02.20.2004 - 3:55 p.m.

The one thing I really dislike about the desktop in my office is not the fact that it is a PC. It can go ahead and be a PC, I don�t mind and I don�t care. I do wish, however, that I could arrange it so the monitor did not face the hallway. Thanks to the very small, very rectangular shape of my office, there is nowhere to put it but in a corner on the small end of the rectangle, where everyone who walks by can see that I have hotmail and a crossword puzzle up on the screen, while I can never see who is walking by. At least with the laptop I could swivel the chair against one side wall and work sideways. Really, it�s a distraction even when I�m being good�I just don�t function well when I don�t know what�s behind me. I think it�s a survival instinct left over from a childhood with three brothers and a cat who liked taking the occasional swipe at undefended hair.

And speaking of survival instincts, I seem to be trying to kill myself. Not on purpose, I swear, but I don�t know, one more close call and I�ll have to do�something. There was last night, when there was one final meal�s worth of leftover ham and mashed potatoes, which I ate in order to finish them up. The mashed potatoes were stiff, as leftover mashed potatoes are wont to be, but the ham seemed perfectly normal right up to the point when I realized it was going to make me sick. So that was several hours of last night. I�ve never been sick from leftovers before, but I am thinking perhaps the roommate and I need to institute some system of tupperware dating. I've decided that the experience was probably along the lines of a nice cardio workout for my immune system, and thus was good for me, but I do wonder if I will ever want to eat ham again.

Then there was this morning. I�d toasted and cream-cheesed a bagel, which I was finishing up as I drove out of the apartment complex. Unfortunately, I accidentally inhaled it, I�m not quite sure how, and then had to pull over where I wondered such things as how one would self-administer the Heimlich maneouver while buckled in a car, until finally coughing enough to return the bagel to its originally intended route. So several hours of this morning were spent re-lubricating my throat.

Clearly I should not be allowed within ten feet of the non-safety scissors. Or the fridge. Ever again.

-stonebridge

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