It's about that time of the year again. (Oh, yeah, and hi, I'm posting, btw.) Dante is aging rapidly. He overheats, he runs slow, Sims chokes him up, restarting makes him run worse than not, and in short, he's just not doing well. He's been on at least 10,000 hours since I got him, so I'm not surprised. One USB port has ceased to function altogether, and I think his wifi is beginning to choke. Also, he has a funny habit of every so often rebooting Word without warning.

Unfortunately, in this saga, all the computers on Sony have been without any basic appeal whatsoever. The one I thought I could live with was an 82-key keyboard. 82 keys!! WTF? Can't live like that, man, can't. So I've been on the site every couple of weeks for months now, trying to find something I could live with. And today I realized something. The way something looks is 95% of my decision process. I'm sorry, it is. (I understand this is human nature and that this is what advertisement works on, but I know we all like to pretend we're above that.) Because I looked at this exact computer many severals of times and went "eh." I liked the keyboard, the specs are great--more than double Dante's--but the port layout kind of sucks and I hated the colors. And I didn't like the start button or the super widescreen. However, admittedy, this was the only one I thought, "Well, I guess I could if nothing else comes out . . . " But I've kind of been waiting on the release of Windows 7, which is Thursday. (I'm banking on Windows 7 fixing all those annoying little flubs in Vista, and praying I don't hate it. So far there's two or three little things I have extreme trepidation about. I have really loved Vista and kind of don't want to ditch it, but I would really like these issues to be solved!) And then today I went in and I saw this:

Same. Exact. Computer. Two weeks ago, I said, "Eh. Well. Eh, if I have to. If I really, really have to. But meh." Today I saw it and cried, "WANT!!! Waaaaaaant!!" Oh, mother of sweet spectral spacey symphonic delight! It says, "Buy me. Love me. Take me home, or lose me forever." I like that sweet, sweet, rocking maroon, too. I can forgive the port layout. Suddenly everything is forgivable and OK. Then I notice something else under color options and I click it.

I'm sorry, did angels just start singing? Do you hear heavenly melodies and a choir of silvery sweet voices borne on the mist of all the love bells of all time? 'cause, like, I do. His name would be General Grevious for the obvious resemblence. It would play the choral part of "Grevious Speaks to Lord Sidious" when I booted up. We would love and be in love and have all the joyness together in our world of intense choral chanting. I felt the tiniest "I kind of don't like the black-on-silver keyboard" but swept by it. "Customize & Shop!" And then I notice . . . Black, Brown, and Nebula are clustered together, but "Machine" is not an option. Huh? Scroll, scroll, scroll . . . One thousand dollars?! Pre-configured?! Ships Wednesday? Well . . . But $230 more than I was anticipating, and quite over my price limit? Grevious! My heart! You know, I can't tell you how much I resent being told I have a color option when I don't. I looked through the preconfig specs and frankly, I don't need anything he's packing. Thus begins the war.

I love Grevious. We have chemistry. But he wants $263 more than I have, and comes with way, way more stuff than I need. I can't even begin to tell you. I even went through and configed the other one to match and it didn't hit $1060, but I also couldn't see a purpose behind any of it. The base config, the $800?, is already double what Dante has now. So I've kind of insulated myself around the whole "don't like Grevious' keyboard, don't like Grevious' keyboard," and am mantra-ing that up. Honestly, it is no contest. But he's just so beautiful. I like that sweet, rocking maroon, and the black-on-black keyboard. 86 individually raised keys--lovely. 2.20 Ghz processor, ATI Graphics, Windows 7. 16"4 inches, 6.9 lbs. Ships 11/10/09. I even like the date. *Sigh* So now . . . to buy? I guess so. Not at work, though. I should go back to work but now that I'm this close to a decision--which I must also admit was categorically made this morning when I saw nebulas for $800. Grevious tempted me. But the other is starting to win out and I'm thinking of calling him Lucius.

In conclusion, why the heck did I just sneeze three times in a row? I never sneeze more than once! And . . . I guess that means I'm out. Cheers.

(In order of year only, least to most; bold text indicates a particular favorite line--some lines are extended to make them make sense, and don't really represent favorites.)

