Last night when I was driving home from work I could see the fire from two cities away. From that distance it didn’t even look real, more like someone had colored it on the sky with an orange-colored pencil. Apparently there was a magnesium fire up the hill from where I live. I use “the hill” loosely, as I live in the Cuyahoga River valley, so I suppose the distance up and out of the valley far exceeds the distance you would imagine when I use the words “the hill.” Either way, the rain wasn’t helping matters much at the site of the fire, and the explosions were both amazing and frightening. I drove closer to the fire to get a better peek at it, but the smell started to make me a little skittish so I listened from home.

I wished for the millionth time last night that I had blinds for my bedroom window when I was trying to sleep. The sky was flashing and burning orange and yellow, the sounds of the explosions were making the dogs whine. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep. I was worried about the safety of the firemen. The news reported that a warehouse directly next to the site of the fire was filled with propane tanks and “should” be ok. Hmmm. Comforting.

Last night was the most enjoyable waste of time I’ve experienced in quite some time. I had fully intended to come home from work, clean for about two hours, put away the Christmas presents and other goodies, and get to bed early. Riiiiiiiiight.

Instead of sticking with THAT exciting plan I went home ravenous and looking forward to the leftover Calypso Shrimp Linguini that I brought home from work Sunday night (funny note…some of our dumb-ass guests order the “Cyclops Shrimp” instead of the “Calypso”…apparently shrimp with only one ocular organ is much better than the kind we serve…of course, some people want to know where we get the tiger meat for our Tiger Prawns). After pasta I decided to pick up one of my new Christmas presents, a shiny new book, and peek at a few pages before getting started on the cleaning. Uh-huh.

So, after I finished the novel I decided to put all of my new CD’s in the 300-disc changer (my favorite toy) and turned up the volume. My friends Jen and Vic from Seattle were in town yesterday and gave me a punk CD (Warped Tour 2003 Compilation) for Christmas. That’s 52 great songs, my friends. Highlights are definitely the songs from Dropkick Murphys, Allister, No Use For A Name, Rufio, and Less Than Jake. Listened to the newest Me First and the Gimme Gimmes after that (I’m a total sucker for punk covers of older songs, and that’s all AFGG does…best from this particular CD is their remake of “Where Do Broken Hearts Go, ” Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road,” which is hilarious as a punk song, Sinead’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” “I Believe I Can Fly,” and “Save the Best for Last”). Somewhere after listening to MFGG’s covers I cracked a beer (haven’t had any in the fridge for awhile) and decided to go covers all the way. So I started bopping around to Save Ferris’ version of “Come on Eileen,” Goldfinger’s “99 Red Balloons” and their cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” (an awesome song to begin with). Had to listen to the Atari’s take on Henley’s “Boys of Summer” and Manson’s “Sweet Dreams” just to keep the continuity. Then I searched hi and low for the REM CD that my sister burned for me on Christmas because I figured I needed to chill on the hard stuff or I’d never get to sleep (it was already pretty late).

Unable to find it, I decided to hit the hay or I’d never get to work on time this morning. Of course by this time my blood was pumping, I was wide awake, and the magnesium holocaust outside wasn’t helping things. Ten minutes later I was out of bed and decided to pop Seabiscuit in the DVD player as I hadn’t seen it yet and had bought it on a whim. Now, call me a sap if you want, but I think I choked up and fought back tears at six different times during the film. I loved it. I absolutely LOVED it. I couldn’t turn it off. I no longer cared that I’d be awake until four a.m. and needed to be at work at eight this morning. Let me rephrase that. I didn’t care until this morning that I had to be at work at eight, because of course I didn’t get in until ten and, well, that’s not good. Plus I’m a bit sleepy and my throat hurts a bit, but the Biscuit was worth it.

The only problem with the movie was the music. Zeus, my beagle, doesn’t like certain music and/or instruments, I’m not sure which, and is quite vocal with his disproval, howling along with the music or simply in my ear until the music stops. I was sort of pissy at certain points and had to do everything that I could not to beat him to death (don’t worry, I would never hurt him…though if you had to put up with the things I did, you just might. I mean, I sometimes wake in the morning to discover that all my kitchen cupboards have been opened and ravaged. Once they ate an entire tub of margarine, another time a tub of Crisco. Once they found a bag of flour, tore it open, and spread it all over my house. They eat my clothes, my shoes, and my jackets. Last year they managed to pull a bag with all of the Christmas presents I’d bought for little Sammy off of the washing machine and destroyed them all. I had to shop on Christmas Eve to buy all of the replacements. One Halloween I carved pumpkins with the kids only to find that the dogs had chewed the faces off of the pumpkins by morning…you see where I’m going with this).

So here I am at work, the morning is almost over, and I’ve accomplished nothing. This is pretty much what my life is like on a daily basis. As for Christmas, I’m glad it’s over. I spent the majority with my family, stopped it to visit Sam’s grandparents, and spent the evening on my own. Worked the Fri. after Christmas and saw Jeff later that night. Saturday I dyed my hair a really great color and went to the Investment Banker party. I’m not even going to get started on that one, except to say that I wished I had brought a friend with me so that I could have had someone listen to the social commentary that was running like mad through my head. I couldn’t handle the pretentious bullshit of these people. It was fucking out of control. After about the fourth person asked what I “do” or where I “studied” I decided I should tell people that I dropped out of junior high, lived off of welfare, and by the by, do you have a spare crack pipe on you? No? Damn! Sunday was another workday, and that was that.
Now I just have to worm my way out of accepting any party invitations for New Years’ Eve and I’ll be back to my normal, scary self.

Oh, so the hair…it’s awesome. It’s extremely dark, like wine, but it depends on the light. Sometimes it looks red and others it looks purple. I’ve got to watch the black clothing and the dark lipstick until I change it, otherwise I look a little frightening. One of my coworkers teased by asking if I was going through a “Goth phase” (ok, the hair’s not THAT dark). I told him, “Please. You’ll never understand my pain.” He laughed.