Even better than the real thing.

I know, I know, you're all probably off celebrating memorials with flaming grills, but me, I'm hiding indoors, where it's cool.

And what do I think is cool? People making fun of other people and making something even better out of just...weirdness. This week, you need to travel for the funny, but it's so worth it. It'll be like traveling for the holiday without the traffic congestion!

Julie Klausner & Jackie Clarke (genius ladies I'm obsessed with) made Welcome To Our House, an homage of sorts to Brenda Dickson's lifestyle video, "Welcome To My Home." The original video is on the same page, and you really need to see both to fully grasp just what fashion means.

If you haven't yet seen the recent addition to Weebl's Stuff called Thrust Squad, you need to. It's silly. It also makes my desk chair very happy that all I do to it is just sort of sit on it. Someday I'll whip out the webcam and show you what I got. But until then, just...enjoy.

Even better than the real thing.

This is my 20 minutes ago.

American Idol has ended, and it's the first season I'll actually miss. Maybe it's because of all the allergy medication I'm on, maybe it's because this is the first year we all watched every episode, or maybe it was just better than all the other years. I don't know. I'm happy with the result, and I was happy the rights to the Beatles songs were finally released, and I was happy to see Sanjaya was still good even after I hadn't seen him in a while. They were all good. Green Day was incredible, and seeing Doug E. Fresh again damn near made me cry like Paula Abdul.

Dancing With The Stars also ended fabulous for me, and that may also be for the reasons I rattled off up above but can no longer remember.

I took my car for the yearly emissions inspection yesterday. I took my car for the yearly emissions inspection today, too. My car is, like its driver, a freak of nature. This thing that was made a long time ago, still functioning well enough to go out in public. In my one-garage town, I had to wait until another "old" car was going to get its checkup, because it's just not worth it for the garage to fire up the ol'...whatever it is for pasty little green me and my bright purple car. My car is a '92. 1992, not 1892. On the way home both days, I passed what appeared to be the little brother of a '57 Chevy. I wonder if that car gets the same treatment when it goes for its checkup.

The people who run the gas station are nice, but you know I have to pick up on the stranger points of our conversations, like the time I mentioned that my flashy thing wasn't working, and was told it was for the best because people get shot using that.

Today, I was asked if the mileage on my car is really the true mileage. As if I wasn't already well-aware that my hair needs a fresh shot of Colorsilk 44RB. My car tells people it has only traveled about 29,000 miles. The Carfax report I got ten years after buying the car and putting maybe 3,000 miles of my own on it hinted that possibly Al at Soundview Chevrolet shaved 40,000-ish miles off that total, but I just said a rather sniffly nasal yes in between sneezes, because how am I going to prove the existance of Al from Soundview Chevrolet when he disappeared as soon as he sold me my car? I recently hit 12,000 days on this planet. It was during a rather bad patch and so that day came and went with little more fanfare than a new tagline in the header and the start of me inverting the numbers in my age when I sign up for updates from websites that are too nosy for their own good. The only reason the gas station owner had asked how many miles my car had done was because the other woman who was there had a car up with over 200,000 miles to its credit. The other woman was a nice lady, she said she couldn't wait to get home and sit in her yard with a book. That's my idea of fun, too, but...the woman who drove over 200,000 miles didn't have allergies. I left my excuse for my low mileage at allergies.

Yesterday, when I found that my day wouldn't be spent waiting for my car to be done coughing into a machine, I cleaned vines out of hedges. I shouldn't have, because the sun and pollen and contortions needed to access some of the sneakier vines left me aching today, as if I had done something cool like dancing a paso doble.

Maybe the reason I enjoyed watching silly TV shows with my family the past two nights is because I spent my days not ending up dead from sneezing through a red light. It's a good feeling, that.

This is my 20 minutes ago.

I've Lost My Drum!

I've lost my Indian drum!

This brings back memories.

I've Lost My Drum!