1975 = 1%

1.       How I wish / I wish you were here / We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl / Year after year ("Wish You Were Here (Encore)," Pink Floyd, P.U.L.S.E)

1978 = 1%

2.       They don't give a damn about any trumpet-playing band / It ain't what they call rock and roll. / And the Sultans, yeah the Sultans / Play Creole ("Sultans of Swing," Dire Straits, Dire Straits)

1981 = 1%

3.       Some will win / Some will lose / Some are born to lose. / Oh, the movie never ends / It goes on and on and on ("Don't Stop Believing," Journey, Escape)

1986 = 1%

4.       Teacher, will you show to me / The bond between the land and sea? / I am new to mystery, / I want everything laid out for me-- / All of history / All of history ("The Teacher," Big Country, The Seer)

1989 = 1%

5.       Well, it was all of 65 years ago when the world was the street where she lived / And a young man sailed on a ship in the sea with a picture of Veronica ("Veronica," Elvis Costello, Spike)

1991 = 1%

6.       One to learn / One to teach / Which way the cold wind blows / Fussing and flapping in priestly black / Like a murder of crows / ... / Men go crazy in congregations / They only get better one by one ("All this Time," Sting, The Soul Cages)

2001 = 1%

7.       It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and major lift / The baffled king composing hallelujah / Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah . . . ("Hallelujah," Rufus Wainright, Shrek soundtrack)

2002 = 1%

8.       Everybody’s trusting in their heart / Like their heart don’t lie / … / Out there right now / Someone’s really / Down on themselves and don’t know why / … / And when we’re sad / It’s kind of a drag ("All I Need," Matchbox Twenty, More Than You Think You Are)

2008 = 1%

9.       How can you sleep at a moment like this? / Unless the dreamer is the real you ("Make It Mine," Jason Mraz, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things)

1984 = 2%

10.   I can see you, your brown skin shining in the sun / You've got that hair swept back and those Wayfarers on, baby. / I can tell you my love for you will still be strong / After the boys of summer have gone ("Boys of Summer," Don Henley, Building the Perfect Beast)

11.   The evil genius hugs his wife / ... / In angle park, the lights are dim / The statues grin / In Angle Park, the fountains crack / In Angle Park ("Angle Park," Big Country, Wonderland EP)

1988 = 2%

12.   But her bed was made elsewhere / From the first day she got there / Now he wanders thirteen valleys, crying out / Now he wanders thirteen valleys, crying out / It could have been me / I said it could have been me / A broken heart needs someone new to blame ("Broken Heart (Thirteen Valleys)," Big Country, Peace in Our Time)

13.   Eviscerate your memory / Here’s the scene: / You’re in the back seat laying down / … / All you hear is time stand still and travel  ("You Are the Everything," R.E.M., Green)

1992 = 2%

14.   Only time will tell / If wishing wells / Will bring us anything ("29," Gin Blossoms, New Miserable Experience)

15.   September's coming soon / Pining for the moon / But what if there were two / Side by side in orbit / Around the fairer sun? ("Nightswimming," R.E.M., Automatic for the People)

2005 = 3%

16.   And when the day has all but ended / And our echo starts to fade / No, you will not be alone then / And you will not be afraid ("Now Comes the Night," Rob Thomas, Something to Be)

17.   We were drawn from the weeds / We were brave like soldiers / Falling down under the pale moonlight ("Ever the Same," Rob Thomas, Something to Be)

18.   Lie in the grass next to the mausoleum / I'm just a notch in your bedpost, but you're just a line in a song ("Sugar, We're Goin' Down," Fallout Boy, From Under the Cork Tree)

2007 = 3%

19.   And though time goes by / I will always be / In a club with you / In 1973 ("1973," James Blunt, All the Lost Souls)

20.   If you take me away / All the pain will change into a memory / Of when we were amazing / When we were driving in your car / With the windows down and a beat up stereo ("Casey," Darren Hayes, This Delicate Thing We've Made

21.   On a Sunday only we know, where the sunlight and the wind blows / Over bluebells, over Blackheath, calling your name, I will float through your window ("The Tuning of Violins," Darren Hayes, This Delicate Thing We've Made)

1983 = 4%

22.   I will turn your face to alabaster / When you find your servant is your master ("Wrapped Around Your Finger," The Police, Synchronicity)

23.   There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out / There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt ("King of Pain," The Police, Synchronicity)

