I WANT to get an iPhone. Really!

Apple, take note: if you hadn't signed a partnership agreement with AT and T and left it all wide open, I'd be on my second or third iPhone by now. So would a lot of people. That's a lot of iPhone change that you ain't getting.

I'm still contemplating a switch. In fact, I would like to have an iPhone more than anything because I'm sorry, they're just cool. But after spending a day fighting with AT and T over a billing error from two years ago that I want to fix but CAN'T, I feel more than ever that AT and T is like that asshole person who, despite the fact that he is a complete dick, still has friends and romantic relationships.

Apple, what do you SEE in AT and T? What are you DOING with them? Why must I be torn between wanting something so totally bitchin' and being righteous and withholding my money from proven assmonkeys? No fair.

And AT and T? Wait a few years. When this dream relationship comes to an end and the iPhone and other, cooler gadgets to be named later are fair game for all providers, you are going to lose subscribers so fast your CRM system will melt into a pile on the floor. Unless you decide to Get It and realize--in telecom, customer service is all you got. Cool shiny phones and iron-clad partner contracts can only protect you for so long.

In the meantime, we got choices. We got Twitter. I'm not afraid to use either one. 20 million people are waiting to hear what I think of your lame ass. So figure it out.

Ahead of the curve

I'm so rarely ahead of anyone on reading any book, but I have to say I'm proud of myself for committing to Infinite Jest last winter before the cool kids decided it was worth reading in a finite amount of time. Now I can say, as all of my friends pick it up for the summer and take the challenge, "eh. I read it in three months. And I was lazy." Of course, I was also escaping reality in a big way (successfully), but I persevered, and now I can watch Three Stooges cartoons while everyone else tries to make sense of Eschaton and the Quebecois movement. I love seeing all of my friends read over that first paragraph and thinking, ah, just you wait. It'll all make sense.

For the record, I highly recommend taking up the challenge. It's not for everyone, that's for sure, but I really enjoyed reading it. Not in the linear, yarn-spinning sense, but just because the writing was so damned fun to read. Give it a whirl. And don't forget to start over from the beginning when you finish. Trust me.

Not a peep

Whither?

It's just not Easter without certain things. Baskets. Chocolate. Awkward uncomfortable gatherings at Grandma's house (oh, wait, that's just me). And Peeps. Sweet, sweet peeps.

Well, we're just going to have to cancel Easter because Peeps are AWOL in Boulder.

Because we have, you know, lives, we haven't been able to get our Easter shopping done early this year. We thought we'd be safe running into the giant Target near our house and stocking up on various traditional Easter goodies and Michael Graves springtime design items. I mean, who runs out of candy before Easter?

Target, that's who. By the time we got there today the shelves were picked clean of all but the nastiest jelly beans and some kind of weird circus peanut type thing that I can't even talk about. It was like Soviet Russia, except with more pastels. And worst of all? NO PEEPS. Anywhere.

I mean, who runs out of Peeps? Usually there are enough left over the day after Easter to build a new room onto your house. The checkers are slipping them into your bag, free with every purchase. You see those fuckers hardening on the shelves well into June. But this year, we went to three different places and they were all Peepless. I wonder if they've tightened the supply chain at the Peep factory, to reduce costs and more accurately target inventory during the recession? Another reason to hate AIG.

Now what are we supposed to do? What are we going to use to play Attack of the 50ft. Pink Chicken in the microwave? And what are we going to use to craft our artist's rendition of Christ on the cross? (c'mon, it's not like we EAT them, how crazy do you think we are?)

We've learned our lesson. In these trying economic times, shop early and often for Peeps. Next year, we'll buy a gross as soon as they hit the stores. That should give us enough for our microwave fun and our religious art. We'll have enough to sell on the Peeps black market. After a few months, we can even soundproof the basement.

Come ON already

When my computer chugs along, trying to perform a momentous task like, oh, saving a document, it makes a sound like the engine of a plane when its in a holding pattern over the runway.

Circling over
and over
and over
again.