Sometimes They Come Back.

I have allergies, I have termites, I have an overgrown garden, I have a blog, I have a computer, I have a comic strip...so much to prattle on about, but first I will fixate on the thing keeping me from all the rest: my allergy does not stop with medication.

Okay, maybe fixate is the wrong word, because with allergy medication, fixating is not possible. It is possible to appear to be fixated on something, but I can assure you, that stare? Nothing coming in these eyes.

My house still tastes good to the earth-dwelling bastards who systematically took two of our trees and a shed. I'm glad something shares my love for the house, but like all bad relationships, I don't know how to get the termites to leave. The exterminators came today for the third year, and treated the soil. That's all you can do, I hear. Burning them tends to cause more damage than it prevents, and eBay doesn't sell nukes.

I've run out of witty things to write today, so I really have no way of pulling this around to leave you laughing, but once we hit the really hot weather and everyone's yards (mine include) dry to crisp harmlessness, I might have a few things to say that don't trail off into something I can't even recall at the moment.

Sometimes They Come Back.

How American Idol might have done much better in the '80s.

Keep in mind I just saw Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band again last night. I love that movie, as you know, and this time Nan made the discovery that Sanjaya Malakar would have done well to sing a Peter Frampton song or two. (As you also know, I liked Sanjaya. Peter Frampton's Billy Shears and me go way beyond like. *ahem*)

So it was Barry Gibb night on American Idol. My first 8-Track was the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. You might guess where this is all going. I mean, after all, it was Bee Gees night the first time I noticed Idol, so many years ago.

What the ever-loving hell happened to three-fourths of the Top 4?! These were my favorite kids this year...singing my favorite music...what could go wrong? Missing harmonies? Maybe. I don't know. I just found myself saying they should let Jordin Sparks win tonight and kick everyone else off. I didn't expect to like Jordin at the beginning, either...but...tonight she invoked Guilty.

The Barbra Streisand/Barry Gibb album Guilty was like, all of 1982 to me. Guilty, barbecues, and tonsilitis, those were the days, my friend. So when Jordin sang Woman In Love and the judges didn't like it, I realized that I am still very happy to be in the '80s, and there be certain others who just...don't...get it. I hope for Jordin's sake there are many like me out there.

I also laughed heartily when no one (but Blake Lewis, Barry Gibb and I) knew This Is Just Where I Came In. I love that song. Love. Take that, smart-ass judges, I know all these songs and you do not. Bah.

Still doesn't excuse whatever the hell happened to half the songs tonight. I can't believe I enjoyed Bon Jovi night better than Barry Gibb night. I enjoyed the Barry Gibb parts...of course...he could still help kick Areosmith's asses.

How American Idol might have done much better in the '80s.

I am not a slave to fashion.

It's spring. The equinox may have occurred over a month ago, but the days surrounding Beltane (no...I didn't participate...I played with the cats and dog) brought with it the nice warm weather that signals the usual swarming termites and swooping bats, and also the pollen.

I'm not sure if the bees around here have all died from the cell phone waves created by all those people who walk by my house talking to themselves, or maybe the bat ate them, but there seems to be a lot of pollen this year. So much pollen, that my lip swelled up yesterday. I swear, it was like those special lipsticks that are supposed to make you look all trendy and hot, but--I assume--feel like you've just eaten every fruit and piece of sea life that gives you the deathly hives.

I did not look trendy and hot with my allergic lips, my squinting runny eyes probably couldn't pass for cutesy batting, and the words I was saying would have ruled out being attractive to anyone at all for a few hours yesterday. And today. And most likely tomorrow. Until October.

As a follow-up to my post about Benadryl, it turns out that eventually it does build up. I'm sort of...what's the word...drugged? HAHAHA Whee! I still only sleep two hours, but now I have dreams about strange men with bad breath chasing me, and spiders. I guess it would be asking too much to just have dreams that are different from being awake.

I am not a slave to fashion.