( Aparently, my best class at Hogwarts is Transifiguration. )
Those of you who know me well may understand why I find this particularly amusing and ironic.

Had trouble getting hold of the landlord guy, but finally did, and he sent out Groundskeeper Jim to fix my cooler. Yay! Sweet, blissful, cool air!

Which, of course, isn't as cool as I'd like, even still, but it's better than the no cooler I've had for the last day or so.

Went to class, had more bone stuff poured into my poor, overfed seahorse. Now I have words like "olecranal fossa" and "medial epicondyle of the humerus" floating around my head like stars in a cartoon concussion.

Tattoo girl asked if we could get together to study tonight, and I said sure. I need it... the test on all this crap is tomorrow. Plus, she needs it, 'cause she's been out sick from lecture a couple of times.

It's raining. It started when I was driving home, which, of course, dropped the IQ of everyone on the road by 50 points... including mine.

But the cooler works, and the cat is happy, and so are the weasels, so what more can I ask for?

Interview questions from foreverdirt.

If you could live on the moon, but the price was not coming back to Earth, would you? Why/why not? How about if you could go to the moon and return but the price was never becoming a nurse or practising medicine?

( Now, that's a tough question. )
2) Tell us some more about your ferrets. Go on, you know you want to!

( They're weasels. No, really. )

3) What's a childhood memory that still brings a smile to your face? If you could live in that memory forever, would you?

( I didn't have that kind of childhood. )

4) What's your favourite word? Why? How about your least favourite?

( Shazam! )

5) Why in Hell do I get spam for penis enlargement and my male friends get spam for breast enlargement? Seriously, what is with that?

( Seriously want to know? )

I ran errands today.

I got a hook & eye thingie to keep the cabinet in the bathroom closed, and therefore, keep weasels out of it.

I bought ferret crunchies, and some petromalt.

I bought a new lock for my front door... I now have a twelve dollar padlock, and a fifty cent hasp to hold my door closed when I'm not there. High security. Of course, as Tom points out, anyone who wanted to rob me wouldn't bother with the door... they'd just take a hammer to the glass in the window right next to the door, and climb through.

It's a nice padlock, though... it's made by the Master corporation, and it's supposedly weatherproof. My old one was getting very difficult to open and close, what with the year or so of grit and heat it's been exposed to, so we'll see how long this one lasts.

Came to a review session for Trig, at the U, then came to the library to read email and write this.

As I was walking into the Math building, I ran into OAT. She's let her hair grow out some, and was smiling and pleasant looking.

Walking down the steps, a woman with amazingly large and shapely breasts was walking up. She was wearing a white t-shirt, and written in black were the words, "Why does it always rain on me?"

My thought: God likes a good wet t-shirt.

I've noticed that lately, time just... gets away from me. I was woken up this morning at eight o'clock, and didn't get out of the house until almost nine-thirty... but I haven't a clue what I did with that hour and a half.

Sure, there was taking a shower, and getting dressed, and a few minutes talking to the Sneeze, but....

The Sneeze is losing serious fur, and it's accelerating. I'm fairly certain he's got some sort of adrenal tumor, but I can't afford to have anything done about it. My mother says that I shouldn't feel guilty; that I rescued him from being put down in the first place, and he's had four years of (mostly) good life that he wouldn't've had, if I hadn't.

I think of our thousands of unheralded battles to save the world from the unacknowledged evil of the Dread Purple Sock, and it makes me sad to realize that soon, the world may lose its champion of Truth and Justice.

I'm trying to make sure I spend time with him every day.

lapis_lazuli has pointed out that I don't write much about my ferrets. I guess that's true. I sort of feel that one of the most boring things in the world is listening to someone gush on at great length about how great their pets are, so I try not to be guilty of it.

That doesn't mean I don't love the weasels.

This is sort of the down side of loving short-lived creatures... before you're ready, they up and die.

Mr. Bojangles... dance.

Well, my car won't start. I'm not sure if that's because the battery is completely dead, or if it's that I'm still not making a good connection with the positive terminal.

I didn't actually get to Autozone yesterday. Instead, I went to the pet food store, and got ferret crunchies. It seemed like a bigger priority. Certainly, my ferrets care more about their tummies being full than about the car running.

I did take the cables off the battery end, clean the contacts with baking soda and water, and reattatch them. I'm going to see how much a trickle charger costs at Autozone on the way home. I'm also thinking I might try to find a copper washer to put between the eroded cable end and the terminal, see if that improves connectivity.

