It has taken me this long to realize that my shitty, made-in-China, combination pencil holder/paperclip holder/ LCD clock with date/day/temperature readout corporate "gift" may not actually be all that accurate. Besides the obvious problem of it saying today is Sunday (it knows it's April 25) and the fact that the time is fast (it's now a full 10 minutes later than the actual time), it only seems to think that it's either 74.3, 77, or 80 degrees in my cubicle. I thought maybe I wasn't glancing at it often enough, but it slowly dawned on me that I have never seen it be any number in between 74 and 77. So now I have a theory that it has some poor, clunky Celsius-to-Fahrenheit problem, but I can't be bothered to do the research to back me up.

This is what occupies my mind, people. Well, that and my garden; the barely-used bike I bought off of Craigslist for $300 cash (this one); the accessories I might buy for said bike; the recent notice I got in the mail that, although I used "in-plan" doctors, I will owe nearly $1,000 for my recent surgery; Junebug's recent hobby of over-grooming her fur; wondering about the new "noodles" place on Main Street; wanting to sell some stuff on eBay; needing to clean the house; needing a trip to IKEA; and the continuing struggle between my philosophy that paying more for a long-lasting, quality item is worth it in the end, and the deeply-ingrained desire to not spend more than a few dollars on anything, ever. (I had been feeling quite flush when I bought the bike ... and then I got the health care notice.)

Seriously, when is the health care revolution going to come? I have pretty good insurance, subsidized by my employer, and it still sucks ass. They ended up paying about 85 percent of the actual costs of the surgery. That won't be enough coverage if I ever end up staying a few nights in the hospital. What the hell am I supposed to do? And I'm one of the lucky ones! I'm insured! If I didn't love spring and summer so much, I'd move to Canada. But I am always mindful of how much outdoors time we get up here: how many months I can comfortably ride my bike to work, how many months of planting I get, how many months of using the porches... I don't want to tip the indoors-to-outdoors month ratio beyond 50/50, you know?

Sorry, I'm a little obsessive. As you may have noticed.

I'm feeling ok, health-wise. No more lady business to report for a while, I suspect. That's good news for me and for you!

Warning: This post really could have been multiple Twitters, but I don't want to overload their system.

I'm getting into an unemployed groove over here. Get out of bed at 9:15 or so, eat breakfast in front of the computer, do some job search stuff, eat lunch, then work on refinishing my table (see below) until I can't, read crap online and work on other minor projects, play Turok, make dinner, eat with radio, then upstairs for TV/Turok/more computer time, or out for singing/a show/etc. In bed by midnight. That's the semi-productive life I've been leading.

For lunch yesterday I made an egg sandwich, a mug of tea, and a glass of watered-down unsweetened organic cranberry juice, to which I accidentally added a generous dose of milk. Normally I stop myself before actually pouring the milk into the wrong container, but this time I just filled my glass of juice to the brim with creamy goodness. I might be starting to lose it.

Yesterday was also day two of my furniture stripping project. I'm working on a rough-hewn-looking coffee table that I bought for $20 via Craigslist. It appears to be a knock-off of a fancier, pedigreed table that Pbup had (and probably still has). I'm using a water-soluble stripper, which means it doesn't work all that well, but I don't need to use a ventilator.I also have to scrub the stuff off, hard, so I also get exercise, kind of.

If you've ever wondered where everyone who doesn't work a regular 9-to-5 job goes during the day, I can tell you: WalMart. Twice I've had to go to the dreaded WalMart to get more supplies; the second time, I rode my bike there, and with my messed-up hair and work clothes, I fit right in. I didn't even bother unrolling my right pant leg. I still hate it in there, and their selection is shit, but it is about a mile and a half closer to my house than Foster-Farrar. And if I can't justify going to the cheapest possible store while I'm unemployed, when can I justify it?

I've been reading about salary requirements, and how to handle requests for them, and I just want to point out that the word salary is really weird. If you see it used frequently, it ceases to have any meaning. Salary. Salary salary salary. It's like a salad, and celery, together. I feel it would be better if it were spelled salery.

Doing all of these little projects, and cooking real food, is time-consuming. And I am starting to feel stressed about my lack of income. I am torn between wanting to continue enjoying myself (while still looking for work) and just taking any job at all in order to stretch out my severance pay for as long as I can. And by "any job at all" I mean soul-withering work like temping and data entry. But jeez, I don't really need to be that person, do I? I haven't had to do that kind of work for 12 years. Universe, please give me permission to not be that person. I will repay you by doing the crafty things I've been putting off: finishing my quilt (started, oh, 4 years ago or so) and completing the new scarves and opening an Etsy shop and writing the pitch for that magazine. Amen.

Over the past week:

I purchased a second-hand CB2 shag rug (similar to this, except mine is ivory-colored) off of craigslist. It sheds pieces of wool fluff constantly, but you're not supposed to vaccuum it. So I obsessively and gleefully comb it with my hands at every available opportunity. It's like owning a large, flat, lazy dog.

I taught new guy that a concave surface (say, the bowl of a spoon) will reflect an image upside-down. He was fascinated and shocked, and had to go look up the phenomenon online to figure out why it does that. He's a curious cat.

I've passed my 50th workout with Maya, my computerized personal trainer. She now thinks I can do actual straight-leg pushups. I cannot. Other than that, it's good, and I am feeling progress; stronger, better cardio... It's great.

I ate at the Sierra Grill a couple more times. It's just too convenient, the food is fresh and tasty, their wine list is too good, and they have $3 desserts which are just big enough for me. But: I also ate at two places in town I'd never been to before: Caminito and Cafe Lebanon. Cam is kind of expensive and I'm not entirely convinced it's worth it (unless it's summer and you're out on their porch with some sangria); Cafe Lebanon gets a huge thumbs-up from me. Their Chicken Shawarma sandwich rules.

I went to see Jaws on the big screen at midnight on Friday (part of Cinemark's Friday flashback series, I think it's called...). The print was ancient but it was still fantastic to see it in a theater. There's just nothing wrong with that movie. "Quint?" "No."