Again with the "go figure"

There aren't any billboards in DC proper, but there is at least one giant display ad on the north side of 395 South as it skirts the part of town that takes its name from the nearby metro station: Federal Center SW.

Until recently, this space was occupied by a series of Gap ads, but now it sports a different message:

Cisco makes the government stretch further.

They seem to be pretty certain that's a good thing, but I don't think so. The Department of Justice is on the other side of the Mall, but I wonder if John Ashcroft had anything to do with that ad.

Anyway, I guess Cisco is trying to reach the folks who are trying to get home to Maryland. You pretty much take 395 S. to South Capitol, or to Independence in order to make your way back to PG County. This stretch of highway is a daily example of just how ironic the term "rush hour" has become. It's a parking lot from 3-7 every weekday.

And somehow I think more of them want to buy khakis than big-ass routers, but that's just me.

Mission: Impossible

That's a lot go clothes sitting around in closets. people. So I started thinking about my own wardrobe. Sure, I still have clothes that I've had since my college days. I can think of a blue cashmere sweater that is older than I am by 20 or so years (but it's so much nicer than today's cashmere sweaters, and I paid $0.49 for it in a thrift store!)

Did I mention that I'm allergic to cashmere? How many cashmere sweaters does that mean I have? Um. Five or six.

I own seven bathrobes. I swear I'm not hoarding! Why would anybody really hoard a bathrobe? The fact is not lost on me that I could potentially wear a different bathrobe every day of the week. Hell, I could sleep in a different outfit every day for almost three weeks and never wear the same thing twice.

Go ahead, ridicule mel but do me a favor and look around your own closets first.

In terms of clothes that normal people wear during the day, I couldn't tell you. I'm now embarrassed to count.

So we'll be working on cleaning out the closets over the next few days. I just don't have the space. I have a lot of clothes that are just plain ugly, like the vast array of oversized linen dresses, particularly the pink one.

Was I out of my mind? Anyway, I'm not any more.

Is that your final answer?

Anyway, things have changed on the pagaent circuit, and possibly not for the better. They call the contestants "delegates" now. Like it's the Model UN or something. I can really imagine that making a big difference to the pagaent girls. Oh, being called a Delegate is so much less degrading! I will feel that much more comfortable walkiing around in front of a televised audience wearing a gown cut down to my navel and walking in four-inch heels, because if I'm called a delegate, people will respect me so much more!

Right.

So the last bit of the competition was the Final Question. I remember beauty pagaent question time as the portion of the show where the girls got to talk about how great world peace is, and how it's all about The Children. But this year, the questions were written by the other contestants -- Sorry, delegates. Old habits die hard. -- and they were pretty lame.

One of the five finalists was Miss Oklahoma, who was, well, how shall I put this. She was a rabbit short of a magic trick. Anyway, her question was submitted by Miss South Carolina, and it asked who she, Miss Oklahoma, would like to have dinner with tonignt, and what they would talk about.

The answer came without pause. "Oh, Justin Timberlake. Definitely. Justin Timberlake. He could teach me some dance moves, and stuff."

At least she was more convincing than President Shrub, who still thinks he has never made a mistake.

I had no choice but to watch the Presidential News Conference, because American Idol wasn't on.

I told you I'd been watching trash!

P.S. I just flew in from Texas, and boy are my arms tired

We're not going to talk about my gym membership. OK? I swear I'm going back. One of these days. I swear.

In the mean time, I got two interesting comments from people who know my real e-mail address about the last entry:

This is from my pal Donna.

/"appease the goddess and maybe she'll let you live another year."/

D00d. I TOTALLY read that wrong?!

I thought it was for WOMEN, to buy diamonds like, ritualistically, to appease the Goddess... and I was like "Wow. Which Goddess is that? Requiring diamond sacrifice in return for another year of life?"

[although, on further thought, it might not be a bad kind of goddess to BE.]

Kidding. I think I'm pretty low-maintanence myself. I think you are, too. I mean, duh. As self-sufficient as we are, how could we be high-maintenance? "Hey, can you do this for me? Fine, fuck off, I'll do it myself."

And this from Tom:

I didn't know what "high-maintenance" was until I heard this story.

In 1995ish I worked with someone from China who was a little naive about American ways, so he often asked for social advice. We were always happy to help. One day he asked for suggestions of very romantic restaurants in the area. We hooked him up.

A while later he came in and said that he needed advice about how to ask his girlfriend to marry him. It seems he brought her to the aforementioned restaurant, pulled out a ring, and asked. She said, 'You did it wrong! I should be surprised but not shocked!' She gave him one week to take her out to a restaurant again and "do it right this time"."

Now, I happened to meet a truly high-maintenance female over the weekend while I was in Texas. She's married to one of my cousins. I saw a picture, which I thought was from her wedding and commented on it; Cathey, who is my cousin's stepmom, told a story about how Lee (the wife) didn't like her wedding pictures. At a friend's wedding, she demanded that the bride lend her the veil and bouquet from her own wedding ensemble and made the wedding photographer take some pictures of her.

Apparently she liked those better since that's what's on the picture table at her in-laws house. I guess it's a good thing she had worn a white dress to her friend's wedding.

Are women really that evil?

It is this, dear people, that bolsters my assertion that I am a low-maintenance female, even though a male friend insists that I am a "self-described low-mainenance female."

Maybe this particular guy has never actually met an actual high-maintenance woman. I don't know. However, I get the idea that it's a fairly widely held belief among men that, when it comes to women, we're all high maintenance.

I disagree.

When I was in college, a friend of mine was dating a guy from a Mormon family. She complained long and loud that he blew off a chance to go out with her in order to go see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with his family.

I was shocked at the vitriol she expressed. In my opinion, which hasn't changed at all in the years that have passed, you have to be willing to compromise sometimes. Maybe not all the time, but if one person gets his or her way all the time, that's bad.

Unless the relationship is with the phone company -- in which case, I always get my way, eventually. Unfortunately, the phone company isn't on my list of guys that are date-able.

So anyway, shrug. I continue not to get the feminine wiles.

Remember that diet?

I'll be completely honest: I don't exactly believe the principle of the South Beach Diet that says animal fat is that much worse for you than vegetable fat, assuming that you don't have cholesterol problems. You can keep your olive oil. I'm going for the butter.

Most people on the SBD web site have bought into that. I've also come up with a theory that not everybody can handle going cold turkey on fast metabolizing foods, like, um, doughnuts. Seriously, I felt a lot better after I broke down and had a bubble coffee.

Other than that, the diet seems fairly sensible. I am going to try starting again when I get back from Texas.

It's not like I went off the deep end and went crazy with the white bread, but I did eat a couple of cheeseburgers. This enabled me to exercise. I have been walking almost every day and doing Pilates again. I figure it all balances out.

Option Paralysis

The cap has been sitting here for about a month, and in that time, its major benefit has been for Amelia the Maine Coon cat, who likes to bat it around. I pick it from the floor every so often and consider choosing a song, but here's the problem: I can't choose.

I don't really feel like spending tons of money at iTunes right now, because there are other things to spend money on that are cooler, like a spiffy dual 2GB G5 Power Mac with a 4GB of RAM and an HD cinema display.

So, although I'm going to fall into one of Apple's traps, I think I'd be happier in the "give us all your money at once" trap rather than frittering it away bit by bit.

It's not a competitive thing. Nobody I know has ponied up the $7K for that particular machine. I just want it.

Do I need it? No. But I'm a girl, and I didn't need that sweater, either. Not technically.

I needed the boots, though. I did!

before - after