24.   I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert / But I can live and breathe and see the sun / In wintertime / In a big country, dreams stay with you / Like a lover's voice / Across the mountainside ("In a Big Country," Big Country, The Crossing)

25.   There no beauty here, friend / Just death and dark decay. / We save no souls / We break no promises ("Lost Patrol," Big Country, The Crossing)

1993 = 4%

26.   See the west wind move / Like a lover's soul / Among the fields of barley / ... / You can tell the sun / In his jealous sky / How we walked in fields of gold ("Fields of Gold," Sting, Ten Summoner's Tales)

27.   In between the moon and you, angels get a better view / Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right ("Round Here," Counting Crows, August and Everything After)

28.   Well, I dreamt I saw you up a hillside in the snow, / Casting shadows on the winter sky as you stood there, counting crows. / . . . / But there's a bird that nests inside you, sleeping underneath your skin. / Yeah, when you open up your wings to speak I wish you'd let me in! ("Murder of One," Counting Crows, August and Everything After)

29.   I feel summer creeping in / And I'm tired of this town again ("Mary Jane's Last Dance," Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Greatest Hits)

1994 = 4%

30.   Baby's in Reno with the vitamin d / Got a couple of couches, sleep on the loveseat ("Loser," Beck, Mellow Gold)

31.   I will find a place to live / Give you all I got to give / (When we dance / Angels will run and hide their wings) / I will love you night and day / ... / I will love you more than life / If you'll only be my wife ("When We Dance," Sting, Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984-1994)

32.   The angel closes her eyes / And confusion returns / ... / Oh, I feel it coming back again / Like a rolling thunder chasing the wind / ... / The angel opens her eyes / Pale blue colored eyes / Presents the sun / With the glory of delight ("Lightning Crashes," Live, Throwing Copper)

33.   The grass was greener / The light was brighter / The taste was sweeter / The nights of wonder / With friends surrounding / The dawn was glowing / The water flowing / The endless river / Forever and ever ("High Hopes," Pink Floyd, P.U.L.S.E)

2004 = 4%

34.   She fills up every corner like she's born in black and white ("Suddenly I See," KT Tunstall, Eye to the Telescope)

35.   Sunrise, sunrise / Looks like morning in your eyes / But the clocks held 9:15 for hours ("Sunrise," Norah Jones, Feels Like Home)

36.   What am I to you? / Tell me darling, true. / To me you are the sea: / Fast as you can be, / Deepest shade of blue ("What Am I To You," Norah Jones, Feels Like Home)

37.   They don’t know you like I do / They don’t see the good inside you / They don’t lie with you in bed / And join you when you’re dreaming ("Void," Darren Hayes, The Tension and the Spark)

2006 = 5%

38.   A teenage queen and a loaded gun / A drop dead dream and the chosen one / A southern drawl and a world unseen / A city wall and a trampoline / I don't mind if you don't mind / 'Cause I don't shine if you don't shine ("Read My Mind," The Killers, Sam's Town)

39.   I can still hear the trains out my window / From Hobar Street to here in Nashville / I can still smell the pomegranates grove / But I don't know how hard this wind will blow / Or where we'll go ("Nothing Left to Lose," Mat Kearney, Nothing Left to Lose)

40.   I knew it from the start / My arms are open wide / Your head is on my stomach / And we're / We're trying so hard not to fall asleep ("18th Floor Balcony," Blue October, Foiled)

41.   Wish I was much more masculine / Maybe then I could learn to swim / Like fifteen miles away / ... / I want to swim away but don't know how / Sometimes it feels just like I'm falling in the ocean ("Into the Ocean," Blue October, Foiled)

42.   Laughing with your pretty mouth / Laughing with your broken eyes / Laughing with your lover's tongue and a lullaby ("When the Stars Go Blue," The Corrs feat. Bono, Dreams)

1995 = 7%

43.   Life seems pretty easy / When it's from my easy chair. / And you're burning up inside and no one cares ("Burnin' Up," The Goo Goo Dolls, A Boy Named Goo)

44.   See, I'd love to be you / At least then I'd see you ("Ain't That Unusual," The Goo Goo Dolls, A Boy Named Goo)

45.   When I was three feet tall / I loved the mall / And lived life for myself ("Impersonality," The Goo Goo Dolls, A Boy Named Goo)

