Today I've only eaten fruit or fruit-based products. No, this isn't one of my fun-time experiments in living. I've just had incredibly bad luck in my food choices. If you don't think this is weird, then I question you more than myself. Witness my intake:

banana
strawberries
apple
banana bread
applesauce

Sadly, none of the fruit was in pie-shaped form. Happily, I do have time before I go sleep to maneuver my way out of the middle of the food pyramid. Also, I'm sharing this here because I don't know how to express this in less than 140 characters.

For a long, long time, like my whole entire life, I've always told people who are very nosey that my favorite color is blue. I say that because I'm in denial. I don't know why I deny what my real favorite color is, but it's probably deep-seated in my psyche and I frankly don't have the time to go digging.

But today...today I admit to the world what my real favorite color is. Mostly because I know y'all are dying to know, but also because I can't live this lie anymore. So, people of the world, my favorite color is...

You know, I like blue a lot. It comes in nice calming shades whether it's light or dark. I can see why lots of people have it as their favorite. And then there's orange. I used to love orange until my 4th grade "friends" publicly shamed me for coloring my Valentine's Day hearts orange. I'm not sure what I think about people who love pink. There's something non-committal about that one. I mean, what it really wants to be, but can't quite get to, is red.

Now red is a confident color. It stands out and doesn't want to blend in with no one, not even with blue to make purple. Red rather just stay red. And yes, clairvoyant readers, this is my favorite color. I decided to stop denying it my love and awash my website in the most basic fire engine red I could find because this is the red that love.

Oh, red, I will deny you no more. Just like I think fish sandwiches are my favorite, but I always order clubs. That's the kind of love I'm talking about.

Changing a tire, in theory, sounds like a simple process. Jack up the car, remove the lug nuts, and pull off the tire. Then do everything in reverse with a new, not broken tire. Well, until confronted with the prospect of putting the theory into action today, I didn't know that I could actually do this. Now I know.

I rAwK.

Yes, people, I have changed my first tire at the tender, tender age of 34. It was quite a moment when I stood back and admired my handiwork. A woman on a bike rode past and said, "You go, girl," which, while lame and outdated, made me feel awesomer. A police officer walked by and told me to pat myself on the back. Which I did heartily. I could have been bitter at a society that doesn't expect a woman to be able to change her own tire, but I'm going to be honest for once and admit that I myself didn't think I could do it. My prejudice does come from prior experience, though.

Back when I was young and naive (during college), I was driving home on the highway when my front tire blew out. I pulled over to the side of the highway and managed not to kill anyone. This being the dark ages, I didn't have a cell phone to call my dad who is about the only person a college girl calls in moments like these. So, sitting on the side of the highway, I had to put a plan in action. There was an eight-foot fence that separated the highway from some office buildings that I could maybe climb over. I could head towards an office building, ask to use their phone and have my dad save me! Well, 2 out of 3 wasn't so bad.

I did climb over the wire fence, bloodying up both my palms. I made it to the office building and did call my dad....who was sleeping and didn't answer the phone. To be fair, he worked night shifts then and it was his normal bedtime (in the morning). I tried calling AAA, but since it wasn't my account, they wouldn't come help.

When I hung up the phone with the non-helpful AAA, a man in the office asked me where my car was. He told me he'd try to see if he could help me out. So off we went. He asked if I had a spare. I dunno, I had said in my best college girl voice. He dug under the car trunk and found it and proceeded to change the tire on the side of the busy highway.

But the man wasn't done yet! He noticed that the spare was a little flat so he told me to follow him to the nearest gas station. He filled it up with air for me while I stood around twirling my hair. I did have the wherewithal to thank him profusely and offer him money for his time and effort. He declined. I offered to buy him a soda and he declined again.

At that point, he told me that his daughter had a flat tire a few months ago and a stranger helped her out. He wanted to help me as a way of paying back the karma of the universe. He didn't ask me to do the same, but through my thick head, I understood that to be the underlying meaning.

So a few years later (omigod I will not end this post quick enough), my older brother and I drove past a weird situation on the highway. There was a large family pointing towards a car that was rolling away on the side of the road towards a large ditch. I told my brother to stop and see what we could do. The police hadn't arrived so we called 911. Then we offered my brother's cell phone (he got out of the dark ages way before me) to the owner of the rolling away car so she could call her husband. We waited until the fire trucks came and then we left.

