Yes, it’s the Witches’ New Year. Erm…yay, or something. Go wear funny clothes & eat candy, or whatever it is that floats your autumnal-holiday boat.

Today the spoiled boy kitty Hasani dashed out the door, and I ran after him in my socks (he ran the other way, and Lyse caught him — thank the gods!). Tonight, of all nights, I do NOT want my black cat outdoors. People are lunatics, and not always in good ways; I don’t want my lap-fungus in any kind of danger.

Lyse is currently inflicting her annual Halloween tradition upon my household — the watching of Ghostbusters. Le sigh. At least Bill Murray is in it; he’s always been one of my favorites.

My godson is all dressed up in a white snowsuit, with a string of paper fish hanging from one sleeve, as “Nanook of the North, the junior version” for his first Halloween costume. It’s freaking adorable; we’ll get pictures later.

Have a spook-tastic evening! And remember, kiddies….

As soon as they come out with a cigarette version (they’re saying Nov. 2007), I’m so buying this.

If I can get nicotine, in a cigarette-facsimile that gives me the same tactile experience (or close to it), I don’t need to actually smoke. I’m just one of those oddballs who actually likes the smoking process, but I’m more than happy to give up the carcinogens — not to mention the expense, the lingering smell, and the abuse it gives my lungs. If this thing is half as good as it looks, I’ll be more than happy to pay what they’re asking.

It’s available in full flavor, medium and light versions, with decreasing levels of nicotine. They even have a zero-nicotine version. Crazy, but crazy good.

I’d love to do one of these at work, and tell them to fuck off when they get on my case, since work is a no-tobacco zone — and there’s no tobacco in these!!!

(I’m going to ask my doctor about these. One of the biggest reasons people fail at quitting smoking, she told me, is that smokers who quit are — for anywhere from 3 to 18 months after they quit, depending on the person — physiologically unable to process serotonin as non-smokers do. Serotonin is needed in the brain to achieve and maintain well-being, and it cannot pass the blood-brain barrier when taken orally. The vast majority of smokers who quit have the same symptoms as people who are seriously clinically depressed — which explains very nicely why some antidepressants, such as Wellbutrin, are actually marketed as stop-smoking products. The medication I take as a migraine preventative inhibits the re-uptake of both serotonin and norepinephrine, making serotonin stay in the synapses longer — and my smoking has actually decreased since I’ve been on the preventative. Maybe not by what most non-smokers would consider a lot, but I have gone from 25 or 30 cigarettes a day down to 18 or 20.)

The 10 Most Terrifyingly Inspirational ’80s Songs

Try not to pull abdominal muscles laughing, like I did.

That is all.

Zombies seem to be the latest “new old thing” — a fad that’s coming around again. I’m not a huge zombie fan, but I like them better than vampires or werewolves. Or fuq’ing pirates. So suggest a good zombie flick…if I haven’t seen it yet, I’ll stick it on my Netflix queue.

Bonus points if you know what movie the subject quote is from (but my trio of Trusted Advisors aren’t eligible for those particular bonus points, since they already know).

Speaking of Netflix, at the top of my queue is a timely documentary: The Haunted History of Halloween. Let’s hope it doesn’t suck. Next are the Stephen King movies that I’ve wanted to watch but haven’t seen yet (only 3 of them — Salem’s Lot, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, and The Tommyknockers). And then I have a handful of scary movies that seem interesting (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Dark Water, Rise: Blood Hunter, and Blessed), and hopefully aren’t awful horror flicks (that would be Geoffrey’s Netflix queue *grin*).

Hopefully by Thanksgiving, I’ll have chewed through all the scary movies and can move on to either the set of Irish dance productions, or the chunk of sci-fi, or the documentaries on a wide variety of subjects, or maybe the handful of flicks about the British royals, all of which are slowly making their way up the list. I have a crazy spectrum of things I find interesting, but I do like to keep something of a theme going and so I tend to group the movies in batches.

And I finally — with extreme prejudice & frustration — gave up on that sweater pattern that I ripped out and re-started FOUR (!!!) fraking times, despite having put well over 20 hours of effort into it. I think the pattern just doesn’t like me or my crocheting style, and after a bit of reflection on the design, I decided it wasn’t particularly flattering for curvy girls anyway and would probably make me look like a water buffalo if I finished it. So I started a different sweater pattern that will look absolutely lovely, with a really nifty raised design. I’m a couple of hours into it and it’s turning out perfectly so far. (*knock wood*)

So anyone who might be hoping I’ll be making them something for the holidays can just get over it. I’m going to beat this particular skein of yarn into submission no matter how long it takes, but I doubt it’ll be finished before December. Unless, of course, a bunch of zombies invade Portland and I have to take time out of my busy crocheting schedule to hack through the walking undead hordes, and that delays me a little while. (What, did you think my battleaxe was for looks ?)

Yes, I finally broke down and joined Twitter. Hell, I had to do something to justify adding the “unlimited text message” package to my family’s cell phone plan, right? I mean, I barely (send or receive) text 3 or 4 times a day…while the demonspawn is easily topping 200 text messages a day.

