If you're fast becoming hooked on blogs, like I am, you should go see annika's journal and poetry. There's a level of writing there which I could never hope to attain, on such a plane that I feel like I'm watching the events unfold in front of my very eyes. I went back and read her archives today, and her thoughts on the war and the Scott Peterson case were... I don't know. The correct word escapes me at the moment. But it's what I wish my blog were like. Unfortunately, I cop out and keeep rehashing old topics over and over again.

Did somebody say "rehashing old topics over and over again"? Yes, it's true, folks... believe the hype... it's time for Clifton's Whiny Self-Pity Comedy Hour! Or something. My sense of humor is on vacation tonight. It was a very, very rough day -- Tuesday, I mean; I know this'll go under Wednesday. I haven't worked a Tuesday in many weeks, and now I remember there was a valid reason why -- BECAUSE TUESDAYS FUCKING BLOW. The whole God-forsaken day was one big monsoon of shit. I mean, the day started with me at Wal-Mart -- not the nice Wal-Mart on Pima and Chaparral; no, the shithole at 38th Street and Thomas -- at 6:00 am. Why? Well, occasionally, we give the dogs Milk of Magnesia to kind of get their intestinal tract cleaned out. We blend it with buttermilk to hide the disgusting flavor and texture of it, so I bought 16 half-gallons of buttermilk on the way in to work. That wasn't bad, but seriously, any day that STARTS at Wal-Mart is about bound to suck. Then, had Agent hobbling around after he'd run a great race for me Monday night. Pulled shoulder muscle. Nothing too serious, but he'll be out a month or so.

Had to go back to Wal-Mart AFTER the kennel to buy a new fan since someone dropped the one at the kennel but MAGICALLY, NO ONE KNOWS HOW IT GOT BROKEN!!! THERE'S ONLY SIX OF US THERE, YET SOMEHOW I ASKED ALL SIX OF US HOW IT GOT BROKEN AND NO ONE KNOWS!!! This happens a lot, by the way. "Who put a soda in the freezer and had it explode, leaving a sticky mess all over the place?" "Not me." "Not me." "Not me." "Not me." "Not me." and I KNOW it wasn't ME. Who did it? I know! THE FUCKING GREEN FAIRY FROM MOULIN ROUGE! I don't know. I just wish that when someone F's up, they'd own up to it. If I can admit I should never have left school three years ago, by God they can admit they knocked the fan off the table. Okay, off that rant tangent...

Came home, ate, trying to get some sleep, when my sister calls at 1:00. She wants to know if she can borrow some salsa. All right, fine... unbelievably, I have an unopened jar of salsa in the fridge. Not her fault for waking me up -- I'm not usually in bed that early in the afternoon -- but getting up totally woke me back up again, so I ended up not getting back to sleep until after 2:00. So I hit the afternoon shift at 4:00 5 minutes late, under-rested at that.

Did I mention the shit rainstorm? That actually happened this afternoon. Apparently, I had my ratio of Milk of Magnesia to buttermilk off, skewing too high on Milk of Magnesia. Guess what? That made them have to shit faster. So we had Liqui-Turds everywhere this afternoon. *sigh* Spent an hour cleaning the kennels. No one suffered any ill effects, which was good, but everyone groaning and squirting turds around them was just enough to take the edge off of tonight's racers. And I'm always in a lousy mood when we have a bad night at the track, tired or not. Suffice it to say, a bad night plus being tired is a lethal combination to my sanity.

I think I held up pretty well, though. The night got progressively worse... I was trying to hand the hose to Helen Cowart and somehow I managed to squeeze the spray gun and drench her face. One of those nights. But here I am... getting ready to go to bed, for sure, but feeling better than I was when I started writing. My recovery time from a bad head episode has improved drastically.