I have no idea what the whole point of this rambling story is. Just that after all this time, I finally learned how to help myself. And even with my cold, cold heart, I think I'm still willing to help others.

So would you take a look at this site? I've hacked away my glorious summary of myself on the web. BUT! Never fear, I've only hidden it so those of you with tiny, eensy, weeny small monitors can see more of the blog content. I know you don't want to be missing out on it. The link at the very bottom will open back the tags, photos, etc. There's a link (something about less of me, the nerve) that will close it back up. If it doesn't work for you, I guess you could tell me, but really, I rather not know.

NEXT! I really shouldn't be sharing this, but my ego is enormously overblown and yadda yadda yadda. I want you to know about me. I started this blog today just so that I can take note of all the little everyday details of my garden and I'm only writing it for myself. HONEST TO PETE. But if you want to know how many plants I'll kill this summer, have a look yourself at A Yen Garden: http://yengarden.wordpress.com.

Yes, you may have noticed that I'm using a free blogging service instead of my own crappy application. At this point, I'll confess my real reason for starting a gardening blog. I wanted to use the Wordpress app on my phone so freaking bad that I went to all this trouble. I really am in love with my Nexus One. I'm also in love with gardening (so far). So I put my hands together and...that makes a clap.

Due to lukewarm demand, I've finally added commenting back to this sorry excuse for a website. No, no, no need thank me. I really did it for all the robots that are loading their spam cannons and firing up their thrusters in my direction. My enthusiasm for commenting is palapable, I know. It's downright contagious and expect y'all to catch the fever.

In other news, my site looks different. Again. I'm stuck on this color combination of black and orange because I must secretly long for Halloween. It's true, I hate dressing up in costume, children give me the hives and I don't believe in fun size candy bars (nothing fun about that size), but I LUV Halloween.

That's a horrible lie. I hate Halloween. I do like myself a lot, though, because all that stuff down there is me all over the interwebs. What I'm reading, what I'm photographing, what I'm spewing out on Twitter... It's all genius and I thought I should share it in one great place (that's this site!). So I guess you can thank me for that. Yes, you're welcome.

But the commenting feature... bleh.

I admit to telling everyone else that, "Just because you can doesn't mean you should," but I've never told myself that. And that's how I ended up posting to my blog from my phone. For a browser on a phone, this is pretty fantastic, but I'm sitting right in front of my laptop with its regular human size keyboard and I still insist on typing this post with one finger on my phone. This phone is btw the nexus one I was crying about a few weeks ago. I would review it but I think everyone else on the internet beat me to it.

I have a two part story that may be the greatest thing you hear all day or this hour so you don't want to miss this.

Part One: As expected, I had my weekly injury in the kitchen last Wednesday. It's a burn about two inches long on my right forearm. I've been making myself jumpy the past few days because I think there's something alive on my arm (like a bug). This was really good for my heart while working in the creepy attic over the weekend. Let's just say I know how to have a good time.

Part Two: I drove home today in my usual way: singing along with Isabelle, using my turn signals 300 feet before turning and generally being a courteous, exceptionally gifted driver. Normal and all until I noticed a stick bug staring at me from the dashboard! I stopped singing (can't multi-task) and kept an eye on the bug until it started to crawl towards me. Then I screamed, picked up my messenger bag and threw it at the bug. The bug got pushed to the other end of the dashboard and then started to turn slowly towards me again. Seriously, it had it out for me. I was frozen...until it FLEW at my head. I flailed my arms, lowered the passenger window, screamed again and possibly drove the car into other lanes. It's all a blur.

Well, after that I lowered some other windows. Did I mention that it was raining? It was raining. I kept my eyes on the road and didn't even want to know if it actually flew out of the car or if the damn bug landed somewhere on me. I could only see something on my right forearm that was either the bug...or my burn mark.

I drove the last two miles home in an awkward state and as soon as I pulled into the driveway, I jumped out of the car and did a hysterical dance to make sure the bug wasn't on me. I'm almost positive one neighbor was watching, but thankfully the rain kept the others from being too nosey. Then I checked the car and found it under my car seat.

My story temporarily ends with a Raid can in one hand and a little bit of common sense in my brain telling me that spraying poison in my car will just make me sick and maybe not the bug. Well, we'll see...

