I can feel my hair untwisting itself from its bun contraption. I want a hair rubber band (I don't know what to call them) so I can just switch to a ponytail and forget about it. I would try a pencil, except I think it will just untwist from that too. Why do I not have hair things in my purse?! _

Firefox is being insanely stupid, I can click like twice and then I get the rainbow wheely thing. It's like being on dial up, or sattelite, or back in the old days where you'd click and get a cup of coffee and when you came back your web page would be up. And I left The Once and Future King in the other room, so even though I promised myself I wouldn't start the Meg Cabot Persephone thing until I'd finished The Sword in the Stone (I have 30 pages! I could have finished today at work and on the T if I hadn't been social at lunch and then gotten motion sick on the subway), it is on my Kindle, and my Kindle was next to my laptop...

Wait. That wasn't the point. The point was, I thought I'd install Chrome, in case it was just Firefox being stupid. But Chrome needs 10.5, and I am still running 10.4. ((sigh))

But things have picked back up again. I have managed to type this entire blog entry without getting the rainbow wheel, unlike the IM conversation I tried to have with my sister where I typed "did you know Bret form The Flight of the Conchords was in the Lord of the Rings trilogy" and did most of that completely blind because my computer was lagging and not showing my text? (Did you know Bret was in the Lord of the Rings? I had no idea until today. He is going to be in the Hobbit, too.) _

I made this very tasty soup last night, and it included a grated celery root. Apparently I didn't take off enough of the tough outer skin, because I keep pulling pieces that feel like shards of wood out of my mouth when I eat it. I should probably throw it away, which is kind of sad, but my throat hurts. _

Why are there at least two YA books doing twists on Persephone coming out now and not when I was 12? Which is not to say that I don't fully intend to read them, but my twelve year old self is jealous. _

This afternoon, Sam and I walked over to the library to return some books. (One book, but the point remains.) I was wearing jeans and a tee shirt and it was fine and lovely. Lss than an hour later, I went out to go to the grocery store, and by the time I got off the T at Porter, I was really regretting not having another layer. Spring is weird. _

And it's spring!

_

The town of Somerville had a rabies "clinic" where they did $10 vaccines and sold $15 dog lisences this morning, so Sam and I went over and go this vaccine up to date and got a dog lisence. In the pouring rain. He didn't particularly care that he was getting wet, but he didn't like standing in the cold garage waiting for his shot.

We have been home for an hour, and spent most of it wrapped up in a towel and a blanket trying to get warm and dry. He is now making a nest out of my nice bedspread, so I took it off the bed.

  _

I have read this 11 page document full of information that I already understand at leastthree times this afternoon. It is just not sinking in. It is like words swimming in front of my face. I am supposed to turn it into a "data dictionary" or something, and I...

I just want to go home. I hate Friday afternoons. _

The Tori is a nerd conversation of the day:

My roommate went out to what I swear she told me was a play one of her coworkers was in. She came back two hours later, which struck me as short.

Me: How was the play?

Her: It was a singing thing. We didn't stay through.

Me: Did you stay through your friend's bit?

Her: He was in the chorus. It was...weird.

Me: Um...classical music? Was it the Messiah or something?

she stared at me kind of blankly

Me: Was it in English or Latin or German?

Her: German

Me: Oh. So, Bach's St. Matthew Passion? That is long.

((She doesn't actually have a clue what it was, but given that it was a rehersal and they're performing this weekend, I think it's a very good guess.)) _

I had planned to read my book club book while my office is closed for Passover. Instead, I have read 20 pages, baked peanut butter bread (less exotic than I'd hoped, but still tasty) and made peanut butter nutella (delicious and easy), cleaned my bathroom, put away all my clean laundry from the past three weeks, knit two miniature pigs (I just need to stuff them), bathed the dog, returned library books, watched movies, read about Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, and in all other ways avoided The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I think I have read 20 pages. I...just don't care about it. Please tell me it gets more interesting. _

Note to self: stop reading Diana Wynne Jones novels and read your book club books. And then go back and read all the Diana Wynne Jones you want. _

I was discussing this with a coworker yesterday, was  the Great Depression called that at the time? I thought it was, and she thought it was a retrospect thing. Does anyone know? (I feel like this is the sort of thing Tim and Mike are likely to have answers to.) _

We have cleaned our office kitchen of crumbs, and closed off cabinets, microwave, and toaster. ((sigh)) _

I am waiting for some TV recapper who only sort of knows what they're talking about to feel very smug and clever and call Cesare Borgia Machiavellian, thinking they have made some new parallel that no one else has done before. _

Sam and Beth the hedgehog.

_

I did my taxes last night. I have never done them this far in advance of the 15th ever. Usually, I will be sitting there at Connor's birthday dinner and I will suddenly remember that I have to file my taxes before midnight.

(I haven't done the State taxes yet, actually, just the Federal, because while I managed to convince Turbo Tax to eFile my Federal taxes for free agian, I couldn't figure out how to eFile my State taxes for free. And also, I didn't know the insurance information I needed to tell Massachusetts.) _

It is, apparently, a chocolate morning. I had a piece of toast with Nutella for breakfast, I got a mocha on my way into my office, and I am now sitting here with a cup of my chocolate rose tea. (It is also a Tori-needs-caffeine-and-sugar morning, but that is a different sort of story.)

At least each dose of chocolate is less and less chocolate?

This is the best tea. I drink all other teas reluctantly. _

I ran out of fabric softener, and thought I would try life without it. While I am not having the static problems I thought I would, my skin is all dry and itchy. It could be the weather, of course, but I suspect that my clothes are all a little bit scratchier. _

Oh, Amazon, you have done well. I do want fountain pens, ink, and books by Diana Wynne Jones. _

I have been trying to figure out what the most obscure Diana Wynne Jones book that I read is, and, given that The Homeward Bounders and  The Ogre Downstairs both keep popping up in people's online eulogies, it is probably The Eight Days of Luke. I don't really remember much about The Eight Days of Luke, but I do remember playing spot-the-god in that a while before I played it with American Gods, although given that it stuck in the Norse pantheon, it was probably easier. _