46.   Why, you used to be a folk singer / Now you're just a joke singer / Ain't no smoking dope singer / Swinging from a rope singer ("Only One," The Goo Goo Dolls, A Boy Named Goo)

47.   Swedish summer nights are hot / And the trees can talk. / We laid on the grass / ... / I can hear the soft bells ring / Through a thousand years / They call out to me ("Whispers in Blindness," Ace of Base, The Bridge)

48.   I wonder how / I wonder why / Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue, blue sky / And all that I can see / Is just a yellow lemon tree ("Lemon Tree," Fool's Garden, Dish of the Day)

49.   You were always brilliant in the morning, smoking your cigarettes and talking over coffee / Your philosophy's an art, Baroque moved you, you loved Mozart / And you'd speak of your loved ones as I clumsily strummed my guitar ("Foolish Games," Jewel, Pieces of You)

1996 = 7%

50.   As I listen through the cemetery trees // I seen the sun coming up at the funeral at dawn / The long broken arm of human law / ... / I wonder why she hung around this place ("One Headlight," The Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse)

51.   He smokes his cigarette, he stays outside till it's gone / If anybody ever had a heart, well, he wouldn't be alone, but he knows he's been here too few years to be gone ("Hang," Matchbox 20, Yourself or Someone Like You)

52.   I was wasted in the afternoon / Waiting on a train / I woke up in pieces and / Elizabeth disappeared again (“Goodnight Elizabeth,” Counting Crows, Recovering the Satellites)

53.   Like she said she loved to watch me sleep. / She said / It's the breathing, it's the breathing / In and out and out and in ("Have You Seen Me Lately?" Counting Crows, Recovering the Satellites)

54.   Seconds ticking killed us all / A million years before the fall / You ride the waves but don't ask where they go / You swim like lions through the crest / And bathe yourself in zebra flesh ("Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand," Primitive Radio Gods, Rocket)

55.   Well, I know what you're doing / I see it all too clear / I only taste the saline when I kiss away your tears ("Barely Breathing," Duncan Sheik, Duncan Sheik)

56.   Yeah, well, I dreamed that the world was crumbling down / We sat on my back porch and watched it / In my head I heard a sound like / Fifteen strangers dancing ("Busted," Matchbox 20, Yourself or Someone Like You)

1997 = 7%

57.   An ordinary girl / An ordinary waste / But ordinary's just not good enough today / Alone, alone, alone, alone / ... / Doesn't anybody ever know / That the world's a subway, subway, subway? ("Superman's Dead," Our Lady Peace, Clumsy)

58.   Don't you know that / Time is a broken glass / That splinters against the wall? / ... / Because if you're making all these promises you know you cannot keep / You know that time will be the thief / And your fallen king will end up alone ("Promises," Savage Garden, Savage Garden)

59.   If there's a way to infiltrate you / Sway your mind and complicate you / ... / Wear a color that you want to cling to / The color inside your head ("Violet," Savage Garden, Savage Garden)

60.   Fingertips have memories / Mine can't forget the curves of your body ("Flagpole Sitta," Harvey Danger, Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?)

61.   It crashes through the window and I'm sleeping on the couch when I came to visit you / . . . / You smile and say the world, it doesn't fit with you, I don't believe you / You are so serene / Careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt ("Motorcycle Driveby," Third Eye Blind, Third Eye Blind)

62.   The Mad Hatter / He waits for Alice / To come to tea again / He waits / Forever / For his / Old lover / And always wondering (“Sherry Fraiser (I Saw Stars),” Marcy Playground, Marcy Playground)

63.   This is the good ship lifestyle, I fly my very own flag / TV dinners for one at the captain's table ("Good Ship Lifestyle," Chumbawamba, Tubthumper)

1998 = 7%

64.   Hold on / Dream away / You're my sweet charade ("Hate This Place," The Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up the Girl)

65.   I saw the world spin beneath you / And scatter like ice from the spoon / That was your world ("Black Balloon," The Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up the Girl)

66.   Make believe in magic, make-believe in dreams / Make-believe impossible, nothing as it seems / See, touch, taste, smell, hear, but never know if it's real ("More Than This," The Cure, The X-Files [Original Soundtrack])

67.   The days are bright and filled with pain / Enclose me with your gentle rain ("Crystal Ship," The Doors, X-Files Original Soundtrack)