If the trickle charger for the battery is too expensive, I guess I'll let it sit and take the bus for a while, as I did today. Public transportation in Tucson sucks, but I don't have the money to go to a mechanic.

Oh, I won the lottery.

I get three bucks.

Go me.

Bizare dream in which Tiffany Taylor (Playboy's Miss November, 1998, Modern Ferret's cover model for issue #22) brought her ferrets over to have tea with mine.

Saddly, no nudity on the part of Ms. Taylor.

Plenty of naked ferrets.

No, it wasn't that kind of dream... just ferrets sitting down to high tea.

I went to school in Raleigh, North Carolina, for several years. Now, in case you had any doubts, let me assure you that North Carolina is, in fact, part of The South_TM.

One of the things that many folks in Raleigh dislike is Yankees. Now, you have to realize that most Southerners realize that the Civil war was over a long time ago, and they don't really want to be part of any country other than the USA. Your average Southerner is actually kind of sneakily, grudgingly proud of living in the same country as New York City.

So long as New York City stays up there in Damn Yankee Land.

The problem Southerners have is when Damn Yankees come to the South, and start telling them all about how what they're doing is wrong, dull, boring, and how they should change everything to be more like New York City.

One of my neighbors in Raleigh had a bumper-sticker I particularly enjoyed. It read, "Clean up the South... buy a Yankee a bus ticket home."

The message most Southerners would like to give most carpetbaggers (that would be people from New York City who have moved to the South) is this: If you don't like the way we live, don't complain about it... just go the hell home.

I'm not from The South_TM, but I'm familiar with the problem. You see, I am from Arizona, and claim Tucson as My Fair City. (Though I'll admit that I have lived in New York City, and even (gasp) enjoyed living there).

Tucson suffers from a breed of Yankees who mostly come from California. Our Yankees move to Tucson, forgetting that (HELLO!) they're living in a desert now! They bring their lawns, their mulberry trees, and all sorts of other water-guzzling things and practices with them.

They complain about how aweful Tucson is.

Clean up Tucson: Buy a Californian a bus ticket home.

---

In other news, I keep wanting to write about weasels. Not the kind I was just writing about, now I'm writing about actual mustalids. In this case, ferrets.

I know that I have occasionally written about the fact that I share my life and my crappy trailer with three ferrets... Ebisneezer Scrooge (The Sneeze), David Copperferret (Copper), and Oliver Twistyweasel (Oliver). (Not that there's a theme going on there or anything).

My ferrets have very distinct personalities. In the morning, when I get out of bed, I open the cage for morning playtime. I then walk into the bathroom, and brush my teeth. The first thing the Sneeze does when he gets out of the cage is come to check on me. He comes and stands on my feet, and sniffs at my ankles, to make sure I'm not some imposter.

Copper pretty much ignores me most of the time. I'm just that hairy guy who brings the treats and the food. He's got his own life to live, has Copper, and I'm a detail.

Oliver likes the shower. My current shower is sort of a bathtub... if you can define a depression of about five inches as a tub. Anyway, he scrambles right over the edge as soon as I step in, and waits for me to make with the water. As I shower, Oliver will scurry in and out, under the shower curtain.

This makes for water all over the bathroom floor, and a certain smell of wet weasel, but that's okay... he's having fun, and that's all that really counts.

Living with weasels is a good thing.

I knew the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull before I could read. My mother had an eight-track of someone reading the book, and I listened to it over and over.

Later, I discovered Mr. Bach's other books. While some of them have been a little strange for my taste (noticably One), I've read all of them, and enjoyed most of them a very great deal, indeed.

I live with ferrets. Ebisneezer Scrooge, David Copperferret, and Oliver Twistyweasel live near my bathroom, and occasionally deign to share their weasel games with me.

To my surprise, these two pleasures have now merged. A week or so ago, auophir pointed out two books to me on Amazon... Rescue Ferrets at Sea and Air Ferrets Aloft, both written by Mr. Bach and "his ten ferret advisors."

Written for children, the author plans aparently quite a series. (I'm betting that one of the following books will be Space Ferrets in Orbit, from a casual mention made in Rescue Ferrets at Sea).

I wanted the books, but so far, they're only available as hardbacks, and I just couldn't justify spending the money.

To my surprise, my girlfriend bought them for me, without telling me. They arrived today.

I sat down and read the first one, Rescue Ferrets at Sea.

It was excellent. It has the flavor of the books I loved when I was a boy... Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, Tom Corbett... full-on adventure with smart, brave protagonists (in this case, primarily a heroine, Bethany Ferret) who never pause for angst.

It was a quick read, and a marvelous one. I strongly recomend the book.