I don't like that sound.

Time for a new skirt

When you see a skirt that you own on a mannequin in the window of the gift shop of the Walt Disney World Hilton, it's time to rethink your wardrobe. And by you I mean me.

Just sayin'.

News Flash: I am not on fire

Once I moved out of California, I thought I'd never get the disaster-check call again (or its cousin, the disaster-check email). If you live anyplace where the ground shakes, burns, slides or suddenly becomes a lake, you KNOW what I mean. It's bad enough living in San Francisco and worrying about an earthquake--it's inevitable that someone, somewhere who is related to you will call if the seismograph quivers within 1000 MILES of the Bay Area and asking, "Are you okay?" or, "Did you feel that?". I mean, I appreciate the concern, but a 3.5 quake north of Eureka is not going to register really on a bedrock hill in Cole Valley.

We haven't had to deal with that as much in Boulder. Sure, there are little brushfires here and there, but it's not like someone is going to call and say, "Hey, we saw on the news that there were some clouds spotted over Aurora. Did you experience shade?"

But a few days ago, we had a big fire in the Boulder hills. Not a SoCal inferno, but enough of a blaze to cover a swath of the hillside above Olde Stage Road. Friends were evacuated. Critters got rescued. Houses burned. I came over the crest of Highway 36 on my way home from work and suddenly I was on a Costco run in 1991, rounding a corner on I-80 to see ALL OF THE OAKLAND HILLS turned into the center of hell.

When I started getting calls and emails inquiring about our safety, it dawned on me that unlike the Bay Area or the state of California, Boulder is actually kind of compact. It's entirely possible that if there's a fire in the hills we could be in it. I actually felt kind of bad that I didn't call the folks and let them know that we were safe and sound. So for those of you who haven't already called, I'm not on fire. I'm not even smoldering. We are here in the middle of town respectively playing Wii Fit, sacked out on the couch, reading Fudge-o-Mania with no pants on, and pretending to work. I'll leave it to you to guess who's doing what. But we're just fine. Thanks for asking.

This too shall pass

There's nothing like being on page 1 of a 1,079 page book. I've decided to read Infinite Jest. I need a distraction, and I always liked ol' Dave. No one has ever captured the horrors of being on a cruise vacation better. And we sort of lived parallel lives, growing up in university towns in the middle of hick states. Except that he went on to be a brilliant writer and then killed himself, and I became, uh, me.

I remember when this book came out, back in the day. I was a young thing who thought, "Who the hell has time to sit and read that?" Not knowing, of course, that that precise moment was the most time I would ever, ever have in my adult life. Hindsight rocks.

I decided to reconsider the Infinite Book on the advice of my friend Hollie. First of all, I try to do everything Hollie says. And second of all, she said it took her three months to finish it.

Three months. That's a nice amount of time. Perfect for a fugue state.

See, I'm hoping to get so involved in this book that I sink into a literary fugue state that Sibyl would be proud of. A fugue state like the ones I often experience at Target, when I walk in to get a tube of toothpaste and walk out three hours later with three new outfits, a battery charger, a few throw pillows and a lawn game set.

And when I come out this time, I'll once again have the gift of hindsight.

There are certain points in time--like, say, 9/11--when you're in the middle of the shit and you think, I wish I could just fast forward 6 months. To a point when this tragedy is more of a memory. When life has indeed gone on. Frankly, I could use a good fast-forward button about now.

I'd like to close the binding on this book in April and realize that this too has passed. Knees are healed. Messes cleaned up. Avocations found. People who are extremely pissed at me, well.....less so. Hell, maybe I'll have forgiven myself.

I'll think, I've made it through the book and so much more. Then I'll pick up the next book, hopefully something really trashy (preferably bad science fiction) and keep moving forward. It's not that I want to escape. I just want it to be later. And I am happy to have this monstrous, wordy, gargantuan wank of a book to keep me company while later happens.

So if you'll excuse me, I have 1,078 pages to finish. Should be interesting. I'll let you know how it ends.