I'm sitting here at my desk, looking totally busy, with Fatboy Slim's "Kalifornia" humming in my ears. I'm pondering lunch—I'm supposed to meet someone for lunch today but I don't know if it's going to work out or not.

I'm a bit disgruntled—one of my new favorite sites (kuro5hin.org) got nailed by some dumb-ass 3l337 skript k!dd3z, and as a result they've taken the site down. Sigh. I really liked kuro5hin.org—it was like Slashdot, but without a lot of the crap, and it was a lot more focused on geek life and culture instead of just 'Open Source Rooolz!'

(Sorry. I like Linux. I even have a penguin cap. But I'm not as rabid about it as some people I know. I agree that it's a good OS, and that micro$quish has major flaws, but I do graphic design professionally. The Gimp, the image editor for linux, just isn't robust enough yet for my uses.)

Well, I think the two-year mark is when you can stop calling yourself a newlywed. It's about time, too. I hate the moniker "newlywed"—brings up nasty images of things like 'The Newlywed Game.'

That show makes me cringe. There's something about making cutesy fun of your significant other's private details that just makes me recoil in horror. I would be horrified to have some of my personal details (like the ones disclosed on TNG) blared out for everyone to see while they're having their afternoon scooby-snacks.But hey, that's me, and I'm an incredibly private person…who just happens to post her journal online. So what. I never ever claimed to be consistent.

I'm contemplating cutting my hair while I'm in D.C. later this year. Something drastic. My hair is nearly halfway down my back—it grows, bushy and weedlike—and it's that time of summer where I start thinking, 'What if I cut it?'

It was a productive weekend.

The parents are safely back home in Arkansas; my house is clean; the dishes are washed and put away; and life is ready, thankfully, to get back to normal.

Since my parents and I only see each other every six months now, it's commonplace to see changes every time we DO see each other. I think I was most shocked this time by how much older my father looks. He is fifty-six now, and he looks much older. I think a lot of it is that his hair is completely white. Not that off-white yellow that some people get, but a shocking pure snow white.I'd rather have that than grey hair, actually.

My mother no longer colors her hair, for which I'm grateful. I've never really understood why women color their hair to hide grey. I'd say that my mother's hair is now 25% grey; I wonder how many of those I put there?

Today's "Reassuring Friend When I Needed It" award goes to Brad for saying something really really simple to me last night that made me feel like, well, not quite the dork I usually feel like…

I really wish Taylor Gifts would get the hint and stop sending me crap. I've got to call them again tomorrow to voice my opinion and perhaps they'll leave me alone, dammit. Junk mail annoys me.

The cover item this time around has got to be one of the most obnoxious products brought to market in the past year or so. It's called "Big Mouth Billy Bass," and basically it's this fake mounted fish that you put on your wall. It SINGS and wiggles. It is the most utterly classless thing I've ever seen in my life. To me it screams "REDNECK!" I can't even find it funny. I have to wonder what marketing genius came up with this one. Here's hoping he got stock options, and that they tank in about four months and he goes back to doing whatever he was doing before (used car salesman?).

Tonight: sushi at the local sushi bar. Whee! Service was glacially slow (actually, glaciers were quick in comparison) but the four of us—Margaret, Katharine, Jeff, and myself—had a fine time playing with our chopsticks and telling bad jokes and making fun of previous employers. It was a good thing. I'm sure the people at the next table were wishing we'd shut up, though.

Good news. I've been working through a temp agency for several months now, trying to finish out my contract so that the company I was working AT could make a hiring offer for me. They did so today. Even though I knew it was coming, it was a bit of a relief to finally hear the words "We'd like to bring you on staff permanently."Granted, I know I'm good at what I do. It's just that sometimes, well, you doubt every now and then.