It rescued the day from being crappy. I went in to work today at the usual time, to find a bitch-o-gram from Den Herr Boss. I put out fires, did several things, and went to art class.

Art Teacher Chick had to leave town to attend a family funeral. She'd gotten a substitute. We weren't impressed with each other, and I ended up leaving class early. I doubt I'll go tomorrow.

So, when I came home and discovered the box of books, it was a Fine Thing_TM.

It's been a strange day.

I woke up fairly early, and lay in bed, thinking about life, the universe, and everything. Turned on the computer, talked to auophir, pureinhell and rinoaheartilly at various times throughout the morning.

Got a note from nekojin, who wanted to show off her new girlfriend. She asked if I wanted to meet them for lunch. Couldn't think of any reason why not.

Headed out a little bit early, as I thought I'd check and see if Mike and Katheryn wanted to get rid of their kids for a couple of hours. Kids were sick.

Wandered around for a while, finally met up with Prudence and Jae. Prudence was wearing an old Tshirt with 'I (skull and crossbones) L.A.', and a pair of cut-off jeans shorts with a hole in the crotch. She was wearing plaid boxers. Jae looked much more collected, though she was doing the colored bra under a white shirt thing that drives me crazy.

Oh, and did I mention that Jae's drop-dead gorgeous?

Anyway, after talking to them, I went over to a camera store. Prudence uses a Hassleblad, and says she wants a Mamiya. I looked at those, as well as Bonicas.

They had the widest variety of lenses available for the Bronica. Plus, it was the least expensive medium format camera they had, and there was a wide range of backs available for it.

On the other hand, it seems that, if I'm going to try the whole medium format thing, I should get good equipment to try it with.

The camera shop I went to rents Mamiya equipment by the week, for a reasonable price... but they want a $2,000 deposit for it. If I had $2000, I'd just buy the damn camera.

Well, maybe.

That same money would buy me a new computer; I've proven that I'll use a new computer, and I'm not sure that I'd use a medium format camera enough to justify the expense.

I'll have to use my Nikon a lot more before I jump into that pool, I think.

Anyway, at the camera shop, I realized that there are a lot of things I need to learn about photography, so I drove over to Barnes & Noble. (The Noble, by the bye, is singular, and there's no possessive s... it's Barnes & Noble, pure and simple).

On the shelf of "Photography Technique" was a series of books by Ansel Adams, as well as a couple on black & white photography and glamor photography.

I pulled them down, and flipped through them. I think I'll buy the Ansel Adams books when I have the money; they look like good resources, and as I said to Jana the other day, I think it would be kind of cool to be the Ansel Adams of the female nude.

The other two... One of them was alright, but this one pissed me off.

In the section on 'choosing a model' the author gives a bunch of tips on how to find that glossy magazine-model glamor-girl. Which, I guess, is what most people are looking for, when they read a book like that, but damn it... it's exactly what I'm not interested in!

I mean... Jana's beautiful, body and soul, and I hope I get the chance to photograph her. But I'd like to find a way to find what's beautiful in any woman, in any model, and photograph that, and show it.

Quixhotic, I guess.

Which is much too much about taking pictures.

I came back to the house, moved the Fortress of Ferretude into the front bedroom, where there are fewer crannies for ferrets to disapear into. The boys seem happy with it, and after running around like mad weasels for a couple of hours, are now crashed out in the cage again.

Yay, weasels!

I have a confession to make.

I watch the Hallmark channel, from time to time.

One of the lines of commercials in current run on the Hallmark Channel is for Uncle Ben's Breakfast Bowls, instant food for breakfast kind of thing. But they're all done in a very soap-opera style... very over the top. I particularly like the one with Dirk and Dick.

Anyway. Yesterday afternoon, I went to see Spiderman by myself, because I recognize that I might not see it, otherwise. Tom and I mostly see movies that Terry isn't going to want to see, and she'll want to see that.

It reminded me of Sarah. I was wearing a Batman T-shirt one day, when I met up with her. She teased me about blowing my secret identity by wearing the Bat without a mask, and I responded that I was actually throwing people off... that I was really Spiderman in disguise.

Later, we had another conversation about how 'it's me' is about the least useful thing you can say on the telephone to someone. Yeah? Me, who, exactly?

Anyway, I started saying, "It's your friendly, neighborhood Spiderman," instead, and she started calling me Spidey as a nick-name.

Anyway, the movie was awesome from a fan's point of view, though they played around with things like where the webbing comes from. And Kirstin Dunst as Mary Jane was awesome. I particularly liked the scene in the rain.

