11:30 PM:

Way back in February, my sister posted her replies to this survey. This would qualify as an extremely delayed reaction, but here're mine:

APPEARANCE:
Hair: Dark brown.
Height: 5'6"
Weight: A bit less than 130 lbs.
Figure: I really oughta start using that "Abs of Steel" tape in my video rack...

STYLE:
Clothing: Casual. Mostly T-shirts and jeans. Many of the T-shirts have slogans written on them in permanent marker. For that matter, so does one pair of the jeans.
Music: Eclectic. Bubblegum pop, novelty music, classical, folk, and so on.
Makeup: Not currently applicable.
Body art: Zilch.

RIGHT NOW:
Wearing: White sneakers; white socks; blue jeans; yellow T-shirt reading "Women who seek to be equal to men lack ambition. -- Timothy Leary," which, unfortunately, picked up a splotch of red acrylic paint the first day I wore it; black merino wool sweater; black velvet yarmulke.
Music: None. But Married With Children is providing the current background noise.
Thinking of: Filling out this survey, duh. Plus the research I need to do at the library as soon as I finish filling this out.
Feeling: Overextended, but not unbearably so.

LAST THING YOU...
Bought: Lotsa groceries, earlier tonight. Here's the receipt; see for yourself.
Did: Went grocery shopping. Are you not paying attention?
Read: Currently reading The Tolkein Reader for my Fantasy class.
Watched on TV: Like I said, Married With Children is on in the background, but I'm hardly watching it...

EITHER/OR:
Club or house party: House party.
Tea or coffee: Tea.
High achiever or easy-going: High achiever.
Cats or dogs: Cats.
Single or taken: Single.
Pen or pencil: Pen.
Gloves or mittens: Gloves.
Food or candy: There's a difference?
Cassette or CD? CD.
Snuff or cigarettes: Neither.
Coke or Pepsi: Diet Dr Pepper, these days. Or Pepsi One.
Matches or a lighter: Lighter.
Sunset Beach or the Bold and the Beautiful: The latter's the only one I've ever watched, but that was over a decade ago, and I basically remember nothing about it.
Ricki Lake or Oprah Winfrey: I miss Rosie O'Donnell.

WHO DO YOU WANT TO:
Kill: Nobody.
Hear from: Assorted friends.
Look like: I'm going to pass on this one.
Be like: And thinking about this one makes me too depressed at the moment. Let's move along...

FAVORITE:
Food: Pizza.
Drink: Barq's root beer. With the sugar. But I've been sticking to diet soft drinks since September, for dental reasons. Being responsible sucks.
Color: Bright primary colors.
Album: Just one?! Not a chance. But Under Rug Swept has been in heavy rotation lately.
Shoes: I guess this'd be my sneakers. (Although I did pick up another pair the other week! Black ones... so exciting. I've been putting off breaking 'em in, though; I don't need the pain right now.)
Site: The Usual Suspects.
Song: Favorite? Beats me. But I do collect covers of "When the Saints Go Marching In..."
Vegetable: Bob the Tomato.
Fruit: Bananas.

LAST:
Last movie you saw: The Court Jester, on DVD.
Last movie you saw on the big screen: Umm... [wracks brain] ...oh, yeah. My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It might have been decent if it had contained the slightest shred of conflict or plot development.
Last phone number you called: Checking my voice mail.
Last thing you had to drink: Diet Dr Pepper.
Last thing you ate: A couple of burgers.
Last time you showered: It's been awhile.
(The answer to Last time you bathed, not on the official survey, would be "yesterday." With Lush bubble bath and Yanni on CD.)
Last time you cried: I came pretty darn close last week. I'm thisclose to being an emotional wreck just now, y'know?
Last time you smiled: The Daily Show is now on, so just a few seconds ago...
Last time you laughed: Not certain, but it was probably earlier today.
Last person you hugged: Hmm. I think this'd be my Real-Life younger sister. On August 18th, 1999, just after I got back from the hospital in Connecticut.
Last person you kissed: You'd have to go much further back. Beats me.
Last thing you said: Something to the effect of "Thanks again!" to Natalie, who took me shopping and carried a bunch of my bags upstairs.
Last person you talked to online: Defining "talked to" as having a real-time component, that'd be Erin.
Last thing you smelled: I guess the aforementioned burgers.