I've been MIA for several weeks now and of the two of you who've noticed, probably only one of you is happy that I'm back. I'm okay with that.

You see, since that great American holiday called Fourth o' July, we've been on a house-hunting adventure. If we made it into a movie, it'd be a blockbuster summer hit, not a boring artsy winter Oscar contender. For one, Cylinda and I speak really weirdly to each other and the lack of good dialogue is absolutely necessary for a blowed up action flick.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that this is a process. I know you know I wasn't really, but I'm ignoring you and my feeble non-functioning brain right now. Buying a house, writing a blog post: all processes that deserve my full attention. I have never been capable of multi-tasking. Honestly, I can't even walk and chew gum at the same time. I tried when I played sports in high school, but I choked a lot....a lot.

So we're about to come to the end of the house adventure with a closing that's about to happen very soon unless I just jinxed it by talking about it. I have extremely bad luck like that.

I did want to mention that I had lots of things to share over the past month and a half, but I reached dizzying levels of laziness that all I can do right now is list them:

• the sauna that is my office because of leaking anti-freeze
• fantasy football
• HGTV
• leftover surprise recipes
• Dragon*Con
• listening to my ipod songs (reluctantly)

I want to think that I'm not a touchy person, but that'd be a really enormous lie. (I like lying so that's not a problem for me.) I can take anything out of context and be really, really grumpy about it. But then I can get really happy the next second. There might be a word for this. I don't know, something like bi-polar or clinically...anyway, not my point.

My point is I hate people. Not you...probably. It's their (not your) fault that I get hysterical over nothing. For example, yesterday in the space of 5 minutes, two people talked to me. The nerve! I know, right. Seriously, this is what happened. I was waiting alone in a room for another person to show up. These two people passed by and stuck their heads into the room just to say this to me:

First person
Person: Oh so he's got <mumble> <mumble>
Me: I'm sorry, I didn't hear...
Person: He's got room service now, huh? <snicker>
Me: Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. (In my head: you asshole)
Person: That's ok. (and walks away)

Second person
Person: Are you Stacy?
Me: No, my name's Yen.
Person: You're not Stacy?
I look at her blankly. (In my head: Idiot)
Person: You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? She works in <another office>. You look just like her.
I actually do know who's talking about now and I look nothing like her.
Me: Oh.

Taken separately, these two offhand dialogues could be seen (by me) as just a really bad joke and a moment of mistaken identity. But since they happened within 5 minutes of each other, I'm going to get all riled up and declare it racism. For real, here's my logic.

I don't talk about my race (ever) because I never think about it. But these two winners made me think about it. The first person said something inappropriate in a professional setting to a stranger. I honestly don't know what was meant by it, but I don't think it would have been said to any man or any white woman. The second person confused two people on the basis that we're of the same ethnic race. Honestly, we share no other feature in common. It reminds me of a newspaper article a few years ago about a lost black child and some woman said, "All black babies look alike." No, lady, if you would open your eyes and actually look at them, they don't.

So, in conclusion: Stop talking to me.

I don't like saying "goodbye" to anything ever and I imagine I'm not alone. Most people probably don't, but it's necessary. The normal course of life is a series of goodbyes to people, places, pets, etc. I should be used to it since I'm a mostly normal person who's gone through a mostly normal life. No wisecracking, now, I'm trying to be serious and I have something abnormally serious to share today.

You see, I haven't really talked about my job on here unless I'm carelessly throwing around the word "horrific". Then I somehow link them together. But I need to take a moment today to not use the H word and to say goodbye not to my job, but the entire agency that I've worked for for the past six years. Horrifically (shoot, I can't help it) boring details, aside, I'm not really leaving my job, but the agency is leaving me; it's dissolving and being reborn tomorrow as three separate agencies. Here's more info if you want to know what's the what: http://bit.ly/17h67J

I'm being transitioned into one of those agencies and while my duties remain the same, I do have to let go of some work that I've kinda grown attached to over the years. This includes about a dozen websites that I have to say goodbye to. It's not easy, mostly because these websites have no mouths and can't talk so I'm not sure how they're feeling. They could be happy that I'm going to stop poking and prodding them with my meddlesome ways.

