying out and I spoke to a news crew today. And a beach week, since it's been hot and sunny. And a week generally full of idle (though still frantic, somehow) time, since I'm suddenly temporarily unemployed (through no fault of my own; in fact if it weren't for my own honesty to my employers about no longer being a student paying the fees that qualify me for my job I'd probably still be working, an irony of the supreme order though probably not the karmic justice that anecdote demonstrates I should be awaiting). God, what was I saying? Apparently blogging requires consistent practice...

I like the periphery

I'm not in love, but neither am I weepy or self-pitying in my lovelessness. Almost everything that has happened in my love life (which is a phrase I distaste and use with a grimace) since the last time I was in love has been good in some capacity: valuable, enlightening, fun, playful, dramatic, sometimes character-building. ("Character-building" sounds like BS, but I can't think of a better word for the hard times that you come out of stronger.) In the grand scheme of things, it hasn't been that long since I had the heart-aflutter stomach-flipflop tongue-tied head-rush feeling around someone, and so I feel I'm doing my allotted single time, with all the fun and difficulty that can entail.

But all around me, there are people pairing up. I'm running out of friends who aren't madly in love or something close. I seem to be skirting the fringes of all the pairing activity, near to it but uninvolved. Someone has suggested to me that this sort of thing could make me feel left out. That couldn't be further from the truth. It makes me very, very happy and if you suggest otherwise I will cut you across your face.

I interrupt this panic to have a brief ponder

Oh how weird, I finished writing a novella.

Okay look

I'm like, finishing college and stuff. So, shoo. Gimme two weeks. In two weeks, the love returns. Pinky swear.

Update: That includes, like, email and mail and stuff. Sorry. I've been lame, I know.

San Diego

gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat

Urgent

My computer is a bit feisty and wouldn't play DVDs for a long time. It stopped almost exactly the day the warranty expired and I considered it a lost cause. Last week, that all changed, and I finally got to watch it: the second season of The Office, which I've owned since Christmas thanks to the wonderful Mark.

The dilemma, now, is of course this: I'm two Christmas specials short of having seen the series in its entirety. This is where you come in. The UK folks in particular. Get me that tape.

I'll give you a kiss.

It's nice to have friends in high places.

I recently discovered an old-fashioned-looking feather duster in my new cubicle. It's cool; trust me. I'd really like to steal it and own it, or failing that, to have someone worthy be able to own it. So as I left work early on Friday, I said to the women in the office, "If I never come back, I want that feather duster in the top left drawer to go to someone special."

Why? Because I was going up in a little bitty plane for a two-hour flying tour of the San Diego coast, with a friend of mine behind the ... uh, "wheel."

See for yourself.

A friend of mine has a pilot's license.

It rocks.

More pictures forthcoming.