what a thing

    Tonight is the annual Christmas party for work. We call it the "holiday" party, but a more likely group of well-scrubbed Christian faces you'd rarely find. Well, most of 'em, anyway (two exceptions jump out at me, but we're good at covering our tracks so we don't often actually scare the others). The party starts in an hour, 39 minutes. I should be washing 'black colds' (I have a fuck of a lot of laundry to do, and I think I was going to wear some of what's in need of laundering. Oh, well.), curling my hair (it is newly colored--"honeyed curry"), polishing my nails (my toes will be Glacier Bay Blues, which is a terrifically dark blue, and my fingers will be a super-pale iridescent pink called Petal, which isn't an OPI so I only wear it on rare occasions), changing the flash card in my camera (I just upgraded to a 1G card from a 256MB, so I'm totally stoked about filling it up with miscellaneous unflattering photos of my coworkers tonight!), or even just relaxing. Or hey, I could be decorating one of the trees or writing out Christmas cards.
     Instead, I blog. I but blog.
     Why are men so incomprehensibly dumb? I have an OKCupid account, exclusively because I'm a test-freak. (Humble acknowledgements to Trixie and Popeye.) I've completed some parts of the profile because...I'm a test freak. I love answering questions, goddamn it, and nothing more. So yesterday, I was playing with the profile, and I changed my answers to one of the questions. The first question, in fact--"My self-summary." Mine now reads, in part, "I am...[very], head-over-heels, stupidly in love." I added that yesterday, in part because I kept getting messages from this dude who was really starting to annoy me, so I wanted to make it even more patently clear to him that I AM NOT INTERESTED. (What part of "taken" do you find so ambiguous?! How about "I am looking for 'N/A'"?!) So what happened when I added that line?
     I got a message today, from a guy who is 50, telling me he thinks we're destined by God to be together, and he wanted me to IM him back right away.
     If he read my profile, and if he looked at the results of any of the tests I've taken (or even if he looked at the titles of any of the tests I've taken--"The Will You Die During Sex Test" indicated a 76% probability that I will, indeed, die during sex!)--he'd realize that I'm not destined by God for much but eternal damnation. Weird old dude.
     Guys are dumb.
     Presently-reading guys excepted, of course. ;)
     Moving on....
     On the drive home I was listening to my "All James" mix. A good thing, generally, 'cept when the last song I hear is a melancholy one. As was the case tonight. "Strangers" was the last hit, and now it's running through my brain like a...runaway...song? on wheels? [Gak.] Anyway, here it is. Hope this explains my mood:

Found a message in the sand
It read 'just do the best you can'
This world's not how I planned
You're on your own

No one can hear you
They're just talking all the time
There's the world and you're outside
Your home's hard to find
Your home's hard to find

Worn down by strangers
All you need's a friend
You've been worn down by strangers
This is not the end

Guess it's hard to settle down
When love's been spread all around the town
I'm no stranger to this room
My highs just serve to bring me down
I hope to change now
From a sorry state of mind.
I had hoped for heart to heart
My heart's hard to find
My heart's hard to find

Worn down by strangers
All you need's a friend
You've been worn down by strangers
This is not the end
(This is not the end)

Worn down by strangers
All you need's a friend
You've been worn down by strangers
All you need's a friend
By strangers
By strangers
By strangers

(This is not the end)
(This is not the end)
This is the end.
["Strangers", by James, from Millionaires]