I pretty sure I'm sad about leaving them in the care of others (or, in some cases, no one). In spite of my grumble grumbles about everything that my job entails (that I don't share here), the websites themselves never got on my nerves. It's amazing, because that's really easy to do.

So, anyway, thanks for all the years of staring at each other from opposite sides of the monitor. I'm going to have to look away now.

I swear this is the last post about me for the next week, but I need to inform everyone and their mothers that I stopped being lazy for about an hour this morning and added back all the tags to my old blog posts. Aren't I amazing? Wow. Now you can find everything about Celine with one click. That's pretty much what I live for, honestly: Bringing the world closer and quicker to Celine.

I'm actually kinda tired of talking about myself which I didn't think was possible. Just kidding! It's actually not, but I was trying to be humble. It makes me feel weird and uncomfortable.

No, seriously, don't. There's a mess of Yens and Tangs out there in every combination. It'll just make you dizzy. There's one search result that's kinda cool, though: the town of Yen-Tang in Vietnam. Hillary Clinton visited there a few years ago and maybe that's why I feel some cosmic connection with her and voted for her more times than technically possible. Don't ask me what that means. You don't want to be implicated.

So what I really mean to say is Google + me. Yes, we're becoming one. I didn't see it coming and that's probably how they planned it, but it's happening. I use tons of their apps for work and personal use, including Gmail, Analytics, Docs, Maps, etc. But I've been resisting Chrome (browser) for a while now because I didn't want to depend on Google for everything in my life. Well, they've broken me because I'm using and I like it, but I also hate it for making me like it. It's true, I'm a complex, complex person.

Chrome is recommended for weak-ass netbooks of which I have one. It's just faster and each tab is isolated from the others so when something gets frozen, you can just close the tab and not the entire browser. Genius. Damn genius.

I know Google's taking over the world, one app at a time. I know I'm helping and I should care before us humans become a Googlized application ourselves, but honestly, it's probably too late. Just sit back and let Google run your life. See how well it's running mine? And don't you want to be just like me?

I thought so...

Yes, Stevie Nicks, I'm getting older, too... I like to spend my birthdays on Jekyll Island, one of Georgia's Golden Isles. I'd say it's the best isle, but I don't want to get into this argument again because I never win. Everyone luuuuvs St. Simon's. That's fine. Stay away from Jekyll because the less people are there, the happier I am.

Although it's been a few years since we've been there, everything looked the same. That really means that there's still nothing to do and not many good places to eat. We went inland for dinner one night and ate at possibly the best restaurant in all of south GA. It's called Cargo Portside Grill in Brunswick. Other than that, we saved our eating skills for Savannah. We had Cylinda's favorite cheesesteak in the whole wide world at Bernies on River St. We ate at Lady and Sons, which is Paula Deen's restaurant. She really tried to kill us with butter, but I still seem to like her. There was an adjacent store with her face on everything...on things her face probably shouldn't be on. It was awesome.

We went on a haunted pub crawl which wasn't much of either. It wasn't expensive so I guess it was almost worth what we paid, but in the future, I don't think we'll be combining stories of spirits with the liquid spirits.

We took a damn lot of photos. If you're on Facebook with me, check it out. If not, well, you need to be nicer to me and then we'll talk about friending each other.

There were lots of sitting time, too. We sat on the beach on Jekyll and sat on benches in the squares of Savannah. Here's a video of us in Reynolds Square listening to a wonderful dixieland jazz band playing for a wedding.

My aforementioned hard work in recovering my old blog posts didn't include the labor of adding back the tags to the posts. I'll be honest, I'm lazy as hell. So... you'll just have to read them all over again to find the gems. Get going, there's tons of crap to go through.

Oh alright, I'll link to a few of my favorites. They touch on the topics I make fun of the most:

Myself: Elevator luck (July 2006)
Other people: Things to keep to yourself (April 2007)
Georgia: History lesson (August 2006)
Isabelle: I'm buying whatever she's selling (October 2007)

Welcome to my 324th version of my site. It looks a little, slightly, ok, not really that different. I can assure you that it's just as boring, only now, there's more boringness for you. Yes, I'm thoughtful like that, I know.

You see, I put my nose to the grindstone and recovered all my previous blog posts. It was a pain and some of them may not look right or the links might not work anymore, but the important thing is that the text and content is still brilliant after all this time. I mean, wow. There's some really, really good stuff amidst tons of Isabelle Boulay photos. She is, of course, even gooder stuff.