I picked up an elbow for the PVC pipe I'm building weasel runs from.

I came home, read some, and went to bed.

Boring day.

Last night, in between calls with auophir, the Humane Society called. They had a ferret, they said, and would I be interested in coming in to look at him?

Well, yeah....

So this morning, I got up, showered, dressed, walked down to the humane society. It's about a block from LSD.

I arrived in the few minutes before they opened, and waited outside with a small crowd. Parents with children, mostly.

Went in, met the ferret. He'd be dropped off with Pima Animal Control. It was an owner release... that is, the previous person he lived with dropped him off... but PAC doesn't keep the kind of records the humane society does, so they couldn't tell me what his name had been, previously, or what kind of food he likes.

He's an energetic little guy, absolutely not a biter (the Humane Society clerk is also a ferret owner, and we talked about the things he'd done to test the biting propensity... running his hand over the ferret's muzzle, and so forth), very friendly.

I explained my financial woes, and the guy knocked the adoption fee down to $20. While we were sitting in the lobby, doing the paperwork, numerous children engaged in closely-supervised interaction with him. No bites, no clawing, just healthy curiosity and sniffing.

So he came home with me. Joining Ebisneezer Scrooge (The Sneeze) and David Copperferret (Copper) is Oliver Twistyweasel (Oliver).

So now, we are four.

I woke up this morning, and as I do most mornings, rolled over and checked my email. I usually do this before I get out of bed; it's part of my wake-up routine.

auophir surprised me by being online, so we chatted a little before she went off to start her day. I goofed off for a little while longer, talked to pureinhell about how the March of Dimes thing went this morning, then got my act together, and took a shower, got dressed.

Did errands. Stopped at a couple of furniture stores. I'm seriously thinking that I want a real bed for a change. For many years now, I've slept on futons... since Joan and I got divorced, I guess... and I'm tired of it. It's time to be a grown up, to have a real bed, to have real furniture.

It might take me a while to accumulate, but I'm going to. The next time I move, I'm not going to cut everything back to what I can fit in one car load. I'm not doing that again; I hope I won't ever need to again.

But the bed seems important to me, right now. I don't know why this is so symbolic, so important. I'm just tired of living like a college student... even if I am one.

So, anyway, I looked at furniture. It's amazing how expensive it is. Maybe that's why I'm still sleeping on a futon on the floor.

I got some cardboard to close off holes for the ferrets, so I don't have to worry about them getting caught in the ventilation system, or finding their way outside, or whatever.

Also bought a new bag of ferret food, and some litter.

Went down to Toys Rus and looked for alphabet fridge magnets. They had them... amusingly enough, engraved with the braile letters... but they were six bucks, and there was only one of each letter. That makes it hard to write messages on the fridge.

Unless you want to write something about Lazy Brown Foxes.

So I didn't buy them. Or anything else in Toys Rus, though some of the stuff was enticing in a strange way.

Ran around for a little while longer, goofing off. Came home, put up cardboard barriers. Yay.

Ferrets at play! As good as St. John's Wart!

I was chatting with a friend the other day, as occasionally happens. He was bemoaning his love life. It seems he had been living with a woman for the last couple of years, had thought they would eventually marry, spend their lives together, gasp out their last, dying breaths with exclamations of their love for each other, how glad they were to have shared their lives with each other.

It didn't work out that way. She met someone else, broke up with him. Saddly, she hasn't bothered to move out of the house they share.

It reminded me of Trish.

Trish and I bumped into each other half a dozen times before we decided it would be a good idea to start dating. When we finally did, it was wonderful.

In retrospect, I can see warning signs that all was not as wonderful as it seemed. She had two cats; I had two ferrets. The ferrets thought the cats were wonderful toys; the cats thought the ferrets were the spawn of Satan, sent to earth for the express purpose of tormenting them.

She was constantly comparing me (unfavorably) to past boyfriends.

We moved in together after dating for about four months. We didn't plan it that way, but one of her roommates got a job far away, and moved, making her housing arrangement unstable.

I asked why she didn't move in with me, and she couldn't come up with any good reasons.

Things lasted another four months. In the end, though we were still sleeping in the same bed, we barely talked to each other. Eventually, she found someplace else to live, and that was a good thing.

I haven't been involved in a serious relationship since.

And that's okay.

Usually.

I watched TV last night. This shouldn't come as any big surprise to anyone; I watch TV most nights. The ferrets watched TV with me. This, too, should come as no surprise to anyone.