68.   So you put on your armor and stand in the way / You're wearing the target it took so long to earn / And you start looking sideways at every turn ("Flower Man," Tonic, The X-Files [Original Soundtrack])

69.   Take two people romantic, smoky nightclub situation / Your cigarette traces a ladder / Here's looking at you, kid ("2HB," Venus in Furs, Velvet Goldmine [Original Soundtrack])

70.   There's nothing in my veins but some ugly memories / But kiss me like the ocean breeze ("Gimme Danger," Ewan McGregor, Velvet Goldmine (no album))

2003 = 7%

71.   And as I stared I counted / Webs from all the spiders catching things / And eating their insides / Like indecision to call you / And hear your voice of treason ("I Miss You," blink-182, Untitled)

72.   But right now / Everything you want is wrong / And right now / All your dreams are waking up ("Honey and the Moon," Joseph Arthur, American Wedding soundtrack)

73.   How do you do it when I'm overwhelmed by a violet sky? And we fly / In a decayed orbit / Sixty-six thousand miles an hour / Goes by ("Good Man," Third Eye Blind, Out of the Vein)

74.   I kept your sweater / Till the scent was gone / Wrapped up in my hands when the day were long / But I'm still sniffing ("Palm Reader," Third Eye Blind, Out of the Vein)

75.   Macramé queens in the afternoon / And I'm in tune or did I speak too soon? / Punch drunk off of somebody's joke, / What happens to the time? ("Crystal Baller," Third Eye Blind, Out of the Vein)

76.   Tick, tick / Tell me where the time goes / All night, / You know it moves much too slow (“Misfits,” Third Eye Blind, Out of the Vein)

77.   Light / Like the flutter of wings / Feel your hollow bones rushing / Into me ("Silver and Cold," AFI, Sing the Sorrow)

2000 = 8%

78.   And you looking straight at me / On your knees in the rain with a basket of flowers just for me / As the bells in the trees up above swung and rang softly / You said you rang them for me ("Birdcage," The Wallflowers, (Breach))

79.   When all my colors fade and my wings, they turn to leather / I wanna know the reasons why God let me get older (Hidden Track, The Wallflowers, (Breach))

80.   I’m in your movie and everyone looks sad / But I can hear you, your voice, the laugh track / But you never saw my best scene--the one where I sleep / … / Cupid, don’t draw back your bow: / Sam Cooke didn’t know what I know. ("Sleepwalker," The Wallflowers, (Breach))

81.   Keep one eye open when / Whenever you kiss ("Witness," The Wallflowers, (Breach))

82.   Now bells of curfew may ring before I’m through / But soon I’ll be delivered for the first time / … / But I just wave back like a little boy up on a pony in a show / … / Cause I can’t fix something this complex / Anymore than I could build a rose / … / I was once lost in the corridors of the arena in blindfolds / I’ve been the bull / I’ve been the whip / I just poked down a matador ("I've Been Delivered," The Wallflowers, (Breach))

83.   I'll follow you wherever when you lead me by my nose / On another big adventure, I suppose / Then you lay me down in clover with their petals on my back / I should make some time to do more things like that ("Beautiful Thing," Sister Hazel, Fortress)

84.   Just three miles from the rest stop / And my mouth's too dry to rage / The light was shining from the radio / I could barely see her face ("Rest Stop," Matchbox Twenty, Mad Season)

85.   Seven days of Monday morning / Oh / In this two-story town ("Two Story Town," Bon Jovi, Crush)

1999 = 15%

86.   All toe shoes and twin with the girl in the mirror who spins when she spins / From where you think you'll end up to the state that you're in, your reflection approaches and recedes again ("St. Robinson and his Cadillac Dream," Counting Crows, This Desert Life)

87.   If dreams are like movies, / Then memories are films about ghosts / ... / I know I don't know you don't know me / And you're probably not what you seem / But I'd sure like to find out / So why don't you climb down off that movie screen? ("Mrs. Potter's Lullaby," Counting Crows, This Desert Life)

88.   Keep moving way up high / You see the light / It shines forever / Sail through the crimson skies / ... / Sail through the wind and rain tonight / You're free to fly tonight ("You Can Still Be Free," Savage Garden, Affirmation)

