DINOSAUR GERMS.

I was obsessed with dinosaurs at the age of five.

My brother Tony (who was six) and I were so inspired by the photos we had seen of the dinosaur skeletons being reconstructed at museums (and also by the post card of dinosaurs from Disneyland that Tony had pinned up on his closet door) that we decided to try to construct our own skeleton. It just so happens that our parents started serving us meat on the bone. So every time we'd have chicken, Tony and I would save our bones in a plastic bag. We put them in his top desk drawer for safekeeping.

At five and six years old, the notion that it would take more than chicken leg and wing bones to build a dinosaur skeleton was far too obtuse to even enter our realm of imagination. We were so dedicated to this project that we hid bones away for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably something like two months.

When our mother, Julie, found the wad of paper napkins wrapped securely around what used to be a clear plastic bag (that had now been clouded over with grease) containing old chicken bones, she was furious! No matter how we tried to explain our plan, she was convinced that we would be resurrecting more cockroaches and mice than dinosaurs. I didn't like those nearly as much and so our chicken bones as well as our plans for making a dinousaur got chucked out.

I LOVE MY CAR.

I have tried to write several posts to my blog today and they don't post and I lose them. So at this point I'm feeling a bit apathetic.

I can't wait until 9/11 becomes a national holiday. Today is just too weird to work through. I'd rather have a 9/11 holiday than a Labor Day holiday (though both would be swell.) I'm not usually very socially conscious, but that's how I know that this tragedy is big. It seems to reach everybody in some way. Why, this morning even my car Ziggy observed his own moment of silence when he refused to start right away...

me: I just BOUGHT YOU A NEW BATTERY A MONTH AGO YOU LITTLE...
ziggy: 'clik-clik' 'r-r-r-r.'
me: ...if your alternator is going I'm gonna smash your...
ziggy: 'clik' 'r-r-r-r-rememeber the victimmmms'
*and then we sped away*

Now I'm glad that my car is socially compassionate, but I tell you, it had better be just that, or maybe a cry for attention so I'll clean the poor little guy. He's only 4 years old, there shouldn't be anything majorly wrong with him yet. I thought Accords were supposed to run forever!

Here's something you irony fans will enjoy: see, every week here at Sexy Hair Concepts where I work (www.sexyhairconcepts.com) 2 things happen on Wednesdays. 1. We have a company-wide lunch meeting with free lunch and a state of the company address from various bigwigs. 2. A fellow called Candy comes with his crüe and washes cars in the parking lot for $10-$15 (depending on if you get the "old employee" discount or not). "WHAT THE DUCK?!" you say, "Why Rachie, you were just saying yesterday how you needed your car washed and there is the service right there while you work!!!!" Well, God! Show me magic! if I wasn't too cheap to pay to have my damn car washed! Well, I think I had a brain tumor for breakfast! I forgot what a nice job "Candy and the gentlemen" (as Vinette, the receptionist calls them) do on our vehicles. They even vacuum out the interior! Sheeeeeiiiiittteeee!

For some unexplainable reason, I am in a good mood. My T-shirt says "born crabby" though, and boy, is that the truth! Well, I wouldn't say I feel "jovial" but I feel reflective and hopeful and this is good for Rachie's soul.
Ben keeps singing a song about "the cutest girl in the world" because Laura Llew posted on Sinister that I am. I think that is really sweet. Especially since I'm recently chubby. For the first time in my life I am overweight (about 40 pounds) and I have done nothing to prevent it from happening. And I don't think it's like they say, that when you're contented and in love that you gain weight. I just don't care very much about how I look. I don't think about what I eat and I don't exercise. I don't realize how fat I've gotten until I see pictures of myself. I can't and I won't stay this way. Not only because I don't feel like I look good, but because my clothes just don't fit. I have a closet full that I can't wear. And because I don't feel good about the way I look, I stop caring about the little things. I noticed this especially when I saw Heather McCoy coming up the stairs at work today. She's wearing furry leopard print platform slides and her toenails are painted olive green...with gold glitter on top. That's inspiration!
There is a lot of sand on the floor in my car from my and Ben's beach picnic in Malibu on Sunday night and it's sort of driving me crazy cos my car is so dirty. It's weird cos when I lived in a house and had a driveway to park my car (and wash my car) in, as recent as a month ago, I never took advantage of that. I should have been washing and vacuuming out my car every week, but nnnnnnoooooooo, I am inherantly unmotivated. Now I feel like "oh god, if only I had somewhere to clean my car myself I'd do it tonight! but alas, no. Poor Ziggy will just have to go dirty again!" What is with that grass always being greener on the other side of the fence? Even when I lived in the house I'd take Ziggy through the car wash at the gas station anyway. It just seems like since I moved and my routine is disturbed that I am making obstacles where there shouldn't be any. That's just one symptom of my general malaise, where instead of finding a local station to get my car washed at, I let it go dirty. What a dork.

It seems very strange to me that there are only 6 days left until Ben returns to London. I don't think I ever believed that he was going to live in California forever (I don't even believe that about myself) but there has been so much happening in the lsat 3 months that there wasn't much time to contemplate the fact that the end of Ben's holiday was inevitable. He was depressed about it a bit yesterday and, oddly enough, I felt that it was my duty to try to perk him up by *gasp* looking on the bright side of things! Of course, maybe it was the cheeriness of the lime green sheets that we had just put on our bed that helped me along. I'm a sucker for visual stimuli.

However, I am dreading Sunday more than usual this week. I just don't know how life will be here without Ben. One of the things that I found to be really alluring about moving house while he was here (besides the necessity of the situation) was the fact that this is a place that we moved to together, though it isn't a permanent move for Ben yet. But it will be in a matter of months. I have been really out-of-sorts since the move, but this happens to me every time I change dwellings. It takes about 6 months for me to get settled. So I figure when Ben moves back and we get married will be when I start feeling more content. For now I just feel a bit... off.