I'm also going to try to post photographs on a regular basis that my ego tells me are awesome and life-changing. For me AND you. See, I'm thinking about you always...except for the times that I'm thinking about me. That actually happens a lot. Oh, for you, too?

Thanks for stopping by. It may not be worth your while today, but someday... no, maybe not even then.

This was an eventful year for us, full of milestones and dreams realiz-- nevermind. I can't do it. I can't be sincere for more than one paragraph. Lemme give you the short version:

1. Cylinda graduated from law school, earning the coveted Ms. GSU Law School honor. Nothing can top that; not even passing the bar or running around Europe for 5 weeks or starting a new job or getting Rock Band. Please please call her Ms. Law next time you see her. She demands it.

2. I didn't get fired! That's an achievement in and of itself. This is amid our state budget cuts, layoffs, furloughs and me goofing off in France for 6 weeks. I'll give you my secret, but don't use it against me: I know voodoo and I'm pretty good at it.

3. The boys are pretty much the same as always. They're happy not to have to hunt for their own food and they get the remote control during the day.

That's it. Merry Christmas, shawties! Don't knock over my mini-tree.




Oh, and you may have noticed that I'm back to writing completely unnecessary thoughts and opinions on the interwebs. My old blog posts may someday show up here, but that would require...work.

Tell me, have you ever:

• wanted to finally win that damn team trivia played game at bars/restaurants?

• settle a stupid bet with a friend over a stupider issue?

• chat with random strangers incessantly?

• use up all your text messages in your monthly plan?

No? Me, neither, but evidently, other people are not like you or me. They text (242242) or call in their questions (1-800-2-CHACHA) to ChaCha, a free SMS answering service. The answers come back within 5-10 minutes on their cell phone.

How do I know all this? I work at ChaCha. I'm one of their Guides and answer the inane questions all y'all have. And you really have inane, pointless questions most of the time. But that's ok because I like inanity. I'm paid for the inanity at $0.20 an answer. Yes, it's a goldmine. Actually, it can be useful if you don't have a smartphone with a web browser and you need to know where something is or the hours of a store.

Anyway, if you want in on this cash cow, sign up at www.ChaCha.com under the Become a Guide section. If you like researching on the Internets, wasting time on the Internets and answering pranky questions with your own killer wit, this is a possible job for you. You don't need to put my email address down in the referral field, but if you do, I take half your earnings! Mwahaha! No, I wish, but that's a lie. I get a 10% bonus for every question answered, but if you're not feeling goodwill towards me today, I understand. It happens.

If you get nothing else out of this promo for ChaCha, don't be so thick and realize that I'm trying to get you sign up and work for ChaCha using my email address, but I'm trying not to be obnoxious about it (for once). You can also take away the easy to remember text number (242242 which spells CHACHA) and ask any question you can think of. It'll be answered and I might be the one doing it. I'll try not to roll my eyes too much when I see it.

Dalai Lama
Who needs anger management classes if you got the DL? Not me! Yen: Compassionately-enabled since October 2007.

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." -- Dalai Lama

Technology
A new laptop and a cellphone has brought me closer to current societal standards. Aggregating RSS feeds and relearning the finer points of XSL transformations for work - fun, but it's still work.

France
I was just reminiscing about this trip the other day... and sorely missing the Chinese food from a takeout counter in Nice. Yes, inappropriate, but I get to try again this year. This first trip to the mother country was everything I hoped it would be and more: friendly, frenchy, beautiful. Wait, are we talking about the country or the women? Har har. It was less, too: chaotic, crazy, inaccessible. Sitting at the park on top of the gorge in Gourdon was one of my best moments of the year.

Maladies
A radar head and some kidney damage in the boys and a bout of bronchitis in and a hospital visit for me makes this the year of the sick.

Novel
I originally wrote my time jumping meth meets Pony Express story three years ago and I finally rewrote half of it for Nanowrimo in November. I'm actually proud of it which is difficult to admit because I find my writing extremely tedious like that.

Isabelle
First the woman releases my new favorite album of ever and all time in April - De retour de la source. Then she smiles and winks and talks to me during her concerts in Quebec. How, I ask, how can I not be insane in the membrane over her? I do have my limits, though. Obsess over her? Yes. Create a painting and selling it online for 15,000 euros?