89.   As I console myself that Hallmark cards are true ("Gunning Down Romance," Savage Garden, Affirmation)

90.   Born is a human with a kung-fu spine / Equipped with a detector of what's on your mind / ... / Born is a human with mechanics to win--/ Born is machine, with a human tucked in ("Defeat You," Smash Mouth, Astro Lounge)

91.   Bring wine for the knights in crying armor / As time beats away / And wiling in an acid bath of hours / We hope they all might stay one more day ("Rebel Sodville," Marcy Playground, Shapeshifter)

92.   I wanted to be so perfect you see / I wanted to be so perfect / Like dying in the sun / Like dying in this song / Like dying in the sun / Like dying ("Dying in the Sun," The Cranberries, Bury the Hatchet)

93.   If poison came in liquid / She was naked all the time and no one could explain it / It was all between the lines ("Echo," Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Echo)

94.   The attorney grins / The witness is drug in / With his face half hid / In shadow / ... / And we don't even know the wrong we've done / And we don't even care anymore / All I know is I believe / That you and me / Forever / We'll stand accused of love ("Accused of Love," Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Echo)

95.   Jackie-O with the top down, open / A king’s horse for what’s been broken (“Anything,” Third Eye Blind, Blue)

96.   Like the sun on the icecaps / My only friend in the prison / ... / How could it be that you've graced my life / Like a pardon from the governor? / Like a transplant from the donor? / Like a gift from the one / Who is the fire / Amongst the dreamers ("Meltdown," Live, The Distance to Here)

97.   The way you're bathed in light / Reminds me of that night / God led me down into your rose garden of trust ("The Dolphin's Cry," Live, The Distance to Here)

98.   Oh, desert, speak to my heart / O woman of the earth /... / In a moment we lost our minds here / And dreamt the world was round / A million mile fall from grace / Thank God we missed the ground ("Run to the Water," Live, The Distance to Here)

99.   Marry me, girl, be my fairy to the world / Be my very own constellation ("Californication," Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication)

100.  Why does summer go so quickly-- / Was it something that you said? / ... / Is the sound of distant drumming / Just the fingers of your hand? / ... / When you knew that it was over / Were you suddenly aware / That the autumn leaves were turning / To the color of her hair? ("Windmills of Your Mind," Sting, The Thomas Crown Affair soundtrack)

Bonus lyrics:

1. When you make love, do you look in a mirror? / Who do you think of? Does he look like me? ("Love Bites," Def Leppard, Hysteria)

2. 'cause I'm a vampire, y'all, and we toast the blood of our enemies ("1000 Julys," Third Eye Blind, Blue)

• The final solution or issue of a complication, difficulty, or mystery. (OED.)

Coffee is God's gift to man and it has saved me quite a bit of money on buying food. 'cause after I drink coffee, I feel so nauseated that food is no longer appetizing. On the right day, a frozen latte can sustain me for 12 hours, which can add up to a tidy amount of change!

I love dictionaries. Definitions are so accurate, so precice, so . . . very good at summing up exactly the sense of a word. And I understand that this is their purpose, but they really are so appropriate and perfect. Just like yesterday, I was really marveling over how great an actor Ewan McGregor is. I mean, I've spent the last ten years primarily valuing him for his intense hotness, which is in fact immeasurable, but I was watching Velvet Goldmine videos for the soundtrack and thinking, "This man really is a great actor. He is really, really good at what he does." Now I want to watch everything he's ever been in, again, just for the purpose of analyzing him at his craft. He is especially good at being angry, and really hot when he is. As Kristine pointed out, if one were married to him, she would spend the entire time making him angry just to observe the hotness. And as I pointed out in follow-up, it would be a win-win situation: one would have the bloody attractive angry man followed by the superhot make up makeout session. Tied up in this was a more concise version of my "A Defense of Liking Velvet Goldmine," which Kristine managed to sum up in a nice sentence I've now forgotten. But now I'll stop rehashing AIM convos and say something practical.

