Lately I�ve been having a little trouble writing here, or at least have been dissatisfied with what I�ve been writing. I blame it on Chuck Klosterman. I�m currently reading Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and it�s annoying the hell out of me. And I really want to make sure I�m not inadvertently channeling him in any way. Ick. Why am I reading it then, you may ask? I didn�t actually by this book, after all. We had a proof copy lying around the house and I picked it up one night when I had run through the pile on my nightstand. But I�m pathologically incapable of leaving a book unfinished. So it�s just making me really, really grumpy. Here is someone who agrees with me about Klosterman.

As a result of said grumpiness, I spent a couple of hours this morning single-handedly chopping down a bunch of dead trees in the yard. Admittedly, they were very small trees, but I it still made me feel somewhat Amazonian. Unfortunately, now all my wimpy little arm muscles hurt like the dickens.

The annual insect and general pestilence invasion began in earnest this week, thanks to the cold weather. The following species have been spotted inside the house: box elder bugs, ladybugs, sowbugs, little hairy spiders, big hairy spiders, enormous hairy spiders, millipedes, centipedes, fieldmice and rabid badgers. The cats are having a field day.

One thing I am not accustomed to, having spent most of my life in the city, is the outdoor cat. My cats do not go outside, at least not on purpose. Since they are also city cats, I�m not sure whether they�d know what to do when faced with one of the resident raccoons, foxes or coyotes. But since we live near a barn, there are lots of outdoor cats in the area who�s main pleasure in life seems to be taunting my poor cats into a frenzy. There are at least 6 who regularly patrol the perimeter of the house, often curling up and feigning sleep directly in front of a window one of my two cats is trying to explode through. At times they�ll just stare at each other through the glass. There�s something very ominous about all of this, in a late night B-movie kind of way.

If I don't post again, you might want to send out a search party.

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