Maybe.

Sandwiches
Po' boys, banh mis, croque monsieurs, cubans...bring it. I love you all so much I don't know how quite to express it.

I think I'll end the year on that note. See ya, 2007.

This is a slow month. How slow? You really want to know?

If I could be a Turtle (the teenage mutant kind), I'd be Michaelangelo because he's the fun-time guy or Leonardo because he's the leader. Donatello would be alright, too, because he's so loyal. But, I'd probably end up as Raphael, the moody one who pouts all the time because he can't be in charge. It's because you're moody, man!

Whichever Turtle I'd be, I'd get to eat pizza (and nothing else), crack witty jokes (you know you laugh) and possess better fighting skills than any freakishly large reptile should have. Fortunately, I don't have to be a Turtle to have my own Master Splinter. One difference: Theirs is a rat. Mine is piece of wood stuck in my finger.

I've been living and learning from it for a week now. I've come to accept it and become one with it. No, for real, I can't get the damn thing out. My finger hasn't fallen out yet, but wait, there's more positive news! It hasn't turned blue or any other non-skin color. It doesn't hurt and it may actually accentuate the strange double jointed-ness I was born with. Thanks, Mom! Or Dad!

No, my mom. I blame my mom.

I'd like to think that I'm a winner in most things I do, but once a year, I get to hear it from someone else. Thank you, Nanowrimo!

For those not in the know, the goal of National Novel Writing Month is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. If you do it, you're a winner. If you're don't, you're a loser!

For this year's story, I completely rewrote my Great American Novel that I had initially written for the 2004 Nano. I changed much of the plot, the viewpoint from 3rd to 1st and increased the dialogue parts from blah blah to blah blah blah blah.

As a bookend (har har) to the month, I watched Stranger Than Fiction last night and it frightened the bejeezus outta me. If one of my characters that I had created ever came to my door and asked me to not to do what I did to her, I would, in this order: 1. Hide under the bed; 2. Invite her in for tea so that I could talk to her (I love my hero Mal); 3. Check myself into a mental ward.

In Georgia, that would be Central State in Milledgeville. This used to be the largest mental hospital in the U.S. All the crazies were sent there from all over the country. Native Atlantans tell me that a common parental threat when they behaved badly as children was, "If you don't shape up, we're sending you to Milledgeville."

I almost forgot I had this site. I've been in a busy place, which technically is in Kentucky. See my mappy proof? And not that I have much room to make fun since I come from a county that has Intercourse, Bird-in-Hand, and Blue Ball as town names, but I think I can dig deep and come up with some ability to mock the town names in this part of the bluegrass state.

I won't even draw your attention to the town names of Hardburly or Hazard (as in "Dukes of") because the awesomeness of Fisty and Typo are more than enough. Then this state, which couldn't decide if it was really North or South during the War of Northern Aggression, gets all hoity-toity with the town of Toulouse. Très bien.

Part of me going all Kentucky on y'all was setting up my new cellphone. There's so much to customize on these things that I only got around to figuring out how to make a call yesterday after having it for half a week. And success! Today, I learned how to answer a call. I know, it's hard to get anything by me.

The ringtones are actually what kept me confused for a few days. But I persevered in spite of the manual and now an Isabelle song plays when the phone "rings".

Okay, you can stop rolling your eyes now. You won't be able to focus on the far-out Isabelle wallpaper on the phone.

The internet is full of crap and it's my fault. I know you need no proof (well, no further proof) but this following site will show without a doubt that I have wasted so much space and time, mine and yours.

The Internet Archive has been capturing the embarrassing state of the web since 1996 and you can see all of it with their Wayback Machine. They're assembling an Internet Library, but I don't think half of the sites out there are worth remembering - and I'm just talking about my own. Imagine what I think about everyone else's.

No, don't do that.

At my peak (or valley) of crappiness, I delusioned myself into thinking I had a taxi company. But don't fret too much for me. I never thought it was a profitable company, much less an operational one.

Is there something off about...? Does anything seem a little different...?

Nevermind, it's probably just me. I'm hopped up on three types of medicine (including one not FDA-approved - awesome) and endless cocktails of hot tea and cough drops. Yum. Yes, it IS as delicious as it sounds. So, anyways, I'm probably just seeing things.