I had the TV on mostly because I wanted to watch Gilmore Girls. I like this show. I like these women. Except for the pesky fact that she's fictional, Lorelei Gilmore would be just about my idea of the perfect woman.

Details, details, pesky little details.

Anyway. After Gilmore Girls, an old sitcom about a husband and wife came on. You may have seen it occasionally; it's called I Love Lucy.

In the episode I watched, Ricky takes Lucy over his knee, and spanks her, to convence her that he's right about something.

You couldn't do that today, in a sitcom, or anywhere else. Aparently, nobody in the 50's noticed that I Love Lucy was demeaning to women.

On the other hand... my least favorite commercial came on in the middle of ILL.

The commercial is for a local tattoo parlor. Now, I've already mentioned that I have a certain weakness for tattooed women, right? Right.

In the comercial, guy is sitting in a recliner, watching "The Game." Beautiful woman comes in, stands between guy and TV, curls a lock of hair around her finger coyly, and says, "Hey love, how you doin'?"

Guy leans over, muttering, "Can't see tv...."

Second scene. Guy in recliner. Woman in short, silk robe. Guy says, "I'll give you twenty dollars if you'll just move three feet to the left!" Woman drops robe. Guy says, "Okay, I'll make it fifty." Woman stomps foot, stalks off.

Third scene. Guy in recliner. Woman comes in, flashes new tattoo at him. Guy sits bolt upright, turns off TV, you see door (presumably bedroom) slamming.

I hate this comercial. For numerous reasons. First of all, it perpetuates this idea that guys are insensitive clods who would rather watch sports than pay attention to their wives.

While I've fussed at a woman for waking me up to ask me what time it was (it was easier for her to wake me up than to find her glasses so she could see the clock), I've never treated a woman as if the television were more important to me than she was. Or the newspaper, for that matter.

Secondly, I hate it because it says that if you, A Woman, change yourself, I'll be more interested in you. Hello? You have to love people for who they are, not who they might be. If I'm interested in you, I'm interested in you regardless of any markings you might carry on your skin.

Thirdly, it's a crappy reason to get a tattoo. What happens when the interest wanes again... will she run out and get another tattoo?

Oh, yeah... it's worth mentioning that the tattooed woman from Downtown never called. Toldja. I look like Silent Bob. If I looked like Ben Afleck....

I was at work when Mr. Smith called. "So, wha'd're ya doin' t'night?" he asked. Listen, I know how those words are supposed to be spelled, all right, but Mr. Smith talks like that, and dialect is an important part of my interactions with Mr. Smith, so I'm gonna write 'em the way he says 'em, and if y'don'like it, you c'n lump it, see?

Anyway, like I was sayin', Mr. Smith asks me what I'm doing tonight.

Not really feeling like admitting that I was planning to spend the evening soaking in a hot bubble bath with some Dostoyevsky, I answered, "I dunno. Nuttin'. You?"

Long story short, Mr. Smith and I showed up at Downtown Saturday Night, cruising for babes. Small animals are babe magnets. I don't know why that is, but any guy who's taken a cute dog into a crowd will tell you the same thing.

So actually, when you get right down to it, it was Mr. Smith, Ebisneezer Scrooge, David Copperferret, and myself, who were cruising for babes. The middle pair are ferrets, male sables. The outter pair are humans, male anglos.

The show started out with a really aweful bunch of indian drummers and singers. The problem was, only half of the half dozen performers were actually indian... the other half were anglo indian groupies.

That was followed by a Japanese drum group, who were pretty good. As they were setting up, Mr. Smith pointed out to me a pair of women of great attractiveness... one of which I focused on at once. She had long, dark hair, glasses... and tattoos on both arms.

I can't help it. Glasses are a big thing for me. Tattoos are a big thing for me, as long as the tattoos in question don't involved motorcycle brand names.

The Japanese band announced that they were going to play a rain dance.

It started raining.

D'oh!

So I went over, and complimented the girl on her tattoos, introduced myself. I gave her my number, telling her that I didn't want to put her on the spot by asking her for her number.

She won't call, of course. I'm fully aware that, in our society, women don't call. In fact, I think it's one of the Rules. Women don't call.

But I keep hoping, and I keep giving out my number.

Anyway, there I was, standing in the rain, with five pounds of wet weasel on my chest. Woo. Hoo.

We waited in the rain for a while, and the main act set up. They're called flam chen, and they're a sort of dance troup... a dance troup that plays with fire.

As we were standing there, wet to the skin, rain pouring down while the performers whirled fire around themselves, Mr. Smith looked over at me with a smirk, and said, "Well, this is an experience we won't soon forget."