Stalk me.

Really, I’m still around. More or less.

Today was my sixth consecutive day working, and all of them were “wake up before God” shifts, so I’ve spent very little time online. Almost none, actually. I’ve read my emails, and I promise I’m not ignoring anyone…I’ve just had so little energy. It’s about all I can manage to curl up on the sofa and crochet while watching DVDs. I’m desperately hoping I don’t develop the illness that kept Geoffrey home from work today. (He almost never calls in sick. Maybe 5 times in the almost-4 years he’s had his current job.)

And for some strange reason, spending about an hour every day or so with Jonathan continues to be very soothing, deep down to the soul. He smiles a lot now, and laughs and tries to babble; it’s obnoxiously adorable. I don’t even mind when he drools on me. Apparently the key to stealing my heart is to be only a few months old. Robert & Claire are the best next-door neighbors ever, and I’m profoundly happy they share their son with me.

One of the very few things I’ve actually done online is to read several days’ worth of this so-very-wrong site, and then spend about 5 minutes putting together a couple of contributions (look for the ones that say “Secret and photo by Lil”).

Yes, I’m warped. What was your first clue? (Most people’s first clue was that, when I was a super-cute gangly 8-year-old and people asked me where I came from, I would solemnly answer, “Saturn.”)

I’ve also become entirely too fascinated by this site…it’s strangely comforting to read. The only thing I can figure out, as to why I find the site compelling, is that I’m immensely glad that people like this are not part of my life, nor would I permit such a thing.

Yet another day that seemed I was constantly on the go — after 3 days off that made me long for a nice, relaxing shift at work (not kidding). I know some people just lurve having one thing after another filling their schedules, but they’re utter nut-jobs. I’m beat. I’m wiped out. I’m stretched thin. At the end of my rope, yadda yadda. Tomorrow I want nothing more than to come home from work, put on my robe & slippers, and not do anything at all. Except possibly have sex (gotta have priorities!).

I do want to mention that Lyse is a goddess for keeping me company and driving me all over.

Today’s running-around featured an after-work doctor’s appointment, where I was — the bad part — stuck with needles (flu shot and tetanus booster), and — the good part — given new prescriptions for my migraine meds (with oodles of refills, yay!). Then a trip to the store to get the prescriptions filled, and pick up something to eat. I discovered this evil, evil product at the deli called “chicken club salad.” They try to make you think it’s healthy because it has lettuce and tomatoes in it, but I’m pretty sure the breaded chicken bits, the lovely huge chunks of bacon, the shredded cheddar cheese, and the yummy rich salad dressing ramped that up to about 8,000 calories a serving. Damn, it was tasty.

For those of you who don’t believe in mind over matter, let me mention my awesome mental skillz: my first blood pressure measurement was quite high, so they decided to retake it a bit later. I spent all of 90 seconds on a smidgen of stress-reducing visualization, resulting in a diastolic reading drop of six points and a systolic reading drop of fourteen points. So I guess all that blasted visualization practice in ritual circles really was worth it. Now if I could only visualize a few pounds off my ass. (Actually, I was delighted to discover that I’ve lost 12 pounds since the last time I was weighed, several months ago. And my ass is gorgeous, if I do say so myself.)

My doctor says I should have more sex, though. (Okay, she actually said that I should pursue enjoyable physical activity more often. Eh, same difference, right? I certainly think so.)

Nothing more profound than that for today. I can’t scrape together the energy for it.

It seems like my days off are consistently turning into major hassles, to the point that going to work almost seems like a relief. Today is my last day off until next Tuesday, and I’m going to do what I can to keep it settled & sane…but I don’t know how successful that will be.

Damn, I was really looking forward to these three days off — being able to get some housework done, catch up on the laundry (I had it all finished as of last Wednesday, but there’s plenty to do now), really dig into my new sweater that I’m crocheting, and generally just relax. That has so not happened.

And now for something completely TMI…

Postage stamps were a dime, minimum wage was $2.00 an hour, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks was born…and so was my Geoffrey.

I finally got to give him the present I’d been searching for on the Internet for literally years, and ordered several months ago: a plushie Anubis! He loves it lots! Yay!

We went to his parents’ house for dinner, and dessert of a white layer cake with lemon filling. His parents got him a red silk shirt from Thailand and a lovely figurine of hammerhead sharks swimming, and his sister got him a cute black bucket (with bat cut-outs, that will show up nicely with a light inside) full of candy. Murph & Shannon got him a Goth trivia game, and Robert & Claire got him a pirate coloring book.

In not such great news (actually pretty damned crappy news), my grandfather — my very most favorite relative — has had a heart attack. He’s home from the hospital tonight, and we’ll be visiting tomorrow. I’m not entirely sure how bad the news is, but my father flew in from out-of-state to be here so it can’t be good. He’s 87 and has had leukemia in the last few years…what little information I do have is that the decision was made not to take extraordinary measures to combat this latest health crisis, because his body just isn’t up to it. He and my grandmother just celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary last month. I haven’t visited them as often as I should have, and I feel awful about that…I just hope this won’t be the last visit.