Even though I get really close to breaking down every time I go into F.doc or really think about the amount that must have been lost saving Dr. George's hard drive/flash drive copy over my hard drive copy--which is one of the dumbest things I've done but I chalk it up to sleep deprevation--there has been a lot of improvement and I'm fantasizing over how awesome the notes will be after next week when I get a chance to put the Schmidts and OEDs back in. I don't relish doing it twice, but at the same time, now that I've been working so closely with putting commentary notes in unsupervised, I feel freer to do with them what I want, so I think they will be very polished and sparkly by the time we're back to work on the same file. I'm only deeply disturbed because I think there are at least three commentary notes utterly lost in this process that are irretrievable. But, stiff upper lip and all that, whatever that means. At least he won't ever know about it O: )

I don't know why the guy who sits at the table at my back always kind of looks annoyed at me. Maybe I'm just interpreting it that way. Maybe he's just focused. But he seems annoyed and it puzzles me because I'm here before he is. Which means that he is choosing to sit behind me. I was getting annoyed by someone yesterday . . . this "older" guy who didn't have a clue what he was doing. First he got shent for bringing a computer bag into the reading room--I'll never know how he got it by the registrar--and then he tried to leave without a pass card, and he just never seemed to know what was going on. The Folger has seriously uncomfortable chairs. I won't miss this chair. My back hurts but I can't see anything if I lean back. Apparently sitting up straight is bad for your spine. Who knew? Although one would think that any uncomfortable static position wouldn't be healthy.

Compulsions are weird. You probably don't want to know how long I just dedicated to getting the little lead weights back inside their shoelace where they were hanging out on both ends. It was not an easy task but I really couldn't focus on anything until I'd done it. And while I must say my compulsions are greatly decreased, they still exist. Like last Saturday when we were standing leaning on the railing overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, I had the most intense compulsion to throw my glasses into the water, I was starting to get nauseated from not having done it. And I don't understand what causes compulsions. Like if I'm riding in a car and the window next to me is down and I'm holding something, I feel an intense need to throw the object out the window. I recall one time it was so bad I actually sat on my hands. Anyway . . . that was a sneeze.

I'm sure I have something worth saying. Last day and all that. I feel nauseated? That'd be the coffee . . . which is why I drink it . . . but . . . ugh, 74 more pages of this guy to do. I mean, he gets quoted only 38 more times, so I only have to do 38 more entries, but it's like, soooo tedious. I'm just not in to it at all. I'm not in to doing any work right now. I wish there was a way to take pictures with your actual eyes and process them. The ceiling in here is cool. I always feel silly spending all this time looking up, but it's a cool ceiling! I look up an awful lot. I know nobody believes that because I always walk around in my own little world looking at the ground six inches from my feet, but I'm also always convinced I'm going to fall over something. But when I'm standing still, or sitting, I spend an inordinate amount of time staring up. I like the carpet in here. Who can tell I'm not focused? Hey, I found out yesterday that distracted originally had the sense of being torn to pieces, as in drawn and quartered. And this is why definitions are so awesome. When one is distracted, one truly does feel as though one's brain has been pulled in all different directions!

Song lyrics are so pretty. I like the name Lyric. Orchard is a cool word, too, and I'm oddly enamoured with it as a name because of James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, the editor of an 1884 edition of Shakespeare. Or-chard. I love the way it sounds. Very rich and full. omfg, if I were any less focused, I'd be a broken telescope. 38 more!! No lunch today but goodness knows what I'm going to do for the remaining 4 hours after I finish this guy. Look up these editions, I guess. Oh, and there's three books in the reading room to look at. So one thing to photocopy, maybe two. Tick tick, tell me where the time goes. I woke up with "Void" jammed in my head which is funny 'cause I went to bed with "Where You Want to Be" jammed in there. Better than yesterday when I woke up with "I'd Go the Whole Wide World" or whatever that song is called stuck in there. My MP3 player needed to not be broken this month The problem with me never listening to music is that I get earworms so awful that I can't finish thoughts. Earlier this week I had that Katy Perry song in my head so badly that I actually couldn't focus on anything anyone was saying to me. I also will get five or six songs in my head at once and not be able to focus; like right now it feels like my brain is an MP3 player and it exploded. It doesn't help me focus one bit. I suppose I'll do these other 38 notes now. I had opened this window for a purpose but I forgot what it was because I can't hold a thought in my brain for longer than three minutes anymore. I suppose I'll go take an hour out of my hours anyway 'cause even though I'm not going for lunch, there's been at least a full hour I haven't done any work at all I try to be fair. La-de-da. Maybe I should cru. That might be a good idea. Okay, enough being distracted.