Actually, has anyone seen my shoes? Or my cat? I wish I was seeing Isabelle. She's playing the closing set tonight at Quebec's annual summer festival, a huge musical celebration that would be cool (lit-trally!) to attend if it weren't snowing and sleeting at the moment. And hail, mustn't forget the hail.

What? No, I'm not bitter. Not at all.

While I was going down the escalators yesterday, a man got on the up escalator with his two kids behind him. His young boy didn't get on, though, because his shoelaces were untied and his sister wouldn't help. I had this overwhelming urge to tie his shoes for him when I reached the bottom, but I ran through these thoughts in succession:

• Don't smile at other people's kids (unless they want you to smile at them, like small, small babies).
• Don't touch other people's kids...ever. Ever.
  
• Don't touch other people's shoes...cause that's gross.
  
• Don't touch other people's kid's shoes...for your own sake cause who knows what kids do to themselves and their shoes.

That makes sense, right?

What doesn't make sense is:

• me giving tech support... (Okay, not that uncommon for me.)
• in French... (Why not? Just translate all the words literally, like mouse = souris.)
• to someone in France... (There are ID10T users all over the world, right?)
• for free. (WHAT?)

The nerve of some people... No, just kidding. It was bizarre, though, because I kept having to say "right-click" in the special French way and I can't get the phrase "make a click right" out of my head.

Maybe I should just make an exit left stage now.

I wasn't sure if I was going to participate in this neurotic funfest for another year, but I just signed up and my name's on the author list and I can't back out now because anything less than 50,000 words in my profile by November 30 would be a complete failure and an embarassment to my family name (well, one of them).

And, also, I don't know how to unregister.

My story plot this year is inspired by the combination of Maine (the state), wondering how to scam the poor kids in very poor countries who try to scam tourists (strike first, I say) and the incredibly real town of St.-Louis-du-ha-ha in Quebec, Canada. And now I'm listening to Celine sing a love song to a très très gay boy named Ziggy.

This story is going to write itself.

And not to toot my own horn, but... oh hell, why not? Toot Toot. I've done Nanowrimo since 2003 and have won every year, including last year when I got my story printed for free. All winners can get a free copy from a vanity press without buying advances so it's extra incentive to be a winner. I'm a winner. That's what Cylinda tells me (sometimes).

Does that woman look giddy to you? That's the first image I found online when I looked up "giddy" and I have my doubts about her state of being. I'd say she was "tap dancing" or "killing a bug" or even "poorly dressed," but not "giddy".

You wanna see "giddy"? I'll show you "giddy". &lt;fist shaking!&gt; WAHOO! WAHOO! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! I AM GIDDY GIDDY GIDDY!

The preceding giddiness was brought to you by my obsessive love of the French language, a bunch of French women and... Cylinda.

Really?

Yes, I'm just as surprised as you.

I have no shame.

Yen the magazine (I'm Australian!)

Yen the General or Yen the bad movie actor (I'm versatile!)

Yen the doll (I fit in your pocket!)

I just found out that my name means "round object" (in several languages!). While I wait for your mocking and laughter to die down, I'll go have a cup of that bitter tea for the General in me.

HOLY MOLEY I thought I was overreacting when I thought prisoners in white jumpsuits crowded onto an elevator with me a few weeks ago at my office. But now I know. In Georgia, prisoners wear beige jumpsuits and have the words DEPT OF CORRECTIONS stitched on their backs. How do I know this? I've never been caught, petty criminal that I am.

I know because they've surrounded my cubicle right now. I mean, RIGHT NOW. One peered around the corner at me a little while ago. Twice. Another just strolled through looking out my windows at the fantastic view. (It's really fantastic.) And the lone security officer who's supposed to be keeping watch made some small talk with me. But now he's nowhere to be found.

This may be my last post for a while. I'm not sure if they have the internet in jails. I'm quite nervous they're going to round me up with the other guilty guilty convicts because my eyes, they will not stop shifting.

Goodbye, free world.

I hate riding elevators for many reasons:

1. I have a fear of the cable snapping and me free-falling to my death. (Although, I really enjoy free-fall rides at amusement parks. They're great.)
   