DO YOU:
Smoke: No.
Do drugs: Only caffeine and sugar.
Sleep with stuffed animals: Yep.
Have a crush: If so, I ain't admitting it here.
Have a boyfriend/girlfriend: Nope.
Have a dream that keeps coming back: Not really. I don't usually remember my dreams.
Play an instrument: The kazoo. (I've also dabbled in keyboards and drums over the years.)
Believe there is life on other planets: Nope.
Read the newspapers: Not so much. I get the New York Times delivered, but have barely glanced at it lately.
Have any gay or lesbian friends: Yep.
(Look, I didn't formulate the survey, I'm just filling it out...)
Believe in miracles: I suppose so, but there's room to quibble about what "miracles" means in this context.
Believe it's possible to remain faithful forever: Faithful to what? Anyway, yes, of course.
Consider yourself tolerant of others: In most respects. I have little to no tolerance for stupidity.
Consider police to be a friend or foe: In theory, the former. In practice, I'd have to go with "both."
Like the taste of alcohol: Nope.
Have a favorite Stooge? Nope.

DO YOU:
Believe in astrology: Not really.
Believe in magic: Not really.
Pray: Yes.
(Note the lack of parallelism here, with "Read your horoscope" and "Believe in prayer" both left out... who wrote this thing?)
Go to church: Umm, no.
(Okay, okay... Go to synagogue: Rarely.)
Have any secrets: Yep.
Have any pets: Just my stuffed animals and robotic cat.
Go to or plan to go to college: Waaah.
Have a degree: Yes.
Talk to strangers who instant message you: No. But I'm unlisted, so it rarely happens.
Wear hats: Yep. I pretty much never go out without a baseball cap.
Have any piercings: Hell, no.
Have any tattoos: Wasn't this covered by "Body art," above? Anyway, no.
Hate yourself: Yes.
Wish on stars: No.
Like your handwriting: Pretty much, yes.
Believe in witches: You're really gonna have to define your terms here.
Believe in Satan: Sort of, yeah, I suppose. The Jewish and Christian conceptions thereof differ considerably, though.
Believe in ghosts: Again, you're really gonna have to define your terms here...
Trust others easily: Yes and no.
Like sarcasm: Well, duh.
Take walks in the rain: Not if I can avoid it.
Kiss with your eyes closed: This is so non-applicable.
Sing in the shower: Not really.

(Whew! Done at last!)

On a related note... Erin posted this link about a month ago, but it's well worth repeating here: Muppet Radio.

3:52 AM:

They're giving away free DVDs with boxes of Golden Grahams. You can see which one you're getting, and one of them is The Muppets Take Manhattan. A no-frills pan'n'scan version, to be sure, and it doubles as yet another bloody AOL disk, but let me reiterate:

You can get a DVD copy of The Muppets Take Manhattan for about five bucks at the local supermarket, and get a free box of cereal in the bargain.

Some days, the world really is a wonderful place.

It's November now, and I think it's about time this journal went back to its time-honored yellow color scheme.
"Umm, Shmuel?"
Yes, imaginary friend?
"Don't you want to say a few more words about 'Writing for the Cure' before you do?"
What would I want to say?
"Well, you know, you could thank your readers for the impressive turnout, and provide that link one more time."
What impressive turnout? We started with forty dollars, and an entire one person kicked in another ten bucks.
"Why, you ing--"
For which generosity I'm quite appreciative and grateful, don't get me wrong. Especially as she did so through my site, not my sister's, which gave me an opportunity to tell Erin "nyah nyah nyah" via AOL Instant Messenger. So, yes, that reader gets my sincere thanks.
"So what's the problem?"
Well, nice as this was, she was, in fact, the only one, so I can't say the campaign has been a rousing success. Erin's reduced the team goal from $1,500 to $250, and, even so, we're not even close, with a grand total of fifty bucks.
"Big deal. It's just a matter of spin control."
Uh huh.
"Look, this ought to be easy. You're a writer! It's not as if I'm telling you to do something you're not good at, like, say, being a Ph.D. student..."
Hey, watch it!
"Kidding. But, c'mon, you can do this."
Oh, okay.
"Good. Let's start this entry again. We go live in three... two... one..."

Hi, guys! It's November now, and I think it's about time this journal went back to its time-honored yellow color scheme. But before we do, I just wanted to thank everybody for the really strong showing the Writing for the Cure team had. When Erin and I started hyping the thing, we had 2.7% of the team goal; just a few short weeks later, we have a whopping 20%-- a 17.3% increase!

Should anybody unjustly accuse me of playing with statistics, let's look at this another way. The total amount donated to the team shot up an amazing 25% in the past week!

So, as a reminder, should you want to get on this rapidly-moving bandwagon, there's still time to get in on the action by clicking on the link above, or this one here. Thanks again!

And now, back to our regularly-scheduled color scheme...