Yeah, Baby. We're rockin'. We're rollin'. We're back in the Land of the Connected. Life is Good. Gooder. The Best. We're all doing the official Happy Dance. A one and a two and a three....

We have DSL again!!! No, Earthlink did not pull their heads out of their collective asses. We have a new ISP. I can't wait to call Earthlink and when they say that we don't have a DSL account with them, just a dial-up account, I will be able to say "And now I would like to have no freaking account with you buncha Nards." Ah....

Did you hear that? That big Whoop sound? That was me. Me me me me mememememememememememe. I know, it's silly. A person shouldn't be so happy about having access to the internet but dammit--I never said I wasn't addicted. In fact, I believe I said loud and clear that I was addicted and that I need my damn fix. Using Ed's laptop was like going to the methadone clinic when what I really needed was some full on Internet Heroine. The hard stuff. I was getting the shakes. The DTs. I was. But now I'm calm. I got my fix. I never have to leave the house again! (Until tomorrow when I have to go to Target to exchange Joey's shoes and go to the photography store to get more paper and some non-rapid fixer and go to Michael's to get some sponge brushes.)

Today I did the funnest-ever thing in photo lab. I painted liquid photo emulsion onto 140 lb. hot press watercolor paper and then printed a photo with it. Oh man--that looked so kewl! I'm going to do a boat load of them on Friday--this is my new very favorite thing. It looks really neat! Kind of old and crinkly and rough but still really interesting. This is something you most assuredly can't do digital. I tell you what--this totally rocks! I wish I could do it on a rock! I've got some copper-coated paper. I'm thinking of doing a picture on watercolor paper and then doing it in the same dimensions on some copper-covered paper and then cutting up the copper paper into strips and putting some of the strips over the top of the watercolor paper. Sort of like a collage, sort of. I wish I could describe it better. I'm done with my photos for our first critique so I can start already on the photos for my final critique. This will be lots of fun. Tons 'o fun.

I still haven't taken my urinal pictures. And I haven't taken my bubble pictures either. I need to not sleep so much in the mornings. Or rather, I need to not stay up so late so that sleeping in the mornings seems so appealing.

I'm watching West Wing and I'm wondering, why do they always have this dark, dramatic lighting? Every office I've ever been in has all-over bright fluorescent lights. None of this dramatic side-lighting crap. Are we really supposed to believe that they work in this shadowy, near-dark office environment? I'm sure it makes for good TV and nice skin tones but it sure doesn't look very realistic. (TV realistic--huh. What am I thinking?)

I have a serious hankering to do some shopping. For stuff. Nothing in particular, just stuff. The things I need to shop for--Valentine's cards, for example--I don't want to buy. The things I don't need--antiques and tchotchkes to redo my plant ledges with, I'm all over. And decoration kind of things. I wish we had a big ole flea market around here but ::sigh:: we don't so I have to just go with antique stores and thrift stores and the odd estate sale. There aren't a lot of those around here this time of year, though. Rain and cold weather seems to put the kaibosh on a lot of those kind of sale things. Oh well.

I need to do some preparing for bookgroup tomorrow. I'm leading the discussion on "Good in Bed" and I need to print out the stuff I found on the author and the book. Good book, by the way. Read it. Now. Go. Read it.

Later...

--L