   
2. If the cable doesn't snap, I have a feeling the car will get stuck between floors and it'll be dark and I won't be able to see what button to push to call for help. So I memorize the location of the alarm button and try to stand near it always because...
   
   
3. Other people will not have the level-head that I possess on my shoulders (the preceding was an outright lie) and will start jamming all the buttons since they haven't taken the time to memorize the layout of the buttons. People also make for...
   
   
4. Awkward moments. They make me uncomfortable and nothing's more awkward than standing with strangers in a small space and trying not to acknowledge each other.
   
   
5. Also, I get motion sickness when the car starts and stops. I'm not kidding.

Soooo...here's my story. Yes, I have one. I work on the 32nd floor of a 41-story building. There are 4 elevator bays that go to different sets of floors, although all go to the first and second floor. Mine goes from 29-41.

When I leave for the day, I wish very much to board an empty car and ride it all the way down to the first floor without anyone else (see #4). Most days my wish is granted. So when I got on an empty car yesterday afternoon and the elevator sped down past 31, 30, and 29, I thought, "Success! Again!" Not really. No one talks like that.

BUT, the damn car stopped at the second floor. I panicked a little when I heard a lot of voices on the other side of the doors before they opened. And I was right to be afraid. There were a dozens of men all in white jumpsuits with badges. They started piling in and I moved quickly to the corner, close to my alarm button (see #2).

Then I noticed there was a blue suited officer type guy who was ordering the guys into the elevator. But he wasn't getting on! There was no room for the officer! I was alone with the prisoners. For real, I scooted over even more and tried to catch his eye to try to tell him that there's always room for an officer. But the doors closed and the guys all turned and looked at me.

All of them were the same height and build except one very tall man in the middle of the pack. He was the only one who spoke, too. "Howsa goin', ma'am?"

It was the longest elevator ride in my life, from the second floor to the first.

I usually leave work highly annoyed. Yesterday, I left in fear.

To all who wished me a happy birthday yesterday and to those who meant to if they knew my birthday, I'd like to say thanks for thinking of me. It was right nice.

I don't mean to single any one person out, but...no, hell of course I do. I appreciate everyone's thoughts, but to get birthday wishes from...Celine Dion, well, that just touches my heart in ways no one wants to know about.

I know what you must be thinking. Yen's lying...again. Or Yen's dabbling in more-than-just-gateway-drugs this time, haha. But I'm not! Not this month. See:

Courtesy of the Angry Little Asian Girl...

That is all.

EvilBlogWorldWhichHasSuckedMeIn (EBWWHSMI): Thanks for joining us today, Yen.

YMT: Avec plaisir!

EBWWHSMI: Excuse me?

YMT: Sorry, I didn't mean to speak in a foreign tongue.

EBWWHSMI: Yes, well, this is America and it's only right to speak the our national language. In fact, it should be THE LAW to speak American!

YMT: I totally agree. Right on, brutha'.

EBWWHSMI: I'm more woman than man, actually... wait, let's see your green card.

YMT: I don't have one.

EBWWHSMI: Aha! I demand to hear the American alphabet...in order.

YMT: Okay, but I am a citizen. And I've always gotten my Ks and Ls mixed up.

EBWWHSMI: OH, me too! You know, that whole middle section... HEY, your foreign national tricks aren't going to work on me.

YMT: Sorry. Here's my naturalization paper.

EBWWHSMI: That's you?

YMT: Yeah, why?

EBWWHSMI: What's that on top of your head?

YMT: My hair.

(Silence.)

YMT: Come on, I was 14.

EBWWHSMI: It's so... high. I'm sorry, I can't look at it anymore.

YMT: Weren't you going to ask me some questions?

EBWWHSMI: Was I?

YMT: Don't you want to know anything about me?

EBWWHSMI: Not... really... anymore.

YMT: Oh.

(hoo hoo)

EBWWHSMI: Uh, don't do that. Don't cry. Please.

YMT: It's just that...

EBWWHSMI: HEY look, I DO have a question.

YMT: Excellente! I mean, excellent.

EBWWHSMI: Do you think man and machine will ever mate?

YMT: Hmmm... I have to say, "yes". I don't know how and I don't know when, but I'm all for it if the name of this machine starts with I and rhymes with tripod. Oh yes.

EBWWHSMI: Okgreatthanksbye.

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