I have these enormous boots that I often wear clubbing or for concerts because they give me an extra three inches or so, and I happened to wear them out last night. I realized on my way from the train to the pre-club bar that I had forgotten to wear two pairs of socks (which I normally do with these boots because they’re too big for me), but didn’t think it would be that big a problem. As the night progressed my feet began to hurt more, but since I was also ingesting more alcohol I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to them until I woke up this morning to find all the skin rubbed completely off my heels, and the rest of each foot swollen and red. It will be fun getting to work tomorrow, I tell you what.

I’ve been really in the mood to watch The Silence of the Lambs again all day, thanks to that song I linked to earlier. It’s actually very catchy. I think you’d like it.

Here’s what we’ve seen since the last time I posted a list (note that this isn’t our queue, which contains 122 DVDs):

Shakespeare in Love, 1998
The Howling, 1980
Bowling for Columbine, 2002
Invader Zim: Vol. 2: Progressive Stupidity: Disc 1, 2004
Much Ado About Nothing, 1993
Ringu, 1998
Invader Zim: Vol. 2: Progressive Stupidity: Disc 2, 2004
Groundhog Day, 1993
Pokemon Heroes, 2003
Deliverance, 1972
Pokemon 4Ever, 2002

We’ve covered my Halloween thing before, but I’d like to point out that it’s September 15th and I’ve already spent a portion of more than one recent lunch hour combing the stores near my building for Halloween stuff. And believe me, there’s plenty. Did you know they’re making chocolate-flavored cat-shaped Peeps this year?

And while we’re on the topic: I was on the train about a week ago and a little goth girl got on at 14th St (awww). Predictably enough, one of the snotty high school kids already on the train commented that it’s a little early for Halloween, to which she replied: “Lucky for you, every day is Asshole-o-ween.” I loves me some little goth girls.

Bowling for Columbine showed up from Netflix today (two days after the expiration of the ban on assault weapons). I was prepared to dislike it slightly (as I dislike Moore slightly), but it was actually much better than I expected. And now Chris and I want to move to Canada.

You know how people who pride themselves on a certain kind of up-front geekiness tend to write things like “So-and-so == awesome” instead of “So-and-so is awesome”? Every time I see that, my inner logic TA wishes it were “‘So-and-so == awesome’ evaluates to TRUE” instead.

I am sorry I ignored you all weekend. Would you believe that I did not sit down at my desk even once yesterday, even though I was home all day waiting for a FreshDirect delivery that was three hours late? It’s true. I didn’t even read my mail.

Here’s the thing: when I am working full time, I am staring at a monitor full time, and when I come home from work all I want to do is look at something that isn’t a monitor. A lot of this has to do with my eyes, which are terrible. I try to do the dweeby eyestrain prevention crap your optometrist has probably told you about - stop looking at the screen for a minute or two every half hour, etc. But it doesn’t really help, even when I remember to do it (and normally I just work for three hours, take lunch, and then work for another four).

So I am sorry for ignoring all of your mail and news and links and weblog fodder and the rest of it. But not really that sorry.

Since I’ve now gotten email from three different people who think they saw me at PAX, I would like to point out that I wasn’t actually at PAX. But thanks for the email, I guess.

Here’s how I normally get to work: I take the 1 from the station a couple blocks from my apartment, then take the 2/3 to Wall Street. It generally takes about forty minutes from door to door.

Here’s how I got to work this morning: I walked to the 1 station a couple blocks from my apartment, where I discovered that there was no downtown service due to flooding. I walked east a couple avenues and south a couple streets to and took the C one stop downtown, where I transferred to the A (theoretically faster). However, the A turned out to be “experiencing delays,” and we sat between stations for an extraordinarily long time. I arrived at the 42nd St station at about 10am (which is when I normally arrive at work). My plan was to transfer again to the 2/3 at 42nd St, but as it turned out the place was filled to capacity with cops and stranded commuters, and was in the process of being evacuated because of flooding and “excessive heat.” (To be fair, it was really fucking hot down there.) So I went up to the street level, near the Port Authority exit, and walked over to the 42nd St and 7th Avenue entrance, thinking I might be able to get the 2/3 from there - but no, when I got downstairs again, nothing was running but the shuttle to Grand Central. So I took the shuttle to Grand Central, supposing I’d be able to take the 4/5 from there to Wall St. And indeed, after I waited for the shuttle, fought through the crowd at Grand Central, and made it to the 4/5 platform, a train did in fact show up - but it was taken out of service at Union Square.

At that point, I gave up and got a cab (already forty minutes late for work by the time I caught one), which promptly got stuck in traffic. I ended up bailing on the cab about 12 blocks north of my building and walking through the rain the rest of the way there. I arrived, soaking wet, an hour and fifteen minutes late. It took me two and a half hours to get there.

I actually didn’t lie in the hammock even once. Really! I was too busy on Saturday pawing over fabrics and furniture at the Picton Castle’s cargo sale, and I was too busy out sailing on the damn thing to contemplate any hammocking on Sunday. You may remember the Picton Castle as the tall ship on which the Moms spent six months sailing from Lunenberg to Tahiti a while back.

Our day sail coincided with the Gloucester Schooner Race, and while we didn’t participate in the race (not being a schooner) it was fun watching the whole thing from the water and still being the biggest ship out there (if you don’t count the Friendship, which as a rule we don’t). Sunday turned out to be perfect sailing weather, too - cool on land and cooler on the water with plenty of wind for the race. And as guests aboard, we got to sip lemonade or something stronger and watch while the crew did all the work. This is how most weekends should be spent, I think.

So I am back - a little sunburned and with my favorite corduroys all salty from the knee down, but I also have plenty of swag from the cargo sale and only four days I have to work this week, so things are pretty good.